Technical Writing__________________spring 2016

Dr. Caroline Dadas

Office: 315 Dickson
Office hours: Whenever you need them; email for an
appointment
Email: dadasc@mail.montclair.edu
English department webpage: www.english.montclair.edu
Course blog: http://technicalwritingmontclair.wordpress.com
course description:
Technical Writing will introduce you to the rhetorical principles and
professional practices of technical writing. During the course of the
semester, you will
Develop the critical thinking skills needed to identify and address
a variety of rhetorical problems
Conduct methodologically sound research in the service of
creating compelling written products
Create documents that demonstrate an understanding of
common technical writing genres such as user documentation,
proposals, reports, and websites
Become adept at working in collaborative environments by
drafting, editing, designing, and revising documents with others
Gain familiarity with a variety of software tools used for word
processing, Web design, and data visualization
Through these objectives, the course will prepare you to be a flexible,
technologically adept, ethically responsible, and rhetorically savvy
writer.
texts:
Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart Selber, eds. Central Works in
Technical Communication.
We will also read excerpts from other texts, which will be posted on our
course blog.
late work:
Due dates will not be negotiated. I do not accept late work. In case of
emergency, please contact me immediately.

plagiarism:
You are expected to read the universitys academic integrity policy as
published in the MSU Handbook, pages 11-12, prior to submitting your
first written assignment. All use of words and ideas of others, without
attribution, is plagiarism. A general rule: if you are ever in doubt about
having plagiarized, ask.
attendance:
Expected. You may be absent three times during the semester with no
questions asked. I am not interested in distinctions between excused
and unexcused absences. Beyond three absences, your final grade will
drop a third of a letter grade for each absence (including illnesses).
Once you reach six absences, you will be dropped from the class. Set
aside available absences in case of emergencyplease dont ask to
negotiate this policy. You are responsible for meeting all paper due
dates, even if you are absent. Please make every effort to be here on
time. Three late arrivals will count as an absence.
accommodations:
Students with a documented disability will receive the appropriate
accommodations. If you need accommodations to participate fully in
this class, please visit the Disability Resource Center (DRC) to receive a
letter for me requesting documentation. All requests must be approved
by the DRC.
Center for Writing Excellence:
This resource is available to students who are committed to developing
and improving as writers. Sessions with experienced writing
consultants are designed to provide you with help on every aspect of
the writing process. The CWE is located in Sprague Library, first floor,
in the far right corner of the Reference area. For more information, go
to http://www.montclair.edu/cwe
cell phones:
Please silence/turn off your cell phone prior to class. I will do the same.
Refrain from texting or emailing during our time together. Doing so is
not only a distraction to me, but also to your classmates. If you engage
in this type of behavior, it will affect your participation grade.
laptops:

I am a proponent of laptops in the classroomfeel free to bring yours

to any or all of our sessions. That said, I ask that you refrain from
checking your email, using Facebook, or engaging in any other off-topic
behaviors during class.
participation/good citizenship:
The success of this class will largely depend on your willingness to
engage with each other in a variety of settings (online, large group
conversations, small group discussions). I expect you to devote your
full attention to whoever is speaking. All forms of racism, ageism,
sexism, elitism, and homophobia will not be tolerated.
required format for all formal papers:
typed, double-spaced
black ink
12 point font
1 inch margins
MLA format
grading:
A 100-94%
A- 93-90%
B+ 89-87%

B 86-84%
B- 83-80%
C+ 79-77%

C 76-74%
C- 73-70%
D+ 69-67%

Assignments are weighted as follows:

Proposal Recommendation: 15%
Feasibility Study: 20%
Data Visualization: 25% [data: 5%; visualization: 10%; report:
10%]
Online Documentation: 30% [usability report: 10%;
documentation: 20%]
Reading Journal: 10%
course blog:
Here you will find the details of your assignments and an updated
schedule. This syllabus is merely a loose framework for the semester;
more detailed instructions will appear as the semester continues. It is
your responsibility to check the blog regularly.

