Technical Communication: The Profession, Writing Style, and Format (A Career Builder Course)

Course Name

Technical Communication: The Profession, Writing Style, and Format (A Career Builder Course)

Contact Hours: 50 (an estimated time frame devoted to a course of study from start to finish that can vary from student to student)

Course Description

In this course we begin with a thorough refresher bootcamp in grammar, usage, and punctuation and then study style and format for industry, government, and business documents (such as headings, vertical lists, warning notices, highlighting, tables, graphics), technical terminology, and wordiness problems. During this course you will correct documents containing the kinds of problems you are studying and read and take quizzes on The Insider's Guide to Technical Writing. To conclude this course, students do a major overhaul on a technical report and on a user guide.

In Technical Communication: The Profession, Writing Style, and Format, you study format and style of technical and business documents, along with main problems involving grammar, usage, punctuation, and sentence style. You do not do any extended writing projects, but instead correct problems in existing ones according to the guidelines and rules you have studied.

There are three options in this particular course:

1. If you are not considering a career as a technical writer, you can omit the reading and quizzes for The Insider’s Guide and, optionally, write instructions or a report at the end of this course.
2. If you are considering a career as a technical writer, you will be ready to take the follow-up courses, Technical Reports for Industry, Government, and Business and User Documentation for Technology Products.
3. If you are currently working as a technical writer or information developer, this course will provide you with a refresher on style and format guidelines and offer practice applying them.
   

• Communication Professionals
• Technical Writers/Communicators
• Information Specialists
• Business Analysts
• Research Report Writers
• Engineers
  

Outcome

By the end of the course - Technical Communication: The Profession, Writing Style, and Format, you will be able to:

• Recognize problems with and format text with headings, vertical lists, and notices (using the free online textbook).
• Add graphics to documents and format them properly.
• Apply and develop a highlighting scheme that controls italics, bold, etc.
• Create properly formatted tables and charts.
• Know how to look up issues involving technical terminology (using Microsoft Manual of Style).
• Recognize and correct sentence style problems (passive voice, wordiness, etc.).
• Write useful introductions for whole documents and for individual sections within documents.
• Create helpful cross-references.
• Recognize and correct common problems in grammar, usage, and punctuation.
• Correct technical business documents containing problems you have studied in this course.
• Optionally, write a set of instructions or a recommendation report (or both).
• Read and take the quizzes on Insider's Guide to Technical Writing.

Assessment

This course contains numerous reading quizzes to help you measure your progress and mastery of the materials. A score of 85 or higher is required to complete the course successfully. Quizzes may be taken up to 3 times each.

Outline

Week 1:  Grammar, Usage, Punctuation Review, Introduction to Technical Writing.
Week 2:  Technical Writing Process, Headings, Lists.
Week 3:  Doc Plans, Outlines, Toolbox; Highlighting, Notices.
Week 4:  Research, Rough-Drafting; Terminology, Style for Numbers, Symbols, Abbreviations.
Week 5:  Task Orientation, Visuals; Introductions, Cross-Referencing.
Week 6:  Editing, Indexing; Writing Style.
Week 7:  Final Production; Grand Review of Grammar, Usage, Punctuation.
Week 8:  Final Projects: Comprehensive Document Overhaul.

Books

and

Included, a free online textbook by the Instructor of this Course.