English 3764: Technical Writing will enable you to gain an understanding of the theories, issues, and practices of technical communications you might encounter in the workplace, such as general correspondence, proposals, reports, and presentations.

From a foundation based on the principles of rhetoric, you will learn to analyze writing situations, consider the needs of your audience, assemble researched and original evidence, and design final documents that are user friendly and visually persuasive. By the time this course is over, you should be able to understand these documents and produce them with ease and confidence.

Course Objectives

Having successfully completed this course, students will be able to perform the technical writing tasks defined by the course learning objectives (CLO):

• Analyze the rhetorical situation and determine the appropriate audience or users of written communication, considering the needs of global audiences and people with disabilities. [CLO 1]
• Conduct research appropriate to workplace problem solving, such as literature review, evaluation of online resources, interview, and site inspection. [CLO 2]
• Interpret research findings with understanding of ethical and human implications. [CLO 3]
• Use conventions of various workplace genres, such as proposals, instructions, correspondence, reports, and slide decks, with understanding of how the genre conventions can be used as heuristics and as principles of arrangement. [CLO 4]
• Collaborate with classmates in planning, researching, writing, revising, and presenting information. [CLO 5]
• Apply principles of effective visual design for print and electronic presentation, including hierarchical, chronological, and spatial arrangements. [CLO 6]
• Identify and apply the principles of effective style in the composing of usable, reader-centered written communications. [CLO 7]

Image credit: wocintech (microsoft) - 44 by WOCinTech Chat on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license.