Vincent van Goh's "Starry Night"

Welcome to English 324: Principles of Technical Communication

Course Texts: Professional Writing Online (PWO) | 324 eReserves | Handouts

Other Links: Audio Feedback | Sample Memo PDF | Sample Memo Doc | PDF Links: PDF995, PrimoPDF, CutePDF, Home-grown.

Exam Period --Final Due Date-- Thurs. Dec. 13, 11:30-1:00

Presentation Schedule: Thursday Dec. 6--Brandon, Phil, Bobby, Audrey, Chad, Neal, Julian, (missing one ..); Tuesday Dec. 11--the rest.

Week of 12/3 :: WTCM Drafts, Presentations

Tues 12/4 :: WTCM Drafts ::

Final Questions, Peer Review, and worktime.
WTCM: Doing a Presentation about Presentation Design

Tues 12/6 :: WTCM Presentations 1 ::

Presentations: Brandon, Phil, Bobby, Audrey, Chad, Neal, Julian, (Silas ?) .

Week of 11/26 :: EA Finals, PDFs, WTCM Proposals, Presentations

Tues 11/27 :: EA Final Stuff, Fonts, PDFs, etc. Begin Presentations, ::

Final Words on EA: Fonts, PDFs, last details.
WTCM: Doing a Presentation about Presentation Design
- What are good presentations like?
- What do you have to offer?
- Getting it back into the proposal

Homework: Read about Presentations in PWO, write journal entries, come with questions

Homework: Bring to class 1st draft intros to area of expertise, audience analysis, problem

Thurs 11/29 :: WTCM Dev ::

Discussion of Reading
Workshopping WTCM Process Materials (Homework)
Sign up for Presentation Slots

Presentations begin next Thursday

Homework: Complete Drafts of Presentations Tues

Week of 11/19 :: EA:Details, Extensions, WTCM Proposals, Turkey

Tues 11/20 :: Job Apps and Grammar, WTCM, Work Time ::

Number 1: Grammar counts in EA Project: sentences, parallelism, word choice, etc.
WTCM: Doing a Presentation about Presentation Design

Thurs 11/22 :: Thanksgiving ::

Eat. Sleep. Shop. Or avoid shopping (me). Try to be nice to relatives, reflect on how good we do have it (if needed, volunteer at shelter). Watch Lions (Hey they're kinda good this year). Get stuck in huge traffic. (I'm sure I'll think of a few more "traditions" here.)

Week of 11/12 :: EA:Resume Testing, WTCM Proposals

Tues 11/13 :: Hammering Resume Revs, WTCM Props ::

Resume Wiki Writing & Discussion 2: List of things you thought about
Resume Deconstruction 2: Mapping User Interaction
WTCM: "You got a problem with that?"

Thurs 11/15 :: Wrapping EA Project ::

Finishing Resume & Cover Letter, PDMS, and Revising Proposal
WTCM: Prepping for Project

Week of 11/5 :: EA:Resume Testing, WTCM Proposals

Tues 11/6 :: Hammering Old Resumes, WTCM Props ::

Resume Wiki Writing & Discussion 1: Why did you do what you did?
Resume Deconstruction 1: How should design work?
Resume Deconstruction 2: Content Issues--choice and arrangement
WTCM: "You got a problem with that?"

Thurs 11/8 :: Revising Resumes and WTCM Props ::

More Discussion and Feedback on Resumes (bring questions to share, things you wondered about, variant advice you've heard--share sources)
WTCM: "You godda prob'm wi dah? 2"

Week of 10/29 :: Getting Started with EA, WTCM Proposals: Analyzing Job Ads, Cover Letter Drafts

Tues 10/30 :: Analyzing a Couple Ads, Beginning Cover Letters ::

Group Reading and Analyzing Ads, and using that for EA Proposal, Cover Letter, Resume
Cover Letters
Begin Personal Resource Sheets (PRS), Planning for WTCM

Thurs 11/1 :: Sharing CL Drafts, Discussion ::

Discussion of the Reading from PWO
Peer Critique Cover Letter Test 1
WTCM Discussion

Homework:

Revise Cover Letter :: More PRS Expanded Entries (You'll need six by the end of the project)
Draft Proposal for WTCM Project: Problem Sections
Initial Draft of Resumes (How many people already have one?)
Resume Reading & Journal from PWO

Week of 10/22 :: Preparing for EA, WTCM: Articulating Use; Proposals, Employment App, How TC Matters

Tues 10/23 :: Digging into Proposals: Explaining Problems, Offering Possibilities ::

Examining Proposals, Reading, and Planning for Feedback
Start Peer Critique
Begin Personal Resource Sheets (PRS), Planning for WTCM

Thurs 10/25 :: Problems are Complicated 2

What are Proposals like? Examining personal examples ->
Answers from the Board: People struggling with the Concept of "Problem" in the Proposals, so I asked "Why do you think your teacher would want you to write out a proposal to apply for a particular job?" These answers show people do understand there is a whole list of problems the proposals need to deal with:
- Help us find problems beforehand
- Develop awareness of:
  - skills,
  - qualifications,
  - passion: "What I like to do, and why I like to do it."
- better understanding of position you're applying for
- Reinforce why we're getting our degrees--at this point, mostly juniors, most of us have become sort of discouraged--this gets us back into it.
- Learn how to write a proposal (this really did come in very late, which is good--we aren't learning Proposals "just because", but for all the ways they are useful, as in all the ideas above, and tons of other purposes they serve across lots of fields.
Finally we connected back to what we've learned about Tech Comm (and writing and just communicating well), that comm, and especially tech comm, is very situation, audience, and purpose dependent--how it must adapt to reader and situation, and "make connections." Well, I don't really know any of you, what jobs you've had, what experience you've had, etc. I also don't know much at all about all the different fields people are going into. So the proposal needs to show why this would be a good choice for you, realizing how complicated the "What's a good choice for me?" question really is.

