Fall 2003

Instructor: Carolyn Nelson Class times: 8:30/10:00 TR

Office: 329 Stansbury Office Hours: 11:30-12:30MWF;

Phone: 293-3107 x413 and by appointment

Email: cnelson2@wvu.edu

Required text: Judith S. Vanalstyne & Merrill D. Tritt, Professional & Technical Writing Strategies (2002)

English 305, Technical Communication, introduces students to the kinds of tasks and situations for which technical writers are responsible in a professional context. Technical writers are the employees responsible for connecting the technical expertise of the programmers, designers, or engineers to the needs of the consumer. A company may have the perfect software program, but if no one can successfully show the consumer how to use it, it will fail. The technical writer is also an advocate for the user, for making things easier, more accessible, and more available. The technical writer thus has two roles: to advocate for the user and to support the company and its products. At its best, technical writing helps to advance company interests by making it user-friendly and thus likely to last.

Although the course will be focusing on the specific documents written by technical writers, the skills and the insights generated are equally appropriate for anyone writing within a professional context. A foundationa1 assumption of this course is that writing is rhetorical; that is, all writing emerges out of and responds to a particular purpose, audience, and situation. Accordingly, this course will focus on exploring the strategies and choices writers can make to craft their documents for these situations.

The purposes of this course are:

• To emphasize the importance of writing for a specific reader.

• To provide strategies for accommodating specific and implicit audiences.

• To familiarize students with the common genres and tasks of technical writing.

• To introduce issues of visual rhetoric, including document design.

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

•Make conscious and appropriate choices in your writing process and product.

• Design usable, clear, persuasive, accessible documents.

• Analyze the needs of the user.

• Use visual strategies as well as textual ones.

Attendance: You are expected to attend class every day with the textbook, a disk, and all materials on which you are working. An occasional absence is understandable, but habitual absence is inexcusable. If you have more than three absences, you will have 3 points for each absence subtracted from your final grade. Missing a scheduled conference will count as 2 absences.

Expectations: Much of your work will be done in class. Many classes will have specific assignments to be completed and handed in by the end of the class period. Your work on, and completion of, these assignments will be an important factor in your participation grade. You are expected to work until the class period has ended, complete all reading assignments on time, help your classmates learn by your responses to their writing, choose projects that require significant research and analysis, spend significant time outside of class working on your writing and class preparation, and be courteous and considerate.

Paper topics: You will be responsible for choosing appropriate and challenging topics on which to write. The instructor must approve all topics before you begin and you cannot change your topic without prior approval. It is ultimately your responsibility to choose a topic that will satisfy the requirements of the assignment.

Peer Review of Drafts: It is particularly important for you to attend, and be prepared to participate in, in-class workshops on drafts of your papers. Although your drafts need not be "polished," in general they should be substantially completed in order for you to receive help from your fellow students. Under no circumstances will I accept a final paper unless I have seen a rough draft.

In this course, I will try to hold you to the professional standards that prevail in your field. For example, of the requirements listed below, your employer will take some completely for granted, such as promptness, neat appearance, and correct mechanics.