WRTG 3030: WRITING ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

A pilot for a course soon to be known as

WRTG 3035: TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION AND DESIGN

Spring Semester 2005

Dr. Rolf Norgaard

WRTG 3030, Section 804, MW 3:00-4:15, EKLC E1B50

WRTG 3030, Section 805, MW 4:15-5:45, MUEN E064

Course Office Hours and Contact Information:

T R 9:30-11:00 a.m. and by appointment

Environmental Design Building (ENVD), lower level, enter at NW corner, Room 1B64

Mailbox in ENVD, lobby area

Office phone / voice mail: 303-492-3605

E-mail: (M-F)

Home phone: 303-447-9521 (only if pressing)

Course Overview and Objectives

Welcome! “Technical Communication and Design” is a rhetorically informed introduction to technical writing that hones communication skills in the context of technical design activities. We’ll be treating design as a collaborative, user-oriented, problem-based activity, and technical communication as a rhetorically informed and persuasive design art. Taught as a writing workshop emphasizing critical thinking, revision, and oral presentation skills, the course focuses on client-driven design projects and effective communication with multiple stakeholders.

The course is intended for juniors and seniors in the College of Engineering, in science-related degree programs in the College of Arts and Sciences, in Architecture and Planning, and in the Technology, Arts, and Media (TAM) certificate program. The course draws on broad rhetorical principles for cogent writing and speaking, and applies them to concrete projects, often client-driven, to you help you meet the demands of communicating in your field and in the work environments of organizations.

As in any writing endeavor, effective technical and professional communication grows out of sound, incisive critical thinking. For the professional, such thinking must be grounded in an understanding of not only the immediate rhetorical situation as it is driven by the work environment and the needs of clients, but also the professional and societal contexts that shape the field. As writers analyze issues within this interplay of contexts, they learn to exercise their abilities and responsibilities as individuals within the profession, and more broadly as citizens within a community.

This course is based on a number of “first principles” that help to define and orient our work together. Ours is a course that:

  • Uses functional design and client-driven functional design projects as an occasion for learning about and applying rhetorical principles and strategies.
  • Applies your own disciplinary expertise to design problems that are addressed in interdisciplinary teams, thus familiarizing you with team and client communication and the challenges of project management.
  • Familiarizes you with various writing genres and issues in technical and professional communication.
  • Attends to critical-thinking skills and rhetorical principles that you can transfer or adapt from one writing task to the next, and from discipline to discipline.
  • Encourages a sustained focus on revision and design review to hone the analytic and argumentative edge that many forms of technical and professional communication require.
  • Focuses on multiple dimensions of communication: written and oral, formal and interpersonal.
  • Enables you to work collaboratively on communication issues (peer response, collaborative editing, team projects).
  • Respects and challenges students by seeing you as an intellectual resource and part of the course design—in terms of your own writing and speaking, your disciplinary interests, and your role as readers and writers.

With its emphasis on the interface between functional design and technical communication, this course will involve both problem posing and problem solving grounded in user-oriented design issues. You will learn how to discover, evaluate, and define user or functional needs in ways that can help you develop a set of design requirements and then a fuller conceptual design, one that could serve as a foundation for the successful implementation of the design. You will not be writing about and designing artifacts or “things.” Rather, you will be analyzing the goals, needs, and activities of users, and how the tools and environments of those users might be enhanced to better meet those goals.

Whereas other writing courses might ask you to “write about X,” this course will ask you to draw on writing and speaking “to do X.” Writing and speaking tasks function not as isolated assignments but as interlocking activities in a recursive design process—one that connects user needs and problem posing with technical and rhetorical problem solving. Throughout, the course will make use of different kinds of written and oral communication activities (letters, memos, proposals, group collaboration, progress reports, functional design specifications/requirements, oral presentations and design reviews) not as empty forms or isolated tasks but as part of an ongoing design process that is oriented to the needs and exigencies of the audience/user/client. The course thus connects matters of genre in technical and professional writing to intellectual, rhetorical and social activity.

Although there is no formal prerequisite for this 3000-level course, I presume that you already have some facility in writing. The course deals with issues of style, grammar, and organization, not in isolation, but in the context of larger rhetorical and argumentative concerns. Instruction will focus on rhetorically informed strategies relevant to communication needs in engineering, scientific, and design fields. The course will also help you improve your oral-presentation skills and your ability to work collaboratively on communication and design tasks.