Homework: Complete Proposal for your Employment Application Project

Homework: Analyze and mark-up Job Ads (I'll be adding the examples for you to work with soon here).

Week of 10/15 :: FM & FM-PDMs: Articulating Use; Proposals, Employment App, How TC Matters

Tues 10/16 :: Describing and Critiquing "Use", and Beginning Proposals ::

Examining & Describing Info Design, Use, Concepts, Layers of Terminology
Organizing & Structuring Wiki Home Pages: Group Links, Recent at Top
Proposals: Opening Discussion, Prop Reading Homework-Personal experience example shared & explained in wiki, Prop for the EA Project

Thurs 10/18 :: Discuss Proposal Examples, Last FM & PDM Changes

What are Proposals like? Examining personal examples ->
Linking to the EA Project: IM to Cover Letter, FM to Resume
Linking to Why Tech Comm Matters Project
Homework: Complete Draft of Informal Proposal for EA Project
Homework: Read Proposals Section in Professional Writing Online, Do Reading Journal
Homework: Revise/develop your personal examples
Homework: Finish FM Project, Filenaming, Extensions, Last points about the FM & PDM (Grouping, Chunking, Linking to Tests)

Week of 10/8 :: Forklift Memo Project--Designing Information for Function :: User Test 2, Mapping to Concepts

Tues 10/9 :: User Test 2 & Small Group Discussion :: What will be discussed here of course depends on how much progress the groups have made -- FM UT 2

Thurs 10/11 :: No Class Meeting (I'm at a conference) :: 3rd drafts of FM, 1st drafts of FM Project PDM

By 5 Friday,
1. Create your Reading Journal link in your "My Work" section of your wiki page, do the reading and write up journal entries--one section for each "page" in our online textbook, and say one section for each chapter of the NDDB. (The NDDB reading is long, but is very visual--like a picture book. If you can't get through all of it for Friday, get some before and have it all in there before Mon. NDDB does have a good set of concept terms (C-R-A-P), but it tends to just say "use Contrast" -- instead of explaining there are times you want it, but also times you don't--depends on the situation).
2. Post FM-PDMs,
3. Write out feedback on a classmate's FM-PDM wiki page,
4. Find a comparable example of info design (sorts, groups, arranges for a navigational sort of reading/problem discovery and analysis), create a wiki page that attaches (or links to) the example, and explain how it works comparably.

Reading:

Forklift Project:

Home > Principles > Arranging Information > Ordering Information for Understanding
Home > Principles > Arranging Information > Thinking about Document Design
Home > Principles > Arranging Information > Style, Audience, and the Arrangement of Information
eReserves: The Non-Designer's Design Book

Getting Started :: Getting Acquainted with the Lab, Computers, and the Wiki
We may have some set-up and learning to do just to get started with the Macs, 314, and the certainly the wiki.

Things we need to go over or learn about Macs:

Turn on the right button!
Most common mistakes sheet

Creating your Home Page inside our Course Wiki:
One of our first tasks in the course will be for all of you to create a "home page" inside the course wiki that all of your work will "tree" out from. We will be discussing how to create pages, how to modify and design them, and a lot more about how to use the wiki. But to start with, everyone's home page should introduce each of you to the class in a way that gives us a bit broader perspective of you, but that also bridges between you personally and what our little community is going to be about--technical communication. I will be going into greater detail about this first example of practicing tech comm.

For 9/11

Finish Initial Wiki Home Introduction
Introduction Story -- Wiki page
Writing Experience -- Wiki page
Area of My Expertise -- Wiki page

PWO Reading Journal :: A Good Question & Answer -- About Reading Journals ?

Home > Principles > Overview: The Rhetorical Theory of Professional Writing Online
Home > Principles > Rhetoric of Professional Writing > Understanding Purpose
Home > Principles > Rhetoric of Professional Writing > The Complex Nature of Writing
Home > Principles > Rhetoric of Professional Writing > Types of Documents (Genres)
Home > Documents > Memos and E-Mail > The Rhetoric of the Memo and E-Mail
Draft Inital Introduction Memo, introducing yourself to your Principles of Technical Communication class (me included). MS Word document--bring to class on flash drive or e-mail to yourself.

We'll be using this wiki to run our course this fall--set up home pages, document activities and research, write, share, and give feedback, and create portfolios for projects.

More soon.

Welcome to PmWiki!

A local copy of PmWiki's documentation has been installed along with the software, and is available via the documentation index.

To continue setting up PmWiki, see initial setup tasks.

The basic editing page describes how to create pages in PmWiki. You can practice editing in the wiki sandbox.

More information about PmWiki is available from http://www.pmwiki.org .

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Welcome to English 324: Principles of Technical Communication