reading journal:
As a way of responding to the readings for this course, I ask that you
keep a reading journal. The benefits are: (1) it gives you the
opportunity to think in writing about the reading that you do for class
and your reactions to it (2) it prepares you to confidently participate in
class discussion and (3) it allows you to share your active reading
processes and ideas with me and the rest of the class. Each entry
should be 300 words. Your posts need not be as formal as an academic
essay, but do devote time and thought to your entries. You may write a
journal for any class period, but you must complete four during the
course of the semester. I will respond to these posts periodically, but
will not comment on each one. Be careful that you pay close
attention to the schedulesome weeks (especially later in the
semester) do not have any reading assigned.
In response to the reading for that day, your notes might:
Briefly summarize the text. If you had to boil down its argument
for someone else, what would you say?
Identify points of connection between this reading and prior class
readings. What do all of these texts say about the study/practice
of technical writing?
What questions do you have about the reading? What doesnt
make sense?
How does this reading relate to a current writing project that
were working on? A past one?
You should not address all of these bullets each timechoose the
approaches that seem most appropriate for that week.
You will keep your journals in a Google Drive folder labeled reading
journal. For each journal entry, create a new document and label it
Entry #1, etc.
disclaimer:
The syllabus is subject to change at my discretion in order to best
respond to your needs as they evolve throughout the course. I will
inform you of any changes in class and make adjustments as needed.

Date

Due in Class

In-class activities
and topics

Thursday, January
21

N/A

Introductions to
the course and
each other

Monday, January
25

David Dobrin,
Whats Technical
about Technical
Writing?
Bring in three
different recipes for
the same dish
(something general
like chicken pot pie)

Effective
instructions
Characteristics of
writing for
technical
purposes

Thursday, January
28

Carolyn Miller, A
Humanistic
Rationale for
Technical Writing

File management
with Google Drive

Monday, February
1

Johndan JohnsonEilola, Relocating

the Value of Work
Read project one:
Proposal
Recommendation

Assign Proposal
Recommendation
project
Review need,
goals, approach,
cost, and impact
for proposal

Thursday,
February 4

Carolyn Rude: The

Report for DecisionMaking: Genre and
Inquiry

Formats for
reports

Monday, February
8

Robert Johnson,
Audience Involved:
Toward a
Participatory Model
of Writing

Meeting your
audience(s)
needs

Thursday,
February 11

Bring in a rough
draft of your report

Peer review of
reports

Monday, February
15

Submit a revised
draft of your report
in your Drive rough
drafts folder; title it
Proposal
Recommendation
rough draft
Bring a copy of your
draft to class

Concision
exercises

Stephen Doheny-

Research

Thursday,

Farina, Writing in
an Emerging
Organization: An
Ethnographic
Study

February 18

techniques

Monday, February
22

Final draft of report

due in your Drive
final drafts folder;
title it Proposal
Recommendation
final draft

Preparing for the

feasibility study:
brainstorming
issues for
improvement
around MSU

Thursday,
February 25

Nancy Allen et al,

What Experienced
Collaborators say
about Collaborative
Writing
Read about
feasibility reports

Assign feasibility
study
Assemble groups
and begin
working on
proposal

Monday, February
29

Proposal for
feasibility study
due; label
feasibility study
proposal and place
in your final drafts
folder

Work period:
dividing work and
making a
timeline

Thursday, March 3

Work on project

Work period
Conferences with
me

Monday, March 7

Spring break

Monday, March 14

Rough draft of
feasibility study due
in Drive; label
Feasibility Study
rough draft

Making visual
arguments

Thursday, March
17

Work on project

Playing with
visualization
software Gephi

Monday, March 20

Final draft of
feasibility study due
in Drive; label
Feasibility Study
Final Draft

Practicing
visualizations

Thursday, March
24

Come to class with

three ideas for
concepts that youd
like to visualize
Stephen Bernhardt,
The Shape of Text
to Come: The
Texture of Print on
Screen

