Read It or Skip It? The Textbook's Preface

摘要

An informal survey of 18 modern technical writing textbook prefaces finds 75 to 100 percent of them tell readers the books meet students' needs, contain special topics, have unique philosophies, emphasize the practical, contain sample documents, teach specific types of writing, and contain sections on computers and/or document design. Also, 50 to 75 percent of the prefaces state the books address ethical/legal issues, oral presentations, resumes/ job applications, corporate culture, and punctuation and/or grammar. Such repetitious content in textbook prefaces reduces their usefulness during the textbook selection process.