Technical Document Design & Editing
Layout and design principles for written documents; legibility, readability testing; conventions of proposals, instructions, and reports; basics of technical editing: usage, vocabulary, style manuals, editing mathematical equations, graphs, tables.
Designing Web Communication
Layout, design, and composition of web-based communication. Students will learn to analyze audiences and their uses of information in order to plan, compose, and critically evaluate web-based communication. Students will acquire skill with HTML coding, screen design, and multimedia authoring and will apply those skills to the composition of a variety of web texts (i.e. websites). Course work will require students to become proficient with commercially available HTML and photo editors.
Communication for Engineering & Technology
Written communication in industrial and technical organizations, emphasizing internal communication with managers and technical personnel and including external communication with regulators, vendors, and clients. Intensive practice in writing; relationship of writing to oral and visual communication. For students in engineering and other primarily technological curricula.
Computer Documentation Design
Theory and design of documentation for computer hardware and software, including user guides, reference manuals, quick reference guides, tutorials, online documentation, and CD-based media delivery. Training in alternative documentation testing procedures, usability testing, and collaborative revision.
Documentation in a Networked Age
Theory and research about the role of documentation in a time of social networking. Focus is on the re-invention of traditional, genred forms of technical documentation in network settings to respond to three rhetorical problems: the increase of “wicked” vs “tame” problems, the decentralization of the technical communicator’s expertise as a content provider, and the scarcity of attention and engagement. Syllabus