Writing effective correspondence, instructions, proposals, and informal and formal reports. Students will take on the role of professional technical communicators as they explore the purpose, audience, and genre conventions of technical documents across disciplines. Students will learn about the use of style, content organization, standard document formats, rhetoric, and ethics when preparing technical communication. Assignments may include writing effective correspondence, formal and informal reports, job application materials, and proposals.

In this course, we will examine the broad field of technical editing and explore how it has changed over time. After developing foundational knowledge about the history and practice of technical editing, we will spend the remainder of the semester learning about editing strategies and the function of technical editing in a range of professions. Students will have opportunities to practice technical editing in various contexts and develop an editing portfolio for future professional use. 

This course explores the challenges and opportunities of using AI and augmentation technologies in Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) work and scholarship. Students are tasked with developing processes and workflows that make use of augmentation technologies or AI, modeling ethical and effective use of AI tools and resources, and articulating a research-backed individual position on the use of AI in TPC work and scholarship. The final project for this class is the development of a robust corporate AI policy that responds to the ethical and material concerns of various stakeholders in a specified context.