December 2003/January 2004

Volume 44, Number 3

Environmentally friendly technical writing: A student perspective

by Teresa Mikelson

I spent the summer in Washington, D.C., interning for the Environmental Literacy Council. The Council is a bipartisan, non-profit organization interested in providing information for environmental science students and teachers. The internship was especially useful to me, as I got to combine the communication skills I am learning in graduate school with my undergraduate biology degree.

I spent the majority of my time writing summary articles for the ELC's Web site www.enviroliteracy.org. The stories covered a variety of topics including biomes, sustainable agriculture, forestry, and energy issues. For each article, we created numerous links to reputable sites that gave more information on the topic. Aside from researching and writing, I occasionally answered "Ask an Expert" questions from students, especially if they were about topics in biology.

The internship was a valid and interesting version of technical communication. While much technical communication is specifically for profit, I enjoyed writing for the purpose of educating others. My primary goal was to distill complex environmental science and technology into easy-to-read summary articles that students could understand.

Teresa Mikelson is a graduate student at CSU in the department of Journalism and Technical Communication. She is originally from Wilder, Idaho. She can be reached at: tmikelso@lamar.colostate.edu.