For the Introduction to Technical Communication level course. People use their computers to help them think, research, compose, design, and edit. Technical Communication Today speaks to today's modern student and how they expect to learn information. Instructional narrative is chunked, so that readable portions of text are combined with graphics. Not only does this presentation facilitate learning, but it also models the way today's technical documents should be designed.

Additionally, the chunked presentation integrates an awareness of how documents are read often raided by readers seeking the information they need. By mirroring these processes in its content and structure, this textbookoffers a higher level of accessibility for readers.

Technical Communication Today remains the only text to fully centralize the computer in the technical workplace, presenting how writers use computers throughout their communication process. Writers use their computers to help them think, research, compose, design, and edit. Not only is Technical Communication Today firmly rooted in core rhetorical principles, but the text also presents computers as thinking tools that powerfully influence how we develop, produce, design, and deliver technical documents and presentations.

Each chapter places an emphasis on the activity of producing effective documents by following a process approach that mirrors how professionals communicate in the technical workplace and how students learn in the classroom.

The text incorporates the newest technology-driven changes in workplace communication with in-depth discussions of email, instant messaging, working in virtual teams, making Web sites, blogging, podcasting, incorporating digital audio and visuals in documents, using PDAs, and negotiating ethical situations in electronic communication among many other available strategies and tools.

Clear instruction not only describes technical documents, but also guides the reader through the activity of producing them. Technical Communication Today helps communicators draft and design documents, prepares material for print and Web publication, and makes oral presentations; by bringing computers to the foreground as thinking tools, it accurately reflects the modern day computer-centered technical workplace.