Using Acrobat in Writing Classes

Using Acrobat in Writing Classes: Home

USING ADOBE ACROBAT IN WRITING CLASSES

Dr. Martha C. Sammons

Professor of English

Wright State University

Dayton, OH 45435

Adobe Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) documents from the Web can be used as an effective teaching tool in the computer writing classroom. A wide variety of types of documents from numerous organizations are available. They can provide resource material and examples to illustrate good and bad writing, document design, and types of documents. For example, the following table shows only a few of the types of resources available for use in writing classes:

Writing Class	Types of PDF Files Available on the Web
Technical Writing	Manuals, quick references, career information
Business Writing	Policies, procedures, handbooks, reports
Composition	Writing Center handouts, citation guides, samples of various types of papers (description, process, etc.)
Journalism	Articles
Desktop Publishing	Newsletters, Brochures
Literature	Journal articles, e-books, sample research papers
Computer writing courses	Software tutorials

Best of all, these documents are free to obtain and to distribute. Student computers only need Acrobat Reader.

Faculty and students can also create their own materials and even download Web sites using the suite of programs that comes when you purchase Acrobat.

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