Technical Communication: A Reader-Centered Approach (6th ed.).

Anderson, P. V. (2007). Technical Communication: A Reader-Centered Approach (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Paul V. Anderson’s 2007 installment of Technical Communication: A Reader-Centered Approach is the sixth edition of his textbook. It is split into eight parts and an appendix that guide readers on the process of writing for work-related purposes (5). Chapters not only instruct on writing practices and products but also discuss important workplace topics like ethics and appealing to international and multicultural audiences. Each chapter concludes with exercises, as well as directions to online exercises, that build upon the material in the main text. The primary theme for the textbook is that a writer must “think constantly about [their] readers” (10).

Writing Process

Anderson arranges the textbook so that its parts and chapters represent different steps, in order, of the writing process. The parts include:

  1. Defining Your Communication’s Objectives (63)
  2. Planning (97)
  3. Drafting Prose Elements (197)
  4. Drafting Visual Elements (323)
  5. Revising (399).

Rhetoric and persuasion

Like later editions of this textbook, Anderson’s sixth edition does not include the term “rhetoric” within its text (although it is used on the book’s back cover). However, Chapter Five, titled “Planning Your Persuasive Strategies”, does mention Aristotle, a seminal rhetorician, as the “source of [that] chapter’s advice” (121). The terms ethos, logos, and pathos are also defined and clarified in this chapter (121). The textbook stresses logos through sections titled “Reason Soundly” (127), “Present Sufficient and Reliable Evidence” (131), and “Choose Carefully between Direct and Indirect Organizational Patterns” (132), but using emotional strategies (137) and asserting credibility (135) are also recommended.

As previously stated, the idea of audience is the key to the textbook. Anderson perpetually reminds writers to consider their readers as while planning, writing, designing, and revising their texts.

Style and tone

The textbook’s chapter on “Developing an Effective Style” most explicitly addresses the issues of style and tone for its readers. The chapter is divided into three sections: “Guidelines for Creating Your Voice”, “Guidelines for Constructing Sentences”, and “Guidelines for Selecting Words” (257). While a reader can rightly guess that Anderson will advise writers to consider audiences, they should note that he recommends that authors write in ways that make them feel comfortable. He also covers the style behind business and professional writing (avoiding “to-be” verbs [265], placing modifiers next to nouns [264]), and offers lists and diagrams that can help writers with their diction.

This chapter is not the only one that addresses style and tone, as the chapters on particular document genres also discuss these items. For example, the section on correspondence begins by advising that readers take a “you-attitude” to the language in those documents; through this you-attitude writers are supposed to emphasize the recipients of their letters, memos, and emails as the subjects of their sentences.

Document design

Chapter 13, situated within Part V on Visual Elements, provides instruction on document design. In it Anderson advises that readers consider making grids for their documents (375) while also paying attention to how they group items in the document to establish focus. Contrast and repetition are mentioned as beneficial for designing a document for attractiveness and usability.

More specific information on the designs of particular technical documents can be found in the “Superstructures” part of the textbook (523).

Document genres and types of writing

Part VIII of the textbook contains a four chapters and a Writer’s Reference Guide on various document genres. These genres are referred to as “superstructures” (523). The superstructures that Anderson explains are:

  • Letters
  • Memos
  • E-mails
  • Reports
  • Proposals

There is no uniform approach Anderson takes to covering the different genres. The formats for each genre are generally discussed in Writer’s Tutorials, which have diagrams of example documents and short outlines (the superstructures) that list the different parts necessary to each document. There is a lot of material on reports, like a page on reports that offers a short outline (541), eight additional pages of sample outlines and reports for readers to look at, and a sixty-page Writer’s Reference Guide that goes into detail about the ways to write three specific kinds of reports: Empirical reports, feasibility reports, and progress reports (557).

Visuals and oral communication

Anderson places the textbook’s chapters on visual elements after its chapters on textual elements. He also states that, when writing technically, one is supposed to be “replacing, supplementing, or reinforcing [their] words with visual presentations” (327). Such chapter ordering and quotes seem to imply that visuals are not quite as essential to technical documents as text.

There are Writer’s Tutorials on designing slideshows (464), employing graphics, creating graphs (thankfully using Microsoft Excel and not Word [344]), and designing grids for formatting documents. There is also a handy Writer’s Reference Guide on “creating”:

  • Tables
  • Graphs
  • Images
  • Charts.

Not every guide offers much information on “creating” these visuals, however; the guides are more useful for writers who need assistance with formatting tables, and not necessarily making visuals from scratch.

Oral communication is covered in detail in Part VII, “Applications of the Reader-Centered Approach” (437). Its chapter on teamwork covers strategies for listening well, promoting discussion and debate, and using social technologies for communication (451); it also includes a segment that discusses potential ways to handle cultural and gender issues while working in a team (454). A chapter on oral presentations discusses preferred speaking styles, keeping organization for a spoken presentation simple, coping with questions and interruptions, and dealing with presentation anxiety.

Research and writing technologies

Chapter 6, “Conducting Reader-Centered Research” (151), extensively covers research. In it are sections on planning research, information literacy, and ways to consider the legal ramifications of citing certain sources.

The book lacks a chapter straightforwardly dedicated to writing with technology. However, many of the tutorials and guides scattered throughout the book mention how certain programs can help writers create visuals and format texts, and there is a chapter on creating web pages (437).

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