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Welcome to English 324: Principles of Technical Communication

314 Pray-Harrold - 9:00-11:40 - TTH
Online Classroom: Login | https://engl324.campfirenow.com/ | linking now
Site Pages: Reading Discussions? | 324 eReserves | Handouts
Links Internal to this Page: |
Student Home Pages: Anzi B. | Brian B. | Mike B. | Tramaya B. | Kim C. | Asia D. | Mark D. | Sarah D. | Sarah D. | Vince G. | Steve K. | Andy L. | Justin M. | Laura N. | Ken S. | Leonard S. | Marvin S. | Kyana T. | Andrew W. | Cordell Y. | Patrice G. | Alicia H. | Steve B.

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

Homework:

For 6/26 (Tues - In Class, 314 Pray-Harrold)

About Presentations:

Last, remember the presentation is just something for the audience to look at--you shouldn't read it to the audience. They look at the slides, and you just talk us through the thing.

Let me know if you have any specific questions about any parts of this. While it sounds formal, we tailor what we say when we talk to our grandparents, or talk to different groups of friends, or employers, etc. The project is just showing and explaining some example of working with an audience from your past.

WTCM Proposal Template

For 6/19 (Tues - In Class, 314 Pray-Harrold)

• Swarthmore Advice
• Presentation Zen-Professional Presentation Design
• CPU on Presentations
• Kawasaki 10/20/30 Rule
• Tufte Wired Article
• David Byrne Wired PPoint as Medium
• Essay Sample & Discussion
• Tufte Print Essay

For 6/12 (Tues - In Class, 314 Pray-Harrold)

Revise SAM, CL, & Resumes, Draft PDMs: After all of the feedback we've had on the CLs, Resumes, and coming to understand the SAM, people have plenty of revising to do. In addition, everyone needs to get rolling on the PDMs for this project. We began with a list in class Thurs. for the Resume PDM, and we'll be talking more about how the PDMs need to work.

EA Project Portfolio

1. Title/TOC Page
2. SAM Final
3. Cover Letter Final
4. Cover Letter PDM Final
5. Resume Final
6. Resume PDM Final
7. Job Ad
8. Company Info
9. Personal Resource List w/4 Expanded Entries
10. Previous Drafts of Cover Letter, Resume, PDMs, SAM

Why Tech Comm Matters (WTCM) Project: Everyone should have at least tried to share examples of a situation, from their own experience, where a communication had consequences--it mattered--so how you "designed" the communication mattered. Of course none of you had had a tech comm class before, so you wouldn't have had our terminology to describe the situation at the time--but you can use it now. We'll be working with these examples to set up your WTCM project (WTCM Examples).

For 6/7 (Thurs - In Class, 314 Pray-Harrold)

SAM, CL, & Resumes cont'd: Today we did extensive design feedback--applying and explaining the C.R.A.P. design concepts from the Non-Designer's Design Book, and the issues of tailoring your resume, objective, and cover letter for the particular job and company. For Tuesday you need to do revisions of all three documents, and get started on your PDMs for the CL and Resume. We started out class with a brainstorming list of things people were thinking through or wondering about while drafting their resumes.

Intro to Why TC Matters Project, Proposal Genre: The homework is to create a new wiki page that brainstorms ideas for this project. You should come up with a list of ideas, so you have options to choose from. You'll be writing a proposal that must be approved to do your project. See the assignment page for a more complete intro to the project.

For 6/5 (Tuesday - In Class, 314 Pray-Harrold)

For 5/31 (Thursday)

For 5/29 (Tuesday)

• Online Class (see "Login" link above and Instructions): We'll be doing 2-3 things. We'll discuss FM PDM development first, and then analyze a sample job ad and company for starters. We may get a chance to do some looks at ethics examples--documents gone wrong--from PWO (Professional Writing Online).

For 5/24 (Thursday)

• Final Introduction Memo Project Due: See the template in the handouts--the portfolio includes multiple drafts of the IM and at least two versions of the PDM too, and the final memos should have lots of the features we've been discussing and working on. Inside the template there is a section on the grading rubric too.
• Second Drafts of the Forklift Memo Ready for Class Discussion: We'll give the problem-solving of this memo one more go around, looking at what the document needs to do for Mickey. The complete project is due Thursday. We discussed some specific ways the memo needs to function for Mickey, and we discussed how changes between
• Employment Application Project Intro - Find a Job to Apply For: The project is introduced. In this project you tailor a resume and a cover letter to a particular company and job. Since we're tailoring these, you need to have not only the job duties as spelled out in the advertisement, but you need to be able to research the company culture through their web site or other promotional materials. So you have to be careful with Monster or other online services because sometimes they don't supply the company. As we discussed in class, sometimes you can find good info right on the websites of large companies like Boeing or IBM, because they post their own openings on their websites.

