This course examines how verbal, visual, and multimedia content can be designed and combined to create meaning, improve comprehension, and make information more usable. Emphasis is placed on the rhetorical roles of visual elements in print and digital communications, and how technical communicators can use visual means to reach audiences, convey information, and achieve rhetorical goals. Students read and discuss theory, practice information design skills, and apply both to real communications projects suitable for inclusion in a professional portfolio. Projects focus on print and web content design and development; the information design process (plan, design, develop, layout, testing); project planning toward deliverables (web sites, signage, wayfinding); and universal design (color, symbols, etc.)

This course prepares students to navigate the increasingly global nature of communication and the challenges and opportunities it presents. Students learn how to develop content for and work with clients and colleagues from other cultures, communicate with multicultural audiences, and collaborate in virtual global teams using multiple synchronous and asynchronous technologies. The course includes work with peers and international scholars from various parts of the world. Projects include a metaphorical comparative analysis of cultures; management (global virtual team work) of a translation project with students from another country; interviews with managers/employees in multinational corporations; and curation work with an international archive on emerging technologies.

This advanced-level Writing Studies course introduces students to the activities, responsibilities, challenges, and opportunities that characterize proposals for nonprofits and/or research/business. Students analyze unique proposal writing situations, including audiences (customers, reviewers, and teammates) and resources (collaborators, templates, and time). Students practice the entire process of proposal and grant writing: 1) describing the problem in context; 2) identifying sponsors and finding a match; 3) designing, writing, revising, and completing all proposal components; 4) conceptualizing and using persuasive visual elements; and 5) presenting and responding to stakeholders and sponsors.

Usability is concerned with how people interact with design and technology; usability is commonly known as the "ease of use" of products and technologies by a range of users. This course emphasizes usability and user research and will explore the intersection of usability and technical communication. We will investigate definitions of usability and user-centered design principles, and we will explore a variety of usability research methods including heuristic evaluation, personas, and usability testing. The course will focus heavily on usability testing of web sites, a common technical communication task that involves observation and interviews of human participants interacting with a web site.

In this course, students learn strategies for editing and revising writing for technical and non-technical audiences. Students practice three levels of editing skills: proofreading, copyediting, and comprehensive editing. Strategies include advanced grammar and style, editing tools, quantitative data, global documents, and various style guides. Students also examine an editor?s role with authors, in organizations, in global contexts, and in ethical situations. Editing projects focus on the three levels of editing, using proficient methods, collaborating between authors and editors, identifying audience and contexts, editing documents according to style guides, and using rhetorical principles to analyze and edit final documents.

This course explores current and emerging digital writing technologies and teaches students to assess writing situations and make appropriate decisions about digital form, production, and scholarship. Students learn the basic building blocks of writing in Internet environments (text, sound, images, video, interactivity); the vocabularies, functionalities, and organizing structures of Web 2.0 environments and how each impacts understanding and use of information; and how to produce Web 2.0 environments (i.e., multimedia internet documents) that facilitate interactivity and use. This course includes design projects and practice with apps, markup language (html and xml), and content management systems.

This course explores the theories and practices of rhetoric and writing in science, medicine, and health (SMH). Students learn about genres of SMH communication including regulatory documents from the FDA, podcasts created by scientists for the public, patient blogs, and published research articles. The course also engages topics including accessibility, writing in regulated environments, writing for complex audiences, and engaging biomedical and scientific research in writing. Students are challenged to consider how language, science, biomedicine, and health intersect and how different stakeholders such as patients, healthcare providers, scientists, government officials, and insurance companies engage in SMH communication.

This course is designed to provide a class structure to assist graduate students in completing writing requirements and oral presentations associated with professional projects -- research, scientific writing, and associated reports -- as part of their graduate programs. Learning outcomes include the following: to foster advanced skills in writing and editing scientific and/or technical documents for various audiences; to design and develop research reports and related documents for graduate programs in scientific and technical communication and other technical disciplines; to understand and apply theoretical and research perspectives in scientific and technical communication to professional practice projects; to expand use of online tools for project development and management and data analysis; to enhance skills in oral presentation of scientific and/or technical research information; and to identify and reflect on the culture and value of professional practice from a disciplinary perspective.