Assign
visualization
project

Monday, March 28

Bring your data set

for visualization
project to class

Working with
large sets of data

Thursday, March
31

Bring your
visualization to
class

Peer review and

analysis of
visualizations

Monday, April 4

James Paradis, Text

and Action: The
Operators Manual
in Context and in
Court

Writing /
designing for the
screen

Thursday, April 7

Work on
visualization

No class

Monday, April 11

Visualizations due in
Drive folder. Label
Visualization final
draft

Assign Online
Documentation
project
Tutorial on
Wordpress

Bring in a set of
online
instructions/docume
ntation that you
think are effective
Proposal for your
online
documentation
project (Label it
online
documentation
project proposal in
Drive).

Criteria for
effective
instructions

Rough draft of
documentation due
to Drive rough draft
folder; label
Documentation
rough draft
Bring in draft of
documentation

Peer review of
documentation

Thursday, April 14

Monday, April 18

Thursday, April 21

Bring in rough draft

of your website

Peer review of
website

Monday, April 25

Conduct your
usability test by
today
Bring in your notes
from the usability
test

Making revisions
based on
usability findings

Bring in rough draft

of your usability
report

Peer review
usability report

Work on final
project

Course wrap-up

Thursday, April 28

Monday, May 2

https://frontify.com/styleguide
Feasibility:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professional_and_Technical_Writi
ng/Feasibility

Data Visualization
Increasingly, audiences expect information to be represented in a
visually-compelling way. While we are all familiar with visualizations
such as bar graphs, pie graphs, and line graphs, new software can
enable more sophisticated representations of information. Additionally,
we are now able to analyze larger and larger data sets.
For this project, you will need to (1) identify a problem (2) find a
(relatively) large data set that can speak to the problem (3) figure out
how to best represent that data set visually (4) analyze the findings
from your visualization.
Objectives:
To research how data might help audiences address a problem
To understand how to best manage and represent data
To learn data visualization software such as Gephi
To be able to articulate what a visualization shows and does not
show
Your initial step will be to identify a problem. You can keep this problem
limited to a small scale. For example, lets say you want to know what
the most important issues are for your friends as they prepare to vote
in the 2016 presidential election. You also want to track how those
issues differ depending on whether they identify as Democrat,
Republican, or Independent.
You might gather data based on a simple survey (Survey Monkey is an
easy option). Then, use Gephi to plot that information visually. Once
you have your visualization compiled, analyze it and identify what
helpful information it provides you, as well as what information is still
needed.

Your final product will consist of:

(1) Your raw research datathis will vary depending on what your
project is; for some it will be survey responses, for others it
might be statistics that you looked up online. Regardless, I need
to see evidence of the data you used to create your
visualization.
(2) Your visualization. I recommend Gephi, but feel free to use any
software that you find useful.
(3) Your short (3-4 page) report that will describe the problem, how
you found the data, why you chose to visualize it the way you
did, and what we can learn from this data. Finally, mention what
is left out of this data that still might be useful to learn.
We will practice visualizing data in class.
For some big data examples, take a look at this website:
http://flowingdata.com/2015/12/22/10-best-data-visualization-projectsof-2015/
Online Documentation
Technical writers are often tasked with explaining a process to a
particular audience. For this assignment, you will plan, propose, create,
and test effective online documentation or user assistance materials
for a specific audiences
You will first identify the online process/product that you want to
explain. Then, decide on a particular audience who would be interested
in this online product/process (you might think in terms of age,
profession, advanced/beginner, etc.). You will compile a set of user
documentation that must include visuals/graphics. You will create a
small-scale website that will include this documentation. Finally, you
will write a two page usability report that discusses the changes you
made after your usability testing, and why.
Objectives:

Explain a technical process in clear, easy-to-follow prose

Incorporate visuals in a way that help explain complicated
processes
Shape your documentation to a specific audience
Incorporate effective Web design
Conduct usability testing and make changes based on that
process