For 5/17

• Revised Argument Dialogue -- Wiki page (My Work): We'll be doing a warm-up small group activity like what we did in class, looking at a classmate's Argument with Claim, Support, and Warrants noted. So everyone should have theirs revised and ready. We used Mike Bs as an example in class.
• Revised Introduction Memo Draft: We will then do critique where classmates give one section of their latest IM drafts (should be at least version 3 now) a hard look. We will apply the argument structure we've been learning to the section, and identify the claim, support, and warrant, and discuss 1) if the claim is actually a good purpose for the assignment, and 2) if the support and warrant are doing what they should.
• Initial Process Documentation Memo Draft (PDM) -- MS Word Document: As explained Tues., this course isn't so much about doing X writing task as it is knowing how to go about the processes of problem-solving and design--the information design or tech comm process. The PDMs are how you do this. As explained in class, the PDMs pick particular changes between drafts--between stages in the process--and they show/explain/argue how these changes between drafts show your understanding, and application, of the course concepts, things like: purpose, audience, context/situation, argument, claim, support, warrant, genre, talking heads. Like for the IMs, we will give one chunk of people's drafts a hard read in class.
• Uploading and Naming Files Appropriately: As explained in class, since we'll be sharing electronic files, it's critical to name them appropriately. Our pattern will be "Project_FirstNameLastInitial_v#.doc". All of these parts are important. For example: "IM_SteveB_v1.doc"

Reading:

• Home > Principles > Building Arguments > Overview
• Home > Principles > Building Arguments > Types of Arguments
• Home > Principles > Shaping Texts > Style, Audience, and the Arrangement of Information

For 5/15

• Informal Technical Communication Story -- Wiki page (My Work): Share an example of a time you explained, coached, taught, or otherwise were in a situation where you were performing technical communication (though you would never have understood it that way at the time). Better examples show/explain how you knew/understood the audience, and tailored the communication experience for them.
• Argument (Discussion) Example -- Wiki page (My Work): Write down a string of dialog you overhear where people actually seem to discuss/argue something. Could be from friends or someone else--but probably not yourself. You can take discussions you hear/see on T.V. or elsewhere, so long as people are not just shouting at each other, but are actually engaging what each other says. After getting a string of dialog down, analyze it according to our Claim, Support, and Warrant concepts, marking sentences or phrases that are claiming/stating a point, supporting/offering evidence, or warranting/explaining how evidence backs up a point.
  

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

• Home > Principles > Rhetoric of Professional Writing > Terminology: What Is Professional Writing?
• Home > Principles > Rhetoric of Professional Writing > Technology and Writing/Work in the 21st Century
• Home > Principles > Rhetoric of Professional Writing > The Importance of Technical Communication to Engineers
• Home > Principles > Rhetoric of Professional Writing > The Importance of Business Communication in Managerial Work
• Home > Documents > Memos and E-Mail > The Rhetoric of the Memo and E-Mail
• Draft Rev. 2 of 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. To do this revision, remember what discovered in analyzing the Buddy Memos and discussed in class. Writing is an action, trying to perform/create/do things. As our reading pointed out, PW is about creating/maintaining/improving relationships. So your memo is trying to begin one. As a general comparison, most people's text on their wiki home pages is like Buddy Memo 1, while most first drafts of the Intro Memo (v1) are like Buddy Memo 2, "dumping a lot of data, but without developing any sense of the relevance of that data to the audience.

For 5/10

• Finish "Area of My Expertise" writing sample -- 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.
• Introduction Story -- Wiki page
• Writing Experience -- Wiki page

This is a wiki, as in Wikipedia. The name comes from the Hawaiian for quick, as the developer wanted to create a way to do fast and easy real-time web writing and collaboration. As you can imagine, a tool that allows our whole group to write and design pages quickly and collaboratively should be a real aid to us in this course. I've used a wiki for two terms now, and it seems to really help record in-class thinking. I've often had students say they thought they understood when we were in class, but to have lost the track by the time they got home. So far the wiki has helped with that, and has also really helped with portfolios and students reflecting on their work. So we'll be using one in this course as well, and I will be asking all of you for feedback and input on how it could/should work.

Getting Started :: Getting Acquainted with the Lab, Computers, and the Wiki
E-mail Address Page to set up the online space.
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.

Anzi B. Brian B. Mike B. Tramaya B. Kim C. Asia D. Mark D. Sarah D. Vince G. Steve K. Andy L. Justin M. Laura N. Ken S. Leonard S. Marvin S. Kyana T. Andrew W. Cordell Y. Alicia H.

WTCM Proposal Template

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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 .