WRA 420 Advanced Technical Writing
Course Syllabus
Contact Information
Bill Hart-Davidson
Class Meets: TR 5-6:20, Bessey 317
Office: Olds Hall, Suite 7
Office Hours: TR 3:00 p.m.- 5:00 p.m. and by appt.
Phone: 3-9184
AIM: billhd30
Required Texts
<"http://books.google.com/books?id=61WSVFLVVn8C&dq=rockley+managing+enterprise+content&pg=PP1&ots=MzXl15Sn7S&sig=tm72YewjZ8SX4zyrWxmsTxEJR0w&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?q=Rockley+managing+enterprise+content&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail">Managing Enterprise Content
Various readings made available on ANGEL site for WRA 420.
Course Goals
- To explore what it means to solve problems with text(s)
- To acquire best practices of information design and content management
- To create flexible, dynamic structures that deliver information to users when and where they need it
- To foster reflective practice, laying a foundation for a career in technical communication
Course Policies
This class will be held in a computer lab, and we will make extensive use of the networked environment to coordinate and complete course work. Because you may be working with technologies that are unfamiliar
to you, this course will require your patience and time to deal with technology. Here are the technologies you should have ready access to for the course:
Your MSU NetID & AFS Account - for posting materials on the web
An E-mail account that lets you attach and receive files - this
means that you need to have enough of your storage quota left to handle files for class. If you have an @msu.edu account and use something like Outlook for e-mail, you'll be fine. Accounts from
third-party Internet Service Providers will also work ok, provided you
have
a POP or IMAP account. If you not sure what kind of an account
have, please talk with me or drop me a note on the first day of class!
Internet Access - you'll need a reliable way to browse the Web and
store
web-enabled files.
Microsoft Office or similar Office software - Especially Word and
Powerpoint. This software is supported in Bessey 317. If you work from home, you should be prepared to transfer
files across platforms and versions of software, if necessary.
Web authoring software - We'll be doing some web-related work, so it
will
be helpful to have software that supports web authoring. Even a simple
visual editor such as Netscape Composer will be useful if you don't
have
access to a more full-featured package such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage
For editing HTML, you can use a plain text editor like Notepad, though
you
can also use other code editors too if you like. For image creation
and
processing it will be handy, though not always essential to have access
to
Photoshop or a similar program.
In addition to having access to these technologies, you'll also need
a
positive attitude towards learning technologies with which you may be
unfamiliar. In most cases, you will not need to be extremely experienced
in
the specific program or procedure you will be asked to do. Rather, you
have
to be patient and curious enough to keep trying until you learn the
best
way to work.
Attendance & Participation Policy
Attendance and participation in this class are very important. Both
are
mandatory.
In this class, much like a lab or design studio, you will do much of
the
work in collaboration with your peers and in the time provided for class
meetings, thus it can be difficult or impossible to make up missed work.
When
working in collaboration with your classmates, a lack of
participation will lead to bad blood among your peers and, often, a poor end result for the whole team.
The absence policy that will be observed in this class is as follows:
Don't miss more than two classes. You should contact me by e-mail, phone,
or otherwise prior to missing class. If your absence will affect your
Colleagues in class, you should notify them as well. More than two
absences will result in your final grade being lowered a letter grade.
Each day will be clearly outlined in the course schedule, so check
there
regularly so that you are prepared for class on any given day.
Assignment Policies
You must complete all major assignments in order to pass this class.
Production guidelines for each document will be discussed in class.
Please
follow them. If you hand in documents that do not conform to the
guidelines, they will be returned to you for correction before they
are
graded.
If you miss a class, it is your responsibility to find out the assignments
you missed and arrive prepared for the next class.
Late Work
You should submit your work on time. Late work will only be accepted
if you
consult with me prior to the class period in which the work is due.
Work is
considered to be late after 5:00 pm on the due date.
Computer Responsibilities
You have the following computer-related responsibilities in this class:
You are expected to store primary and backup copies of your work, including
drafts, e-mail, and notes, on your home directory and on backup media.
