Teaching Business and Technical Writing

For thirty years I have been involved in teaching and, well, writing, business and technical documents:  correspondence, reports, presentations; letter writing strategies (scenario-based business writing); the basics of technical writing:  definition, description, process and instructions; formats for email, memos, letters, reports, résumés, presentations; communication strategies in business with employees, leaders and customers.  I am always interested to find new opportunities to apply this experience, so contact me if your would like to talk about something.

Writing for Education:  Examples

• Classroom materials, such as Business Message Model or Building Blocks of Technical Writing; My Place in Time, and Yours or Eight Cities Icebreaker in addition to materials on my facilitation page.
• doTech Project -- a volunteer initiative to increase enrolments in high school technology courses in Ottawa
• Program Quality Review Reports for programs undergoing cyclic review at Algonquin College

• Online Learning Needs Assessment for Health Canada, Compliance, Monitoring and Liaison Division (CMLD)
• Canadian Overseas Mentorship Experience for ACCC and Algonquin College -- Design of Online Courses for Mentors and protégés.
• E-Learning Strategy for Department of National Defence (HR-Civilian) Director General Learning and Professional Development (DGLPD)
• New Manager Orientation Checklist for Algonquin College, Centre for Organizational Learning and associated SharePoint Site with just-in-time resources for managers: http://www.algonquincollege.com/col/newManagerOrientation.html?sectionID=1
• Business Writing and Presentation for the Information Technology Professional Program (funded by SSHRC)
• Leded Hi-Test: 26 Interviews with Adult Learners  Oral history project around returning to school for trades retraining.

Writing Process

Document Development Cycle

Mind Mapping

I got started with mind mapping after reading Tony Buzan's Use Your Head, and have not looked back.  As a writing teacher, I found Gabriele Rico's Writing the Natural Way very useful.   Now there are online tools, such as Inspiration, which was used to create the mind maps on this website, and Mindmeister, a collaborative online mind map tool with built-in mobile support and chat, which I now use when I'm planning and writing with collaborators as in this example:

Writing Sentences

Updated October 17, 2010

  Page maintained by Rudi Aksim