Course Description for

Technical Writing: Advanced Workshop

with Elsie Walker

Registration Fee and Course Length

Prerequisites

Standard course: $120 / 4 weeks. Click here to register.

Extended schedule: $150 / 8 weeks. Click here to register.
Extended course is designed for busy people and gives you two weeks to do each lesson but contains NO additional material.

Prerequisite: This workshop is for students who have already taken the course, Technical Writing.

Course Contacts

Course Description

This workshop is for students who have already taken the course, Technical Writing. The goal of the workshop is to help students hone their user guide writing skills while building up their portfolio. One of the things about starting out in technical writing is that you don't have any samples of user guide work to show prospective employers. The case study used in this workshop can be used to that end.

Also, we'll talk about a few extra topics such as style and style-sheets, proofreading, and creating message logs.

This is a workshop rather than a course. Though there will be some readings, the emphasis of the course is on writing and getting feedback from the instructor. As mentioned previously, one of the goals is to give you some material to show to perspective employers.

In addition to reading and writing, students will be encouraged to share information/insights on technical writing (like websites) that they may have run across since taking the initial course. This informaion will be shared with other students. Think of it as the "networking" portion of the course.

Week 1: Our Case Study begins. Students will write a user guide section describing how to sign on to an e-mail system and access mail. Students will use their own e-mail systems as research material. We'll talk briefly about the use of screen displays and review a few concepts from the introductory course.

Week 2: A few short readings will discuss style-sheets, proofreading, documenting revision dates, headers and footers and dealing with proprietary information. The homework assignment for this week will be to create a style-sheet for the guide section written during week one. Also, there will be a proofreading exercise to complete.

Week 3: Style and consistency: This week's lesson will focus on adding a new section to an existing document. The homework is a continuation of the mini-guide started in week one. For the homework assignment, students will be asked to write directions on how to send an e-mail message and read and save incoming mail. They will be expected to follow the style-sheets they created in week two's assignment so that the new section will have the look and feel of the guide piece written in week one.

Week 4: Polishing the Piece: Looking at their mini-e-mail user guide, students will be asked to come up with a systems message log in which they will describe error messages and their resolutions, a glossary, table of contents, etc. In addition they'll use the feedback received in the previous lessons to polish their final project.

Elsie Walker is a technical writer specializing in user guides. This type of technical writer takes information and translates it into easy-to-understand text for the layperson. Elsie has written user guides for Prudential Healthcare and ADP. In addition, she has consulted on a technical writing project for Honeywell International, Inc. She is a past member of the Society For Technical Communication and has been certified in Technical Writing by Brainbench.

Walker puts her public speaking skills to use as instructor of Introduction to Freelance Writing For Magazines and Introduction to Technical Writing at New Jersey's County College of Morris.