Superimposing R.E.A.L. principles on the project writing pyramid: A paradigm shift in teaching professional writing
Abstract
Institutions of Higher Education introduced professional writing classes as a way of preparing students for on-the-job-writing. To better accomplish the goal as well as to get a more consistent output from these classes that require the writing of a project proposal or report, writing teachers may want to incorporate R.E.A.L. principles onto the Find-Test-Deliver pedagogical triangle that mark the three phases of their project writing courses. When any of the R.E.A.L principles, where R stands for Reader oriented, E for Extensively researched, A for Actionable solution and L for Looped composition are ignored or improperly transposed on the project writing pyramid, the writing output suffers and is neither workplace oriented nor academically satisfying. The article offers insights into the rationale behind the principles and suggestions on how teachers could incorporate them into their teaching. The article grows out of the author's experiences and insights from being Marketing Director and Technical communicator at corporate houses as well as a teacher of business and technical writing at DeVry University, University of Maryland University College, University of Minnesota, Cogswell Polytechnical College, and Rutgers University.References
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