To begin, decide on an online process/product that you will explain to

someone who has never used it before. For example, recall that I
distributed instructions for how to use Google Drive. Think about what
other online processes/programs that you know, and decide how you
might explain that process/program to someone else. After you write a
rough draft of this documentation, you will need to organize it into a
website.
To test the effectiveness of the website, you will conduct usability
testing: meet in person with someone who fits into your target
audience group, and watch the person follow the documentation as
s/he tries to complete the process you are describing. (This should be
someone who is not already familiar with the process/product). Based
on how this person reacts, you should make revisions to your
documentation.
Your final product will consist of:
(1) An online set of user documentation for an online
process/product that includes images, screenshots, or graphics.
You will create a small-scale website to house this
documentation.
(2) A 2-page usability report that identifies who your user is and how
s/he fits your target audience; summarizes how the person was
able to follow your initial draft in completing the task; details the
changes that you made to the documentation after the usability
testing

Proposal Recommendation
For this assignment, you will be asked to read, evaluate, and write a
recommendation report for the Heathcot-Ann Foundation. As the case
study details, your job will require you to examine sample proposals
(included in the .pdf) and to provide a recommendation based on the
Foundations criteria. You can recommend one proposal or more.
Regardless of your choice, you will want to rationalize how much
money should go to which application.
You will write a 2-3 page report evaluating each proposal (refer to
figures 4.2-4.5 in the case study), including a recommendation based
on the Foundations established criteria. Note that you do not need to
evaluate the winning proposal sample (also included in the .pdf
handout). However, you can use this sample as a point of reference
with other proposals.
Objectives:
Apply specific criteria in order to evaluate professional
documents
Write a persuasive recommendation that meets your readers
goals
Demonstrate the ability to support your claims with specific
evidence
Your report should include (1) short evaluations (about one to two
paragraphs long) for each proposal. These evaluations should provide
enough context so that your reader will understand your rationale, but
it should not dominate the proposal; your own rationale and
recommendation should make up most of the report. You can assume
that your readers at the Foundation have not reviewed these
applications yet. (2) A well-supported recommendation, using quotes
and paraphrasing from the proposals.
While we will go over the conventions of a report, it is important to
keep in mind that formatting and organization are related to the
purpose and audience; therefore, there are multiple right ways of
organizing and formatting your project.

Feasibility Study
A feasibility study is a way to evaluate the desirability of a project.
Before a company invests time and money into a project, they need to
know how successful the project will be before investing. Sometimes
companies want to understand input costs, the amount of research
that will need to be done, or even the marketability of a project.
Companies also like to know if they put time into research and go
through with their change or promotion of a product, how the public
will react to the change. The purpose of a feasibility study is to provide
a company with information about whether should pursue this course
of action.
Objectives:
Research the specific needs of your audience and tailor the
components of your report to those needs.
Organize a large body of information into a highly structured
technical report with a coherent argument.
Learn strategies for managing complex document production
(multiple documents related to the same task).
Gain experience collaborating with team members on a project
that will be judged on its own merits, not those of any individual
team member.
Instead of focusing on a company, you will be focusing on Montclair
State. Your task is to, with the rest of your group (1) Decide on a
potential improvement project that MSU could undergo (i.e. a new
student union, increased parking facilities, etc.) (2) Conduct research
on this topic (gather survey data, research surrounding universities,
etc.) (3) Collaboratively write a 10-12 page feasibility report directed to
President Cole.
As detailed in the linked article, the report will entail:
Executive summary
Introduction
Criteria/constraints
Method
Overview of alternative options
Evaluation
Conclusion
Recommendation
While feasibility reports tend to focus in detail on cost, you dont need
to include specific figuresbut dont ignore the issue of cost
altogether.

Your final product will be graded as a single grade for all group
members, so it is in your best interest to read drafts of the *entire*
report and suggest revisions if needed.