Brooklyn College TW101 Technical Writing Fundamentals: Schedule

TW101: Technical Writing Fundamentals
Schedule Page

Although most of the links have been removed, the following course schedule gives you an idea of what we'll cover in this course. (Remember that this is an 8-week course.) When you are ready, return to the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program course listing.

This is your main working page for TW101: Technical Writing Fundamentals in Brooklyn College's Technical Writing Certificate program. Use this page to find out what to name your files, see when projects are due, go to the online textbook and resources for this course. See the syllabus links following the schedule for information about objectives, required and recommended books, grades, and other resources. (Exact units and sequence of units may vary slightly from instructor to instructor and semester to semester.)

On all quizzes, please select Brooklyn College as instructor.

This course starts mmddyy.

Your instructor is instructor_name at instructor_email.

Click the units you've completed and then press Send at the top or bottom of this page. Remember that this tracking chart is for your convenience; the instructor uses other information to determine whether you've done adequate study to pass this course. If you mistakenly mark a unit as completed, contact your instructor (or just wait until you've actually completed it.)

Check	Project (Use these links to see project details.)	Due date	File names/comments	Completed
	Technical communication: overview. Get an overview of the range of documents that technical writers produce—not just for the computer industry but for many other areas as well, and not just for print but for online, audio, and video as well.	mmddyy	Do the readings, and write answers to the questions in a form that gets sent to your instructor.
	Headings. Learn the standard design and style guidelines for one of the most important tools of the technical writer—headings.	mmddyy	Complete the reading, exercises, and quizzes. Contact your instructor if you have questions.
	Lists. Learn the standard guidelines and format for another important technical-writer tool—bulleted, numbered, and other types of lists.	mmddyy	Complete the reading, exercises, and quizzes. Contact your instructor if you have questions.
	Special notices. Learn some common standards and format for warning, cautions, dangers, and notes—specially formatted text that alerts readers to potential problems or special points or exceptions.	mmddyy	Complete the reading, exercises, and quizzes. Contact your instructor if you have questions.
	Writing project 1 — instructions. In a brief set of instructions, test out what you've learned about headings, lists, and notices along with the basics of procedure writing.	mmddyy	Take the online quizzes for this unit. Name the writing project for this unit your_name01a.doc if you use Word; .wpd if you use WordPerfect; and so on. If you revise, change 01a to 01b. Send this project as an e-mail attachment to your instructor.
	Technical writing style. Get some practice simplifying your writing style while maintaining an informative, friendly approach. Also review standard guidelines for numbers, symbols, abbreviations, acronyms, and hyphens.	mmddyy	Complete the reading, exercises, and quizzes. Contact your instructor if you have questions.
	Tables. Learn and practice the basic guidelines for designing tables by critiquing other tables and creating your own from raw data.	mmddyy	Complete the reading, exercises, and quizzes. Contact your instructor if you have questions.
	Graphics. Get a preview of developing, incorporating, and formatting graphics in technical documents.	mmddyy	Complete the reading, exercises, and quizzes. Contact your instructor if you have questions.
	Highlighting. Learn some of the common industry-standard styles for using bold, italics, alternate colors and fonts, and other such typographical effects. Practice applying existing highlighting schemes as well as designing your own.	mmddyy	Complete the reading, exercises, and quizzes. Contact your instructor if you have questions.
	Writing project 2 — instructions 2. In a longer set of instructions, apply what you've learned not only about headings, lists, and notices but also about highlighting, tables, graphics, and technical-writing style.	mmddyy	Take the online quizzes for this unit. Name the writing project for this unit your_name02a.doc if you use Word; .wpd if you use WordPerfect; and so on. If you revise, change 02a to 02b. Send this project as an e-mail attachment to your instructor.
Note: All work in this course must be complete no later than mmddyy.

Syllabus

Objectives

Know and have strategies for writing the range of documents produced by technical writers.
Know and apply the common guidelines and format for headings, lists, special notices, highlighting, tables, and graphics.
Know and apply the basics of writing about procedures.
Apply standard guidelines for headings, lists, notices, highlighting in instructions.
Know and apply the standards of good technical-writing style, including numbers, symbols, abbreviations, acronyms, and hyphens.

Books

The following text is required:

DMC

McMurrey, David A. Power Tools for Technical Communication. ISBN 0-15-506898-9.

The following standard textbooks might be of interest, but are not required:

RAP	Riordan and Pauley. Technical Report Writing Today, Houghton Mifflin, any recent edition will do.
BAO	Alred, Gerald J, Charles T. Brusaw, Walter E. Oliu. Handbook of Technical Writing, St. Martin, any recent edition will do.

Grades

A: All projects completed and approved by your instructor.
B: All projects completed and approved by your instructor except for instructor approval on the second writing project.
C: All projects completed and approved by your instructor, except for the second instructions project.

Contact your instructor concerning credit for projects you have completed but are still not approved by the time the course is over.

Resources

TECHWR-L articles. Lots of articles on all aspects of the field.
Writer Write. Plenty of good articles!
Technical Writing, Help Authoring Tools, Jobs, and More. Good general collection of links and articles.
computerjobs.com: Technical Writer Jobs. Good resource links also.
EServer TC Library. Super collection of links related to all aspects of this field.

Table of contents for the Online Textbook.
Policies for courses in the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate program.
Online Technical Documentation site search facility.

Course Evaluation

Use the course evaluation form to give your opinions on the effectiveness of the study materials and organization of this course. (This evaluation is strictly optional, strictly voluntary.)

Information and programs provided by hcexres@io.com.