Be
prepared in the event that one of these backup methods fails!
You are expected to check the class web page and your e-mail regularly
for
updates to the schedule, new assignments, and messages.
You are responsible for spending time outside of class to get up to
speed
on computer technologies and applications that are unfamiliar to you.
You are free to work on any computer you like to use outside of the
class.
However, you must be prepared to convert all in-class work, shared files
for group projects, and electronically submitted files to the appropriate
format (including computer platform, application, and version). You
are
responsible for learning and making any necessary cross-platform
tranlations between machines.
Think of the network environment in this class as your workplace. Adapting
to new computer systems, platforms, and software will be increasingly
important as you progress in your professional development.
Grading
You will be given a letter grade on each project you complete. In advance you
will be notified as to the percentage that each project (and project component,
for multi-component projects) counts towards your overall grade. Letter grades will be converted into their GPA equivalent
for the purpose of computing the final grade. Here's the procedure:
- First I convert each letter grade on the project to its GPA equivalent. An A, for example, is 4.0, an A- is a 3.66, a B+ is a 3.33, etc.
- Next, I multiply the grade score by the % of the course grade each project is worth (we can think of this as the "weight" of each project). An A on a project worth 25% of the final grade, for example, converts to a weighted score of 100.
- I then add up the scores, yielding a result that maps to the GPA scoring system. Total points earned/400.
- The cutoff for a 4.0 score will be 380.
The most important factors leading to a good grade in this course are
consistent attendance and intellectual effort. If you are on the borderline and you have a strong record of
attendance & participation, you will earn the higher grade.
If at any time during the semester you are concerned about your grade
in the course or on a specific project, please talk with me.
Course Projects
1. Ergonomics Poster Project
Create, design, & edit content contributing to a poster on ergonomic guidelines for working in EBH 317. 20% of Final Grade
2. Content Analysis & Information Modeling Project
Take a careful look at how an organization's content model is constructed,
the kinds of content it delivers and to whom. Then make a recommendation for improving
the content strategy of the organization. 25% of Final Grade
3. Article for a professional organization
Plan, propose, draft, and revise a short piece appropriate for publication in a
professional publication (e.g. trade journal, conference proceedings, bulletin). 25% of Final Grade
4. Take-Home Final Exam
You'll have a little over a week to create a response to a question
regarding content management issues. Your response may vary in format, ranging from a fairly
traditional academic essay to a web site, so long as it constitutes
an adequate response to the question posed. 20% of Final Grade.
5. Readings, Miscellaneous Assignments & Class Participation
Througout the semester, you'll be asked to read and respond to articles and chapter and complete
small exercises. These exercises will include things like marking up text for multiple audience profiles.
These projects will not be graded individually, but doing them will be essential to understanding course material,
as will participating in class discussions. Combined = 10% of Final Grade
A Note about Academic Integrity
The MSU Student Handbook defines various forms of academic dishonesty and procedures for responding to them. You are responsible for familiarizing yourself with these policies. See http://www.vps.msu.edu/SpLife/rule32.htm
Student-teacher relationships are built on trust. You should assume that I've made good decisions about the content and structure of the course; I should assume that the assignments you hand in are yours (that you are the one who produced them); and so on. Acts that violate this trust undermine the educational process.
Technical Writing is an activity that relies heavily on collaboration; members of a writing team work with other writers, editors, programmers, engineers, human factors specialists, managers, and even customers.
It would be unrealistic of me to assume that you will work in total isolation; that's not the way that the best jobs are done. (Some of the most unusable products, interfaces, and documents we encounter were developed by people who would not or did not work with others.) So, bounce ideas off each other, offer each other suggestions on how to improve assignments, etc. By working with each other, you can increase your learning and understanding. Some of the projects for this class will be done as group projects. I'll expect that you understand the difference between "working together" and merely copying. I'll also offer explicit guidelines for turning in work that has been co-authored so that we can negotiate the terms of working together. Please ask if you have questions about the way your team is working and how your work, as an individual, will be evaluated.
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