Writing in English for the Workplace presents a compendium of text-types
related to the four major areas of mass communications, research, business
and technology. For example, the text types included under Mass
communiations are:
- - Newspaper writing
- - Speech writing
- - Feature story writing
- - Magazine writing
- - Interviewing
- - Radio and TV writing
- - Publicity writing
- - Opinion writing
The unit on Newspaper writing is subdivided into Headlines, Leads and
Basic news story. Each of these sub-sections is composed of a tutorial and
a set of exercises. Pull-down menus offer access to the other text-types as
well as to a range of interconnected style topics which include:
- - Grammar
- - Rhetorical figures
- - Paragraph structure
- - Vocabulary building
- - Punctuation
- - Bibliography
- - Note-taking
- - Editing
Each of these sections can be accessed in two ways:
- - through an analytical index of individual topic entries
- - through a thematic index, suitable for unit work, containing ranges of interrelated
topics.
The topics consist of tutorials, exercises, links to related entries, and diagnostic
tests. A tracking system stores and evaluates student input, and a note-taking
feature, consultable from any point, sorts notes according to topic. Users can
print out tutorials, evaluations and notes. A culminating feature of each unit
is role-play, which enables users to interact by means of text, audio and film
materials in virtual reality situations typical of the profession to which the
text-type refers. In the unit on news reporting this takes the form of "Cub
Reporter Assignments," in which the user assumes the identity of a novice
reporter of a small-town newspaper and must gather information, often through
interviews, and write finished stories. The work maintains a high level of interactivity
while allowing the user a maximum of navigational freedom. The various sections
can be used either separately or as a unified whole. For instance, any of the
style modules, such as the one on grammar or vocabulary, can be used independently
of each other or of those on text types, or else as aids to the study of a particular
text type.
