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I will be teaching a course next term on document design (official title:
"Theories and Practices of Documentation". This will be my first time with
this course, and my knowledge of document design is largely folkloric and
impressionistic. If you have either taken or taught such a course, I would
greatly appreciate help in either (or both) of the following two areas:
1. Textbooks (what, if any, are the good ones?)
2. Assignment structure (do you have a syllabus to share?)
You can post to me privately, and I can summarize for the list, or you can
post to the list if you want to generate some discussion
What do I mean by "document design?" you ask. Well, that will be a
function of the advice from folks on the list and the other resources I can
tap into; what we study will develop out of the material that shapes the
course But, roughly, I'm thinking at this point about such things as
information structure, graphic cues, white space, indentation, font type,
the use of colour, and other somewhat mechanical issues. The course will
likely construe "document" narrowly and stick closely to paper sources, and
the students will have limited access to an IBM lab.
Thanks very much.
Randy Allen Harris raha -at- watarts -dot- uwaterloo -dot- ca
Rhetoric and Professional Writing 519 885-1211, x5362
English, U of Waterloo FAX: 519 884-8995
Waterloo ON, CANADA, N2L 3G1
