The following Professional Writing courses are available for Fall 2003. Please contact the course instructor or the Assistant Director if you have questions. (Please note: Professor Rude will be arriving on campus in August.)

English 3104: Introduction to Professional Writing - Dubinsky (instructor's home page)

This course introduces you to the theory and practice of professional writing and its functions in workplace settings. By reading and writing "real world" texts that professionals use daily (e.g., letters, memoranda, reports, abstracts, reviews, and proposals), you will gain experience with a variety of writing situations, composing documents that solve problems and help readers make decisions. You will learn current conventions and broadly applicable procedures for analyzing audiences and purposes, and as a result of our service-learning project, you'll learn strategies for adapting these conventions and procedures to meet the unique demands of a real audience and task.

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

This course explores the art of editing from the initial writing task to the final delivery of the document. In addition to learning document management, students study and practice the roles, responsibilities, and tasks that editors perform. The course also covers the rules that govern the fundamentals of style (correctness, clarity, and propriety) and the principles needed to match the tone and formality to the aim, audience, and occasion of the work. For their final project, students will edit a document for a client in the university or in the community.

English 3814: Creating User Documentation - Paretti (instructor's home page)

Most people hear "user documentation" and think "software manual," and that 's certainly where most of the jobs (and most of the money) is these days. But "user documentation" is any material (text, graphics, even audio) that enables someone to do something. It might be a volunteer handbook for a local community organization, a policies and procedures manual for company employees, or even a guide to surviving droughts for home gardeners. An effective user's guide is potentially the most helpful, most widely read material any of us ever produce. Well-written documentation makes people's lives easier at work and at play. Crafting that such documentation requires skills in psychology, analysis, interviewing, document design, and last but not least, strong writing. This course is destined to teach you basic principles in these areas, provide practical experience in writing "real-world" documents for clients, and help you begin a portfolio you can use in your job search. The required writing for the course includes instruction sets, a usability study, an online help project, and a documentation plan.

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 HTML, HTML editors, graphics, and presentation software. Students will learn the basics of HTML (and HTML editors) and be introduced to DHTML, Style Sheets, and JavaScript in constructing web sites. By analyzing how on-line 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- Rude (instructor's home page)

This course prepares students to analyze and critique scientific and engineering documents, business communications, and representations of events, studying the consequences of those documents, communications, and representations. In doing so, they gain a clearer understanding of the rhetorical value of style, arrangement, and delivery. Consequently, they will be able to function more fully as citizens within our society and be more competent rhetoricians, regardless of their chosen profession. In addition, this course introduces students to essential legal and ethical principles needed to make sound writing decisions. Legal issues covered include freedom of the press, libel, invasion of privacy, research sources, obscenity, and copyright. Requirements will include informal commentaries on texts, a short research paper tied to a class presentation, and a 15-page seminar paper.

English 4984: International Issues in Professional Writing - Brumberger (instructor's home page)

International / Intercultural Issues in Professional Writing will focus on professional communication in the global workplace, a topic of rapidly growing importance in the field of professional writing. The course will introduce students to the theory, research, and practices that professional writers need to consider when preparing documents for international and intercultural audiences. Because the course is a 4000-level elective in the Professional Writing track, students are expected to have an understanding of material taught in the 3000-level courses in the track. Students will be evaluated through quizzes and in-class exercises, analyses and other writing assignments, and an extensive final research project. Graduate students will be required to complete additional readings and assignments.