About the program

About technical writing

Course descriptions

Sample units

Representative student work

Tuition fees and duration

Software expenses and books

Registration

Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College: Technical Writing Certificate Program

Interested in a career in technical writing? Interested in adding something to that degree in English, History, Philosophy, Communications, Advertising, Marketing that will actually enable you to get a job? Tired of teaching school or working as a secretary? Want to put your language skills to use and do some writing in a respectable and rewarding profession? If so, the Technical Writing Certificate Program offered through Brooklyn College may be just for you!

The Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program took in its first students February 1999. It is a small program in which students have plenty of opportunity to interact with instructors. As of February 2007, people from all over the world have registered for and completed over 400 individual sections of the courses that are offered.

The Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program is an intensive eight-course program that introduces you to the essential areas in the technical communication and technical writing profession. The entire program is online: you can take the courses individually, or you can take some combination of the eight courses and earn the certificate—right in your own home and from anywhere in the world.

What you learn . . .

Each of the eight courses is eight weeks long, and each packs in a lot of writing, a lot of software, and a lot of learning. The courses introduce you to the technical communication profession, common page and book design, hypertext, HTML, web pages, online helps, technical reports, basic graphics techniques, desktop publishing, user guides, instructions, and more. You get valuable experience with essential software tools such as FrameMaker, RoboHELP, Dreamweaver, and other such applications. To get work as a technical writer, you need items like these on your resume and in your portfolio. The Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program guides you in building an attractive resume and a powerful portfolio that will help you get employment as a technical writer.

Also in the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program, you'll learn how to build a resume especially for technical-writing employment, how to start a portfolio that shows off your work in the key software applications employers are looking for, how to find technical-writing jobs, and how to become an active, responsible member of the profession.

How the courses work . . .

In each course, you have a plan of study and projects mapped out for you: you do readings from textbooks or the Web as well as exercises and quizzes to test your learning, and write several projects that your instructor reviews and comments on. Based on your instructor's comments, you then revise and have your instructor review again. See an example of instructors' comment style.

The Brooklyn College technical-writing courses are not for traditional academic credit. They are continuing-education courses. If you are interested in online technical-writing courses for academic credit, see Austin Community College Technical Communications Program.

To explore the field of technical writing (also called technical communication), visit these sites:

• TECHWR-L. The Internet-based community and resource for technical communicators worldwide. The TECHWR-L discussion list has more than 3,000 direct subscribers and an estimated daily readership of more than 10,000 people worldwide.


• Society for Technical Communication. An individual membership organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication. It is the largest organization of its type in the world. Its 14,000 members include technical writers and editors, content developers, documentation specialists, technical illustrators, instructional designers, academics, information architects, usability and human factors professionals, visual designers, Web designers and developers, and translators - anyone whose work makes technical information available to those who need it


• EServer TC Library. A free, open access index for professional, scientific and technical communicators (such as technical writers).

You can see detailed descriptions of the courses, even the syllabi for the courses (but without the links to the actual study units).

Here are some links to sample units:

Screen capturing
Cropping and sizing graphics
Creating tables in FrameMaker
Developing indexes
Help modeling project

• Portfolio of Eric Olson
• Portfolio of Uta Lange
• Portfolio of Katherine Mueller
• Portfolio of Glenn Popson
• Portfolio of Michael Skaist
• Portfolio of Karen Graziano
• Portfolio of Mitch Feldhandler
• Portfolio of Mark Rudden
• Portfolio of Yvonne Borman
• Portfolio of Catherine Waterman

Here are the specifics:

• Each of the eight courses lasts eight weeks.


• Each course costs $355.00; there is only a one-time $20.00 fee for registration per semester (not per course).


• If you pay for the entire program at once, tuition is $2840.00 and a one-time fee of $20.00.


• When you complete the entire program, there is a $25.00 certificate fee.


• Certificates are not provided when you complete individual courses. Brooklyn College will send a letter confirming your completion of an individual course at your request.


• We recommend that you take the eight courses in order, back to back, with seven days between courses. (You can request more time between courses.)


• You can take more than one course at a time (but we strongly advise not to take TW103, TW104, or TW105 concurrently with anything else).


• You can start a course you've paid for seven days after Brooklyn College receives your payment, or you can request a later start date.


• Please be aware that Brooklyn College will not refund tuition payments.

Required and recommended books are listed in the course syllabi.

One of the big problems in getting your technical-writing career going is the expense of the software. Employers will have licenses for the software they want you to use, but in the meantime you've got to get access to that software on your own. Here are some of the costs as of June 2007 (but keep reading . . .):

* Recommended but not required; other options can be used.

There are several ways to get around some of these costs:

• Read the detailed descriptions carefully: some courses may allow other software. For example, TW105 Online Helps and RoboHELP now allows you to use Microsoft's HTML Help (currently a free download) instead of eHelp's RoboHELP.


• One obvious way is to find friends or work colleagues who have a license to some of these products. See if you can arrange to use their computer.


• Each software manufacturer has its own policies concerning academic discounts. You may be able fax your fee receipt to the likes of Adobe, Macromedia, or Microsoft and receive a discount.


• Download a trial version. These trial versions typically last 30 days, half the length of courses in the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program — you'll have to work fast!


• Purchase "down-level" versions of the software. For example, as of June 2007, Adobe FrameMaker is at version 7.2. Earlier version 7s and even version 6s may be as low as a third of the cost of a current license. (Be aware that some employers are adamant for experience with the current release.) Here are some links to dealers for discounted, down-level software (found through www.sitemap.com/ --> Computers>Software):



Academic Superstore
Computer Products for Education
BizRate.com
Outpost.com
DealTime
PriceGrabber.com
ShoppingList.com
PriceSCAN
OEM Soft Store

You can register for one course, several courses, or the entire set of eight courses. Your courses start 7 days after Brooklyn College receives your tuition payment. If you sign up for several courses or all of the courses, your courses will be scheduled back to back with 7 days between each one. (You can specify changes to your schedule of courses — for example, you can leave more time between courses or take courses concurrently.)

You can register by credit card by calling Emile DeAntonio at 718-951-4141 or emile@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

Fill out the registration form, tell us a bit about yourself and select the courses you want. Billing information will be included. (You are not obligated to pay for the courses that you select in the registration form.)

Warning: Please be aware that once Brooklyn College has received your tuition payment, that payment cannot be refunded for any reason.

Contact hcexres@io.com for additional information.