SYLLABUS for Technical Communication II    

X466    EPD166892

Instructor

Thomas Albert    http://www.WORDesign.com

Time and Location

Mondays 25 January 1999 to 5 April 1999
6:30 pm to 9:30 pm
No class on 15 February
Contra Costa Center, Room A2
2272 Camino Ramon
San Ramon, CA  94583

Week-by-Week Topics and Assignments

Examples of Student Work

Course Materials

Grading Criteria


Course Objectives

This course builds upon the skills taught in Introduction to Technical Writing X465 to further develop your ability to

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Instructional Methods

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Week-by-Week Topics and Assignments

Week 1
25 January

  1. Class Introduction
  2. Understanding Your Audience and Their Work
  3. Working Methods: Collaboration, Design, Productivity Tools
  4. In-class Individual Writing Assignment
    analysis of a manual I provide:
        audience, design, diction, organization, navigation

Week 2: Documentation Plans
1 February

  1. Purpose or goals
  2. Audience Analysis
  3. Content profile
  4. Scope/limitations
  5. Document Type(s) and their corresponding information types
  6. Research Requirements
  7. Preliminary page and screen designs

Critique of a proposed term project

Critique of a technical communicator's resume

Critique of a product manual

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Week 3
8 February

  1. Guest Lecture on Document Design by Marina Krakovsky
  2. Research and Outlining
  3. Tutorials and Procedures

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[No class 15 February -- Presidents' Day]

Week 4
22 February

  1. Guest Lecture/Seminar by Laura Bayer: "Ins and Out of Contract Technical Writing"
  2. Screen and Page Design
  3. Overviews, Introductions, and Memos

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Week 5
1 March

  1. Writing and Editing
  2. Reference Materials and Job Aids

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Week 6: Online Help
8 March

  1. Learning about Users' Information Needs
  2. Determining Stages of Use
  3. Categorizing Information Needs

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Week 7: Online Documents
15 March

  1. FrameMaker to PDF demonstration
  2. FrontPage demonstration
  1. Bring paper copy and file on disk.
  2. Collaboration: Meet with other students to test material, rewrite as necessary.

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Week 8: Tagged Documents
22 March

  1. HTML
  2. SGML
  3. XML

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Week 9
29 March

  1. Guest Lecture by Becky Phung, "Working in the Windows NT Environment"
  2. ISO 9000 (Export standard)
  3. API (Application Programming Interface) -- discuss examples
  4. Internationalization/Localization (writing tips)

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Week 10: Presentation of Term Projects
5 April (remember Daylight Savings)

  1. Give a 5-7 minute presentation of your term project.
  2. Submit project-paper copy and disk copy-with self addressed, stamped envelope (for return of project)

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This page last updated: 15 March 1999

Copyright © 1999, Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.