RE: Tech Writing Curriculum

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Sorry about posting twice on the same thread, but I turn out to have more to say:

The most useful classes I have taken in a general Professional Writing" series of classes are:

1)Rhetoric
2)Editing
3)Research techniques
4)Rhetorical Grammar (beyond the basic rules, and into deconstruction of writing to see why word choice is so important, etc.  Taken almost completely from Rhetorical Grammar by Martha Kolln and Style, 10 Lessons by Joseph Williams)

The technical writing class was so useless I didn't bother with it - it was all desktop publishing and no usability.

The classes I would recommend for Technical Writing:

1)  Rhetoric.  You're going to spend your entire career trying to convince higher-ups to do something for you, SMEs to work with you, HR people to hire you, and clients to be your customers.  As I said earlier, this is so important that I wish it was required from grade school up.

2) Information Design/Usability.  What makes for good directions?  How understandable are your directions?  How do you teach someone how to do something?  Typical assignment - buy a piece of cheap equipment or download freeware and write the manual.  Hand equipment, disk, and manual over to another student, who will then attempt to follow the manual.  Much class discussion & feedback in this one.  Emphasis on writing several types of document for many different types of user/equipment/procedure.  Consider also a few classes or a follow-up class on handicapped accessibility.

3) Linguistic Basics (a rephrasing of Rhetorical Grammar.)  Brush up on spelling & grammar, with emphasis on the subtleties of the language. Possible diagramming of sentences (a skill that not only makes you think about the mechanics of the language, but also terrifies balky VIPs and SMEs who think they write better than you do.)

4) Editing.  How to fix your writing.  How to fix other people's writing so that they're still talking to you afterwards.  Half the class spend on mechanics and the other half on the sociology of people you work with.

5)  Research.  How to find out what you need to know.  How to not only ask busy SMEs for it, but to also network, use the Internet, etc.

6)  Overview of Graphic Design & DTP, including Web Basics.  How to make it reasonably good-looking both on paper and online, without getting more wrapped up in presentation than content.  Section 508 requirements and how to meet them.  Student should be able to lay out a basic document in a word processor (Word, WP), a basic DTP program (Frame, Quark) and code/debug a simple, Section 508-compliant web page in the text pad.  Extra credit for debugging HTML as produced by Word and/or WYSIWYG programs.  Not to focus on any specific tool, just to give the student a feel for using the different types of software.

Linnea Dodson
(madly making notes for the "Technical Writer's Companion" that I will someday write)

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