Texts and Materials

Working as a writer in college—and as a professional in the workplace—means working together. Writing is a social and collaborative act. The course is taught as an interactive seminar where your own writing and speaking activities and your own disciplinary expertise and design sensibilities serve as essential course materials. To that end, the principal text in the course will be your own writing, and the principal activity will be sharing our work with each other and encouraging each other as we look forward to that next draft and design review. This kind of collaborative discussion of work-in-progress is typical of writing done in organizations. Please have duplicated drafts (typed, double-spaced) ready when due. Drafts are required, but not graded. Please date all drafts. Your participation grade in the course (not to mention the quality of your work) will take a nose dive if you don’t submit and circulate your work on time. If you miss classroom discussion of your work because you do not turn in drafts in advance of class, the quality of your work will almost certainly suffer. I will not accept projects that have not been reviewed on a regular basis over the course of the assignment. "First draft" final versions are unacceptable and will receive an F. Late documents will not be accepted (except under extraordinary circumstances).

Required Texts

Norgaard, Rolf. Ideas in Action: A Guide to Critical Thinking and Writing. New York: HarperCollins/Longman, 1994. (A portion of royalties goes to student scholarship fund.)

Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books, 2002. [A well-known trade paperback that discusses how and why the design of everyday objects does not often meet users’ needs.]

A college-level dictionary of your choice.

Other readings and course materials will be provided in the form of handouts or by electronic means.

Attendance and Participation

As writers, we rely on each other as fellow writers and as readers. For this reason, regular attendance and active participation throughout the semester are crucial to this seminar/writing workshop. Students who are absent will be expected to ask classmates for the information and assignments they missed. Students who miss more than four classes can expect their final grade to be lowered by one fraction of a letter (i.e. A to A-) for each absence after the fourth. Even when excused, more than six absences can result in an IW, IF, or F for the course. Please note this attendance policy. You have, in essence, four “freebies.” Horde them and use them wisely: anticipate that you may feel under the weather one day, or that you may fall madly in love, or that you may need to recover from falling out of love. Class starts at the announced time; tardiness is not acceptable (two late arrivals count as one absence).

Overview of Assignments

In additional to short assignments and class activities, the course involves three modest individual projects and a collaborative team project for a real client that extends throughout much of the semester.

Individual Projects

  • Design analysis project. This project asks you to analyze the design of an everyday artifact in light of how it does or does not meet the needs of users.
  • Analysis of a web/digital environment or human-computer interaction. This project asks you to analyze the functionality and effectiveness of a web site or of a device that calls upon human-computer interaction.
  • Closing project that invites self-reflection about design and writing. You can choose from two options: (1) an analytic essay that considers one aspect of the interrelationship between design and communication, or (2) a proposal for a future design project, relevant to your specific discipline or career, that incorporates the lessons learned during the course.

Team Project for Client

  • A semester-long design project that addresses and speaks to the needs of a real client. Roughly six client projects will be available, with three students forming an interdisciplinary team for each. Clients will identify a specific need or problem that would lend itself to a design task, one that would be appropriate in scope given your skill sets and the time frame of the course. Most clients will be drawn from the campus community. The semester-long design project involves ongoing client communication and culminates in a presentation and a deliverable presented to the client. The project will involve several intermediate phases and multiple oral presentations:

--Activity analysis, user interviews, and needs assessment

--Design requirements and specifications (intermediate design review)

--Conceptual design proposal (final design review, presentation for client)

--Final delivery of project

Ours is a collaborative classroom. A regular and required assignment is that you pick up and read documents to be discussed in advance of the class. You must come to class ready to comment on the work of your colleagues and to share in their inquiry. Student led design reviews and comments on drafts submitted by classmates will be a regular feature of the workshop. These presentations should be prepared in advance of class and should be well organized, cogent, and to the point. In our “workshops” (as elsewhere in life), the Golden Rule applies well. Do unto other writers as you would have them do unto you. Writers want and need more than empty praise. They want an attentive and discerning audience, one that is ready to help improve the writing and thinking.

