This course provides instruction in professional written communication. Students compose formal essays and a variety of technical documents to learn to communicate effectively. Students will focus on reading, interpreting, evaluating, planning, organizing, and composing professional and technical writing as applied in academics, business, and industry.
Prerequisites
Placement into ENGL & 101 or a passing grade of 2.0 in ENGL 099 or ENGL 094
Quarters Offered
Winter,
Spring
Course Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to demonstrate the following knowledge or skills:
- Define technical writing and the properties that differentiate it from other writing;
- Identify the purpose of commonly-used technical documents;
- List what makes technical writing effective in fulfilling its purpose
- Apply proven strategies and techniques to develop the content of technical documents
- Write clear, accurate and concise technical documents
- Locate, extract, comprehend, evaluate, and apply information on the internet
- Use a personal computer for word processing and accessing the internet.
Institutional Outcomes
IO1 Communication: Students will be able to communicate clearly and effectively.
Course Content Outline
- Processes, Instructions and Procedures:
- In this course students will analyze a process to determine the steps necessary to perform it. Students will be asked to write formal and informal instructions as well as simple and more complex instructions. Students will write instructions that effectively enable the reader to perform the procedure.
- In this course students will analyze a process to determine the discrete steps in it, and write a description of a process so that the reader can understand how it is carried out.
- In this course students will analyze a mechanism to determine what it does and how it works, and write a description of a mechanism so that the reader can understand how it works.
- Proposals and Requests
- In this course students will conceive and write a proposal that the reader can evaluate and use as a basis for deciding whether to accept or decline.
- Reports and Investigations
- In this course students will investigate an accident or incident to determine the facts surrounding it by interviewing other students who will play roles simulating the incident, evaluate the facts to conclude the root causes and contributory causes of the incident, formulate recommendations based on the conclusions of the causes to prevent recurrence of the incident, and write a report presenting the foregoing material.
- Resumes, Letters of transmittal, business communications (memoranda and business letters)
- In this course students will develop a resume and letter of transmittal appropriate to their professional field. In this course students will format and write a professional memoranda and a business letter.
Department Guidelines
- Writing Assignments will make up no less than 50% of the overall score.
- Instructors may use tests or quizzes to provide no more than 30% of the overall score.
PO5 should be assessed: Students will be able to solve problems by gathering, interpreting, combining and/or applying information from multiple sources.