The writing tips below are mostly reasonable. I’m contesting the advice that turning means the same thing as turning around. I loved helping students with application essays come to understand that they didn’t need “I think.” The whole essay was supposed to show their thinking. Unfortunately the color contrast here is awful—yellow text on a red background! EEK! Further, the alt text is computer generated (so full of fluff).

This is a cool idea. Would be fun in faculty writing retreats as well. If you could be sure writers consistently and accurately changed the markers, it would be an interesting way to study writing workflows.

I’m busy making fancy resources for my Technical Writing course this term—but I haven’t gotten them posted and we’re already on Week 2! So here’s a list of Do’s and Don’ts for Workplace Writing. Or more accurately perhaps, a list of things students do that drive me bonkers. The image is below for showing off and decorative purposes. Go to the HTML version of the Do’s and Don’ts for working links and readable text.

I’ve created an infographic to accompany the course objectives idea in my previous post. The goal is to help students understand the differences between academic writing and the writing they will do in the workplace. The working copy is coded in HTML/CSS and is clean in terms of its accessibility score. I’ve added a preview image below.

If you’ve taught technical writing, you know that students are endlessly confused by the differences between academic writing expectations and technical writing expectations. It’s not especially surprising. Teachers pound margins and labeling and long paragraphs and essay standards into their brains for years, and then all of a sudden, none of that is the priority. They are supposed to write in completely new (and uncomfortable, as a result) ways.

It’s that point in class planning where I have great, big, giant goals—but I’m not at all sure that I can design a course to meet them. Zoomed out, the big targets are better discussion posts/student interaction, solutions for group writing that don’t torpedo my teaching evaluations, and assessment and feedback tweaks. None is particularly easy, but I’m giving it a try.

Revising Syllabus Policies for Social Justice bit.ly/4jNc6sl Traci Gardner <tengrrl@vt.edu> ATTW, Saturday, June 14, 2025 Hi. I’m Traci Gardner and the title of my presentation today is “Revising Syll...

After all, why not throw out the Third Amendment next?

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When Musk took over Twitter, he launched a payroll audit to root out dead workers getting paid. Now, Musk is launching the same campaign across the federal government.

Call for PapersSouthern Regional Composition Virtual Conference 28 March 2025 Theme: Leaving a Legacy in Composition We invite proposals for the fully virtual 2025 Southern Regional Conference o...

A nice quality-of-life improvement for Google Maps on Android and iOS are new stair “callouts” when getting walking directions.

Originally posted on Bedford Bits Website I confess that I’m a fan of professional wrestling. I watch Raw and SmackDown. I have WWE Magazines on my desk. There’s a WWE Calendar on the w…

I was just thinking about the “Run the dishwasher twice” advice this early morning. I take it to also mean “It’s okay to run the dishwasher twice” when you just don&rs…

This lively and engaging text introduces readers to the core interpersonal and organizational skills needed to effectively collaborate on group projects in the

The dreaded hour has come: Folks in my Tech Writing course have reported group members who they cannot contact or who are not responding and other group members who are not contributing to the proj…

For the third week of Technical Writing, our template focuses on ethical considerations, asking students to respond to two online discussions. One of the discussions asks students to find the code …