The following Professional Writing courses are available for Spring 2004. Please contact the course instructor or the Director if you have questions.

English 3104: Introduction to Professional Writing - Brumberger (instructor's home page), & Weathers

This course introduces students to the current issues and practices of professional writing and its functions in workplace settings. You will gain experience with a variety of writing situations, designing and composing documents that solve problems and/or help readers make decisions. You will also learn conventions and broadly applicable procedures for analyzing audiences, purposes,and situations of professional writing, as well as strategies for adapting theseconventions and procedures to meet the unique demands of each new situation and task. By the conclusion of the course, you should be able to identify and explain the roles that professional writers play in the workplace and demonstrate knowledge of workplace writing issues, methods, and forms by analyzing rhetorical situations and communicating effectively for different purposes and audiences.

English 3754: Advanced Composition - Kark

This is a course for students who want to be read. It provides advanced writing instruction and practice specifically for students with an interest in professional writing. It should also interest technical and extension students or students in the arts and humanities who care about their writing and wish to address non-specialized audiences by practicing written forms outside their own fields. Students will learn how to engage a range of audiences. They will be given opportunities to practice the written essay in several of its most common forms and encouraged to develop their own individual voices and styles. Writing will be supplemented by assigned readings in an advanced level rhetoric, such as Joseph Williams’s Style (sixth edition), and in a reader of collected works by recognized essayists. Grades will be based on four essays for evaluation (with at least one opportunity for revision after feedback from the instructor), quizzes on reading assignments, participation in class workshops, a short oral presentation, and a final exam.

(Meets a Writing Intensive Requirement)

English 3804: Technical Editing & Style - Brumberger (instructor's home page)

Technical Editing and Style explores the art of editing. In this course, you will study and practice editors’ roles, responsibilities, and tasks. The course will introduce you to the basic principles of editing documents for effectiveness (for clarity, correctness, conciseness, organization, audience, etc.). We will also focus on the relationship between editors and writers and on organizational issues such as style guides. Finally, the course will review common writing errors to increase your mastery of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

English 3804: Technical Editing & Style - Armstrong

Technical Editing and Style explores the art of editing. In this course, you will study and practice editors’ roles, responsibilities, and tasks. The course will introduce you to the basic principles of editing documents for effectiveness (for clarity, correctness, conciseness, organization, audience, etc.). We will also focus on the relationship between editors and writers and on organizational issues such as style guides. Finally, the course will review common writing errors to increase your mastery of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

English 3814: Creating User Documentation- Evia

English 3814 prepares you to produce effective print and on-line documents that explain how to perform a specific task to a targeted audience. In this class, you will work with real “clients;” all of
your projects will be based on the need to create documents that actually work for the users. You will also learn that not every technical document has to be a technological production in order to be
valuable. The readings and tasks in this class offer you a balance of practical and theoretical foundations for creating good manuals, instructions, and standard operating procedures. Assignments include a “low-tech” set of instructions and an on-line help project, both with detailed proposals, documentation plans, and usability studies. Software used in the course includes Microsoft Word, FrontPage, HTML Help, and RoboHelp.

English 4814: Writing for the Web- Collier (instructor's home page)

We will examine how users read on the web, how authors should write their web pages, and, accordingly, how to design rich, appropriate content for web-sites. In so doing, this course offers a practicum in the novice and intermediate use of (X)HTML, HTML editors, graphics, and
presentation software. Students will learn the basics of (X)HTML (and HTML editors) and be introduced to XML, Style Sheets, and JavaScript in constructing web-sites. By analyzing how online communities organize, use, and distribute knowledge and information, we will evaluate and build web sites that communicate simply and effectively.

English 4874: Issues in Professional and Public Discourse- Dubinsky (instructor's home page)

Issues in Professional and Public Discourse focuses on the ways in which scientific, technical, and professional communication influence and are influenced by public discourse. Drawing on strategies of rhetorical criticism, you will gain an understanding of the persuasive value of style, arrangement, and delivery. By analyzing major events (e.g., the Challenger disaster and the war in Iraq) and the scientific and engineering documents, business communications, and representations (e.g., movies and books) associated with them, you will develop skills, vocabularies, and methods of thinking that enable you to function more fully as citizens within our society and be more competent rhetoricians, regardless of your chosen profession. Requirements will include informal commentaries on texts, a short research paper tied to a class presentation, and a fifteen-page seminar paper.