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My Ph.D. thesis (in progress) is a history of technical writing and
illustration pedagogy from antiquity to modern times. I've done a fair
amount of library research in past months, but have found few
references to articles/texts exploring the characteristics of tech
writing instruction in countries other than the U.S.--both current
educational practices and historical. There's a substantial amount
written about the evolution of technical writing proper through the
years, but, again, the corpus of writings specifically treating
technical communication TEACHING appears to be limited. I've found some
rather old articles examining tech writing pedagogy in Britain,
Australia, and the U.S.S.R., but nothing that one could really hang
one's hat on--the information is very sketchy. This is fine--original
research is what a Ph.D. thesis is all about, of course--but I want to
make sure I'm exhausting all secondary sources before I start
synthesizing primary ones.
Therefore: if you happen to be acquainted with research centering on
such topics, could you kindly send a pointer my way? I'd be very much
appreciative.
Many thanks--
Ken Zuroski
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Ken Zuroski
Department of English
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA