| Course Title | Instructor | Section | Date |
| ENGL 5364 History of Rhetoric (Classical Period) | Kemp | 270/370 | |
| ENGL 5366 Teaching Technical Communication | Baehr | 270/370 | |
| ENGL 5374 Technical Editing | Eaton | 270/370 | |
| ENGL 5376 Online Publishing | Rice | 270/370 | |
| ENGL 5389 Field Methods of Research | Baake | 270/370 |
Note: All online students register for section 270 except non-Texas-resident online doctoral students, who register for section 370.
| Course | Instructor | section | Time |
| ENGL 5375 Document Design | Zdenek | 001 | |
| ENGL 5376 Online Publishing | Still | 001 | |
| ENGL 5385 Ethics in Technical Communication | Dragga | 001 | |
| ENGL 5388 Usability Testing and Research | Still | 001 | |
| ENGL 5389 Field Methods of Research | Rickly | 001 |
All offerings from 1998 to the present are archived here.
focuses on the work place documents that create knowledge and support decision-making—proposals and reports. Proposals seek approval or funding for a plan or activity. Reports provide information on the feasibility or progress of such activities, or on the status of scientific research. Proposals and reports emerge from real rhetorical situations or exigencies. They are examples of rhetorical genres, or strategies available for social action.
All writing in some way tells a story, and so it is with reports and proposals. A proposal from a social service agency seeking money to expand a program for the poor must tell the story of the people it hopes to serve. A report on a study of sub-atomic particles conducted by physicists using a particle accelerator tells the story of those particles, even though they exist only for nano seconds. Narrative is intrinsic to reports and proposals.
As is typical in any graduate technical writing class, we will approach this topic from a theoretical and applied perspective. We will analyze existing documents using rhetorical theory and we will produce reports and proposals based on primary and secondary research. At the end of the course each of you should be able to 1) display skills in writing and reading reports and proposals; 2) display understanding of the theoretical choices we make as practitioners of this kind of writing; 3) display an understanding of how reports and proposals contribute to the discourse of an organization, company, and geographic region; 4) contribute to the body of knowledge about reports and proposals
will teach you to
Website: http://www.faculty.english.ttu.edu/dragga/5385-001.html
Texts:
Dombrowski, Paul. Ethics in Technical Communication (Allyn & Bacon, 2000)
Herrington, TyAnna K. A Legal Primer for the Digital Age (Pearson Longman, 2003)
journal articles on e-reserve
This course attempts to balance the theory of usability testing with the practice of actually conducting usability tests. It aims for two distinct modes. The first involves the concepts of usability testing, and will require that you do the assigned readings and participate fully in class discussion. I will expect you to ask questions, to connect ideas from various readings, and to connect these theories to our activities in the actual usability lab. The second mode of this course involves spending time in the usability lab, plugging in wires, rolling tape, positioning microphones and cameras, digitizing and editing video, and generally becoming very familiar with the workings of gathering data.
Required Readings:
Expected Assignments:
Technical communicators have established their own research methods for use in software design, in the production of training materials, in the creation, use, and testing of educational activities, and so forth. This course will serve as a critical overview to these methods. In this course, we will examine these methods in terms of: theoretical bases; data collection and analysis; and design work. For each method, students will design and critique research questions/problem statements and research instruments. Each student will create an annotated bibliography concerning an aspect of these methods. Using one of these methods, each student will conduct a small-scale study and report findings. Students will also lead a class discussion concerning an issue associated with field methods in TCR.
At the end of this course, students should have a theoretical understanding of the assumptions behind each method and, therefore, a grounding in how to choose the proper method for a given set of concerns and environment. Students should be able to articulate reasons for selecting a field method and should be able to conduct and direct studies using any of the methods covered.