Theories, principles, and processes of effective written communication in the technical disciplines. Attention to the major strategies for composing technical discourse; techniques of analyzing audiences and writing situations, and for organizing data and information.

2003-2005 Catalog

I feel that description is rather vague and confusing... Essentially what I want you to learn from this class is how to write for the career you will have when you graduate. The assignments we develop in this class will be opportunities for you to demonstrate and practice clear, complete, and concise writing that you will be doing (or possibly have done already) in the workplace.

The Assignments for this class are incredibly flexible. If you think of an alternative or variation to an assignment I have listed for class, discuss this with me so we can tailor this class to your interests. As long as the alternative assignment demonstrates the types of writing you need to practice for your career, I will most likely approve the idea, and I will be very interested to see such innovation in your assignments.

• Meeting Times / Places
• Instructor
• Required Textbooks

Scope of English 314
The writing in this class will develop your abilities in the following writing / speaking concepts:

• Professionalism
• Relating to non-technical audiences
• Clarity of expression
• Completeness of expression
• Conciseness
• Aesthetic appeal
• Diplomacy
• Persuasion

What English 314 is Not
Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation—These will not be taught in this class. These are prerequisites for the course, so you should already know this. Despite not being taught in this class, they are important, and you will be graded on your correctness.

Creative Writing—Colorful, flowery, narrative, and conversational writing are unprofessional in technical writing; these styles do not fulfill the goals of this class. If you enjoy story writing or want to practice more imaginative writing, there are numerous creative-writing courses you can take (descriptions available in the ISU Course Catalog):

• English 304 - Fiction
• English 305 - Nonfiction
• English 306 - Poetry
• English 307 - Writing Young Adult Fiction
• English 315 - Screenplays
• English 316 - Playwriting
• English 330 - Science Fiction

Grant and Proposal Writing—We will only briefly discuss proposal writing, as there is an entire other course devoted to proposal writing that discusses it in depth. If this is a type of writing you feel would most benefit you in your career, I recommend you take English 309 - Report and Proposal Writing.

Formulaic—Most of all, no writing is formulaic. For example, while grammar, spelling, and punctuation have concrete rules that govern their use, instructions themselves can be presented in many different formats; highly-technical information can be related to an audience in various different ways; different proposals will use different methods of persuasion. There is no one correct method of constructing any genre of writing.