The following Professional Writing courses are available for Spring 2006. Please contact the course instructor or the Director if you have questions.
Insructor: Weathers ENGL 3104: Professional WritingIn this class, we will study many kinds of documents that a professional writer might be asked to write, including letters, reports, articles, instructions, and proposals. We will study the writing strategies, format conventions, and design principles that apply to such documents, including resumes and job-application letters. You will create several original documents yourself. In addition, you will learn to create documents collaboratively, along with some of your classmates. Finally, besides learning how to write more professionally, you should gain a clearer understanding of the role of the writer in the typical corporate workplace and of the ways a professional writer can earn a living.
Instructor: Armstrong ENGL 3804: Technical Editing and Style
Much workplace writing might more accurately be described as editing: compiling, selecting, reorganizing, updating, developing, and redesigning work that already exists in some form. This work may consist of drafts prepared by subject matter experts, related company documents, an existing version that requires new information, or information in secondary sources. Regarded in this sense, editors are information managers, people with a breadth of vision to perceive the possibilities for uses of information; ability to look beyond the existing versions to consider more effective possibilities; ability to gather the necessary information through interviews, secondary sources, databases, or field methods; expertise in the use of language, not just at the sentence and paragraph level but also at the whole-document or document set level; and ability to collaborate with others in developing information products. The practice of editing is evolving because of new tools and an increasingly global workplace. More editing is online, more texts are online, and editorial responsibilities are dispersed to writers and production staff. Responsibility goes beyond the page to uses of the document. Part of our purpose in this course is to define the best roles for editors in today's work environments. This course focuses on comprehensive editing in technical and other professional environments. Students should be able to make choices about documents that are well grounded in understanding of how users will respond. They also understand and can use the principles of correctness, clarity, organization, visual design, and style that are an editor's design tools.
Instructor: Brumberger ENGL 3824: Designing Documents for Print
Designing Documents for Print is intended to help students make the transition from verbal thinking to visual thinking, from privileging verbal communication to balancing verbal and visual communication. In this course, we will treat design as functional, not merely aesthetic, and we will avoid treating the verbal text as the "default" form of communication. We will read about and discuss design concepts, and we will apply those concepts to hands-on projects. In this class, you will work on both individual and collaborative projects intended to sharpen your design, audience-awareness, and teamwork skills, as well as your peer critique and editing abilities. You will be evaluated on how effectively your documents communicate, on how likely the documents are to produce their desired effects for a specific audience, and, of course, on how well written they are.
Instructor: Dubinsky ENGL 4804: Grant Proposals and Reports
In today's tight economy, knowing where and how to obtain money can mean the difference between remaining viable or fading into obscurity. Scientists need grant money to solve problems,and nonprofit organizations are always in need of operating capital. English 4804 will introduce you to this world of writing for dollars. You'll learn to write effective grant proposals, reports, and informational articles. Along the way, you'll practice writing problem statements, program objectives, plans of action, evaluation plans, budget presentations, and summaries. In addition, you'll sharpen their teamwork, editing, and design skills as you engage in collaborative projects with campus and/or non-profit organizations in the community.
Instructor: Evia ENGL 4814: Writing for the Web
English 4814 guides you in the process of developing technical and professional documents to be presented in online environments. You do not need previous experience in web design in order to take this course. English 4814 includes an introduction to Extensible HyperText Markup Language and Cascading Style Sheets. However, it is not a tools course. We will not learn how to use commercial software applications to design and write webpages. Instead, Writing for the Web will have the following components: 1) Developing strategies leading to detailed tasks and audience analysis involved in planning and prototyping webpages, 2) Writing, revising, and editing modular content for professional web documents, and 3) Testing the usability and readability of websites. We will hand-code sample websites and will also evaluate distributed authoring solutions for content management and web logs. Assignments include developing a "blog" to document design knowledge experiences, a collaborative client project, and weekly reading responses.
Instructor: Belanger ENGL 4874: Issues in Professional and Public Discourse
In this course, we'll examine the ways in which professional and technical documents influence--and are influenced by--public discourse. First, we will examine different philosophies of approaching democratic public argument and different strategies of rhetorical criticism. Then, as a sample analysis using these tools, we'll consider the public discourse and professional documents associated with the debate over Title IX, the 1972 law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in educational institutions receiving Federal aid. Finally, you'll analyze an issue of your choice and investigate the roles professional and technical writers have played in structuring public debate on that topic.
Instructor: Brumberger ENGL 5334: Special Topics in Literature (Visual Rhetoric) This course offers students a graduate level introduction to the theory and practice of visual rhetoric. The goal of the course is to develop students' awareness and understanding of visual thinking and visual communication. While we will cover basic principles of design, this course is not intended to be an introduction to document design; rather, it focuses on larger issues of visual communication. Topics will include an introduction to the history of visual communication; theoretical perspectives on visual rhetoric and visual language; visual thinking and visual literacy; the nature of print vs. electronic documents; visual rhetoric and ethics; and intercultural issues in visual communication. Class time will be dedicated to discussion, analysis, and presentations.