Professional and Technical Writing

Graduate

Fall This course is an introduction to the theory, research, and practice of professional and technical communication as a discipline. Through readings, discussions, projects, and writing workshops, you will develop a rhetorically-grounded approach to analyzing communications problems and producing a range of effective and situation-specific professional documents. This user-centered approach views professional documents as means to accomplish specific, well-defined purposes: getting funding or support for a project (proposals), supporting managerial decision-making (reports), communicating effectively within organizations (email, correspondence), guiding action (instructional writing), getting a job or internship (resumes and application letters), or making choices among various medical treatments (science writing for general audiences). Because writers need a range of skills that go well beyond the actual inscribing of words on a page, you also gain practice in how to test documents on actual users, edit and revise your own work and that of other writers, and participate in and manage collaborative writing projects. The course features three major writing assignments. Core course for MAPW students. Course Website: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/index.html