Duin, Ann Hill, and Isabel Pedersen. Augmentation Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Technical Communication : Designing Ethical Futures. Routledge, 2023, https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/gpjosq/alma99955472449205899.

Description: This book enables readers to interrogate the technical, rhetorical, theoretical, and socio-ethical challenges and opportunities involved in the development and adoption of augmentation technologies and artificial intelligence.

Lucas, Kristen, Jacob D Rawlins, and Jenna Haugen. Business Communication. SAALCK, 2023. https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/gpjosq/alma991156078599505816.

Description: Business Communication: Five Core Competencies is a practical, engaging book designed to help undergraduate students and business professionals develop competence and build confidence in their business writing skills. Readers will learn about the five core competencies of business communication: professional, clear, concise, evidence-driven, and persuasive. They also will learn strategies for applying each of these competencies across a range of real-world business scenarios. Each chapter includes Communication Tips, Your Turn Exercises, and how-to advice for writing a variety of business messages.

Relevance to BTW250: Typical business writing textbook providing a general overview of how to write effectively as a business professional, including chapters on professional communication, business writing conventions, persuasion, and evidence-based research.

Lawrence, Dan. Digital Writing : A Guide to Writing for Social Media and the Web. Broadview Press, 2022, https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/gpjosq/alma99955293302405899.

Description: This concise guidebook offers a rhetorical framework for writing and analyzing content for social media and the web. Special emphases are also placed on preparing for writing, marketing, and communications careers in the digital space, and on ethical issues related to digital and social media.

Andrews, Deborah C, and Jason Chew Kit Tham. Designing Technical and Professional Communication: Strategies for the Global Community, Routledge, 2021, https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/gpjosq/alma99955486209605899.

Description: This concise and flexible core textbook integrates a design thinking approach, rhetorical strategies, and a global perspective to help students succeed as technical and professional communicators in today’s multimodal, mobile, and global community.

Relevance to BTW 250 & 261: The book is a great introduction to design thinking/human centered design/UX design and can be used in BTW 250 and 261. Specifically useful for thinking through large projects, team projects, research strategies, and ethical decision-making.

Tham, Jason (editor). Keywords in Design Thinking: A Lexical Primer for Technical Communication & Design, University Press of Colorado, 2024, https://wac.colostate.edu/books/tpc/design/.

Description: Explores keywords and associated practices related to the use of this critical concept in technical and professional communication. The chapters in this edited collection offer definitions stable enough to allow readers to determine the value of design thinking and to apply and examine its usefulness in the design of technical and professional discourse

Relevance to BTW 250 & 261– Offers short chapters that introduce students to user-design/human centered design concepts with application. Standouts are the chapters on equity, inclusion, and social justice and how these concepts relate to composing business and technical documents.

Tijerina, Tiffani et. al. Open Technical Communication, 2016, https://alg.manifoldapp.org/projects/open-technical-communication.

Description: Open Technical Communication is a freely available, open sourced technical communication textbook developed under a Round 3 Textbook Transformation Grant and updated through several follow-up grants in later rounds of grants offered by Affordable Learning Georgia. It is a remix of the open-sourced Online Technical Writing textbook by David McMurrey, and it has been known under its original title, Sexy Technical Communication as well as its current title: Open Technical Communication.

Relevance to BTW 250: Useful “textbook” introducing students to technical and professional communication. The chapters are short and explain concepts clearly. They can be used as short readings to introduce BTW 240 assignments. Open Technical Communication provides a general overview of technical communication, with chapters on ethics in technical communication, business genres, user guide, document design, usability testing, and more.

Bailey, Edward P. Plain English at Work: A Guide to Business Writing & Speaking, Oxford University Press, 2023, https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/gpjosq/alma991154169990305816.

Description: an introduction and description of plain English and how can it be used effectively in business and professional writing to make communication clearer to generalized audience.

Relevance to BTW250 A good guide to explain plain English business writing and how to use it at the sentence level and beyond, including in document design and presentations.  Might be more useful in a BTW261: Technical Communication.

Last, Suzan. Technical Writing Essentials: Introduction to Professional Communication in the Technical Fields (OER), https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/technicalwriting/.

Description: This open textbook is designed to introduce readers to the basics of technical communication: audience and task analysis in workplace contexts, clear and concise communications style, effective document design, teamwork and collaboration, and fundamental research skills.

Relevance to BTW250: Includes short chapters that introduce students to concepts, business writing basics, writing popular business genres, instructions, and reader-centered writing. 

Maynard-Smith, Julian. Ultimate Guide to Business Writing : All the Secrets of Creating and Managing Business Documents. Routledge, 2021, https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/gpjosq/alma99955071010905899.

Description: Written clearly and in an engaging voice, the book explains in depth the whole process of writing impactful documents in business, from considering what outcomes you want, to establishing readers’ needs, to conducting research, and to creating the document.

Relevance to BTW 250: Great resource for students to think through audience and desired outcomes, document design, style/tone and how to write and communicate in general in business and professional context. Using this book as an introduction to what makes business writing different from other types of writing and its conventions would benefit BTW250 students.

Goins, et. al. Workplace Writing. New Prairie Press, 2016 (Updated 2024). https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/gpjosq/alma991156645671805816.

Description: This handbook is designed for a generalized business writing course that seeks to meet the needs of a variety of student majors and career interests. In it you will find: descriptions and discussions of common genres, both routine and formal, print and electronic, and in-class activities and sample assignments. You will also find commentary on how to adapt the writing process to the rhetorical constraints of a workplace as well as how to think about, conduct, and use research outside an academic setting. Throughout you will note a persistent emphasis on audience awareness and direct style.

Relevance to BTW 250: Excellent resource for BTW 250. The book covers business concepts, research, collaboration, audience analysis, writing in business genres, document design, etc. It also has lesson plans useful to teaching many of BTW 250s low-stakes assignments.

Long, Lisa et. al. Write What Matters: Your Guide to College Writing, Idaho Pressbooks, 2024, https://idaho.pressbooks.pub/write/.

Description: Included are examples, exercises, and definitions for many of the reading and writing-related situations that you will encounter in your first-year writing courses as well as other subject-specific classes that require writing.

Relevance to BTW250: Although primary audience is first-year writing, this open source e-textbook addresses many of the concepts, situations, genres, and skills taught in BTW250, including chapters on: reader-centered writing, rhetorical situation, writing and AI, document design, style and tone.

Coven, Martha B. Writing on the Job: Best Practices for Communicating in the Digital Age, Princeton University Press, 2022, https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/gpjosq/alma99955505557505899.

Description: From messaging platforms and social media to traditional forms of communication like memos and reports, we rely on words more than ever. Given how much reading we do on mobile devices, being able to write succinctly is critical to success. Writing on the Job is an incisive guide to clear and effective writing for professionals. Martha Coven begins with the basics, explaining how to develop a professional style, get started on a piece of writing, create a first draft, and edit it into a strong final product. She then offers practical advice on more than a dozen forms of writing, from emails and slide decks to proposals and cover letters. 

Relevance to BTW 250 & 261: Short chapters on how to write in business contexts regarding persuasion, style, and tone. Second half of the book include chapters on specific business genres, standouts are: memos, data visualization, slide deck, and writing for social media.

Moses, Joe and Jason Tham. Writing to Learn in Teams: A Collaborative Writing Playbook for Students Across the Curriculum, 2023, https://parlorpress.com/products/writing-to-learn-in-teams?srsltid=AfmBOop5-FwETz8CldbMdQw7isdrw7sDY7h07W8u_w_4XMH6Wwy01kBF.