Spring, 2000: Monday, 6:30-9:20 p.m., PUM 408.

Instructor: Dr. Leigh Henson

Office: Pummill 4A

Office phone: 836-5399; email: dlh105f@missouristate.edu (as needed, use the phone or memo to follow up on email)

Messages: Department office, 836-5107

Office hours: MWF 10:00-10:45, 12:00-12:45; M 6:00-6:20 p.m.; and by appointment

Computer technology has quickened the pace of document development and shifted more and more creative responsibility to professional/technical writers. With applications for desktop publishing (DTP), graphics, and Web-site/page publishing, writers need to understand how visual elements can serve rhetorical purposes in various kinds of documents. This course both explores the principles of effective verbal text and visual elements and provides experience in applying them with DTP and Web-site/page applications (prior experience helpful but not required).

English 675 will provide you with knowledge and skill needed to develop a variety of materials that use technical information, including data. To make this course as meaningful as possible for diverse students, we will broadly define technical documents as any materials that adapt specialized information to help readers perform tasks or solve problems. Course projects will allow students to work with document types of particular interest (print and electronic media).

The course emphasizes expanding and refining a rhetorical approach to document development that assimilates verbal text and visual elements ranging from rhetorical purpose, document type definition, organization, page design/layout, and typography to the use of such graphic devices as tables, charts, and graphs (data graphics). Our rhetorical approach stresses the need for visual elements to serve informative, instructive, or persuasive purposes and to strengthen verbal text rather than to impress, entertain, or achieve expressive (artistic) effect alone.

Kostelnick, Charles, and David D. Roberts. Designing Visual Language: Strategies for Professional Communicators. NY: Allyn and Bacon, 1998.

Parker, Roger C., and Patrick Berry.  Looking Good in Print, 4th ed. Scottsdale, AZ:  The Coriolis Group, 1998.

Reference

Schriver, Karen A. Dynamics in Document Design. NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997.

Technical Communication Quarterly 5.1 (Winter, 1996). (special issue on document design)

Other Materials Used in Class

Other readings from the course bibliography

1. To develop a rhetorical approach in the critique, makeover, and creation of documents using technical information

2. To consider process and product perspectives in designing documents using technical information

3. To recognize a range of document types using technical information

4. To understand the role of rhetorical/design conventions (common features of a certain document type), templates (examples of design/layout), and boilerplate (typical examples of documents)

5. To determine an appropriate rhetorical purpose, organization, document type, format definition, page layout, typography, and other visual elements such as data graphics

6. To consider the role of communicative context, including business objectives, constraints, and "corporate culture"

7. To apply effective strategies of audience analysis (including usability studies) in design decisions

8. To consider the problem of ethical dilemmas in design decisions

9. To define the rhetorical purpose of a particular document

10. To combine verbal text and visual elements to achieve clarity in purpose, content, organization, and style

11. To create appropriate data graphics and use them to support rhetorical purpose and verbal text

1. To expand and refine skill in using computer technology for design, e.g., advanced word processing with DTP and Web publishing capability

2. To use software to create data graphics

3. To use a scanner

4. To gain experience with leading software applications, including FrameMaker and FrontPage

5. To consider the ways in which computer technology helps or hinders the design process and product

6. To use computer technology for research

1. To become familiar with the professional literature of designing technical documents

2. To evaluate and apply published information toward the preceding objectives for design and technology

3. To consider the use of original research (e.g., interviews, surveys, observations, document analysis) as a basis for design decisions (data-based design)

Projects  (Projects 1-5 must be completed for a student to qualify for a passing grade in the course.)

1.  100 pointsCResume with a cover memo (1-2 pages) to describe and explain the content, organization, page design/layout, and typography. Use of FrameMaker.

2.  200 pointsCMakeover of a printed document (verbal and visual components) using FrameMaker. Cover memo (2-page minimum) to identify revisions and reasons for them.

3.  300 pointsCResearch project (12-15 pages) using conceptual and empirical methods: prepare design guidelines for a particular document type. Determine a document type for research. Obtain and analyze examples of print and electronic versions of that document type. Devise model specifications (design guide) based on evaluation of features in the examples and use of selected academic and practitioner literature. Use and document at least six sources from the ATTW Annual Bibliography. Use MLA style.  

4.  300 pointsCCreative project: a Web published professional page, including portfolio. Cover memo (2-3 page minimum) to explain design process and product.  

5.  100 pointsCFinal exam: a critique of a document to be announced. Students are expected to judge all design elements and to support their judgments using principles and practices covered in the course.

6.  130 points. Class participation. Beginning with the second week of classes, students will receive 10 points per class for participation in 13 consecutive class periods. Participation is defined as asking and answering questions and otherwise discussing class business. Your participation in the final phase of a class period will be devoted to progress reports, Internet research, collaboration, and individualized instruction for work in progress; and you are expected to remain for the entire class period in order to receive credit for participation. No makeup credit is possible since class periods cannot be repeated. 

Procedures

The course reflects how computer technology and downsizing compel individuals to perform multiple tasks: planning, researching, designing, writing, editing, and preparing camera-ready and Web-ready copy. Thus, the course stresses individual rather than group work. Regardless, individuals need to consult with the teacher and peers to achieve the best results. Some class time will be devoted to peer review and individual instruction.

Deadlines are important in business, industry, government, and English 675. Projects are expected at 6:30 p.m. on their due dates unless otherwise announced. Ten points will be deducted for the first late day and five points off for every other late day (not counting weekends or holidays). All written projects require an oral report to the class to avoid a 50-point penalty.

All projects should be prepared with DTP technology and should apply design principles insofar as possible. Do not use gender-specific language. Grading follows this scale: 100-90=A, 89-80=B, 79-70=C, 69-60=D, 59 and below=F.

Missouri State is a community that fosters respect for diversity, emphasizing the dignity and equality common to all individual faculty, staff, and students. The University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, or veteran status in employment or in any of its other programs and activities. Missouri State is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer.

A grievance procedure incorporating due process is available to any person who believes he or she has been discriminated against. Inquiries should be directed to Dr. Melissa Manning, Affirmative Action Officer, Office of Human Resources, Missouri State, Carrington 128, 901 S. National Ave., Springfield, MO 65804. Phone: 836-4252.

The instructor in this course strongly supports the University's nondiscrimination policy.

Missouri State is committed to making reasonable accommodations in policies, practices, or procedures necessary to ensure that no individual with a disability is excluded, denied services, segregated, or otherwise treated differently from other individuals in the University community. The instructor in this course strongly supports the University's disability accommodation policy and will make reasonable accommodations for any student with a physical or documented learning disability in order to facilitate the student's learning and performance. Students requiring an accommodation should contact the instructor during the first week of class, and they are encouraged to use the Learning Diagnostic Clinic and the Office of Disability Support Services.

If you have any disabilities that need special consideration, please let me know so we can work on how to provide for your needs.