Various project documents will require considerable thought and attention. Frequent revisions will be necessary. You will be expected to work on these documents throughout the semester, even on days when your draft may not come up for discussion. You cannot pass this course without successfully completing all shorter projects and the final major project. Be sure to date and save all drafts, and to save your work (including various drafts) on computer files. Save a hard copy of every assignment for your files.

This class will use e-mail communication for messages from me, for general discussion, and at times for the circulation of drafts. Please check your university e-mail account (colorado.edu) several times each week as well as on those days when drafts may be circulated. If you use a non-university e-mail account (e.g. hotmail.com, msn.com), be sure to link it to the university e-mail account. Access to on-line library materials requires that you be identified as a university user (colorado.edu). See the University Libraries website for information on setting proxy servers. It is your responsibility to become familiar with sending and receiving attachments using commonly available software (e.g. Microsoft Word), and for pasting text into the body of an e-mail. For assistance on technical computing matters, contact 735-HELP or 5-4357 for the Information Technology Help-Line.

Special Notes

If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services (DS) in a timely manner so that your needs may be addressed. DS determines accommodations based on documented disabilities (303-492-8671, Willard 322,

If you speak English as a second language, you should contact me before the third class meeting so that I can better assist you in the course, advise you about special ESL courses, and/or refer you (if needed or desired) to appropriate services on campus.

This writing seminar provides an opportunity to understand issues of intellectual property and the appropriate use and citation of sources. For a general introduction, see the Student Honor Code at Plagiarism will not be tolerated; the paper will receive an automatic F, and your case reported, consistent with the procedures of the new Student Honor Code. We’ll discuss a good deal more about learning from and using the words of others during the course.

A writing class offers a special opportunity to discuss work in progress in a supportive yet critically demanding “workshop” environment. As you develop drafts and other materials for this course, you should bear in mind that you are “going public” with your work. This act carries with it an obligation for civil discussion and for understanding the concerns of your audience and their interests in your point of view. For information about classroom conduct, see:

Calculation of Grades

Design analysis assignment (individual grade, 15%)

Web/digital environment analysis assignment (individual grade, 15%)

Term Project in three phases, with drafts and oral presentations (team grade, 45% as follows:)

1. Activity analysis (needs assessment) (team, 10%)

2. Functional requirements (intermediate design review) (team, 10%)

3. Conceptual Design presentation (final design review) (team, 15%)

Client communication (letters, proposals, progress reports) and project management (team 10%)

Closing project (analytic essay or future design proposal) (individual grade, 15%)

Rhetorical process, participation, timely submission of drafts, valuable contributions during draft and design reviews, etc. (individual grade, 10%)

WRTG 3030 / 3035:

TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION AND DESIGN

TENTATIVE COURSE SCHEDULE

Due dates are in bold-face. Drafts to be reviewed must be circulated to the class in advance of workshop.

Unit One: Writing and the Arts of Functional Design

Week One

Rhetorical Focus: Writing and Design in Rhetorical Context

M 1/10Course introduction: learning objectives. Getting to know each other. Overview of course assignments and projects and their relation to your professional future.

W 1/12Detailed description of available semester-long projects, design team activities, and the role of client communication.

Reading for the week:

Donald Norman, The Design of Everyday Things. (finish book by W 2/2)

Rolf Norgaard, Ideas in Action (chapt 2: Writing to Form Ideas)

Week Two

Rhetorical Focus: Functionality and Rhetorical Context

M 1/17NO CLASS -- MLK holiday

W 1/19Class activity and discussion on functionality and rhetorical context

Reading for the week:

Donald Norman, continue

Norgaard, chapt 3: Inferring, Analyzing, Arguing

Week Three

Rhetorical Focus: Introduction to Functional Design and the Writing Process

M 1/24The writing process and the needs of the reader/client. Form project teams. Discuss guidelines for initial client contacts and introductory letter to client. Arrange for meeting with clients.

W 1/26Nightline video on IDEO design group; the rhetorical lifecycle of design. Introduction to design analysis assignment (drawing on Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things)

Reading for the week:

Norman, continue

Norgaard, chapt. 4: Points of Departure

Outside-of-class term project activities: meet as a design team; send introductory letter to client, with profiles of design team members.

Unit Two: Users and Readers

Week Four

Rhetorical Focus: Reader-oriented Prose, Audience-oriented Presentations

M 1/31Style workshop: user/reader-oriented approaches to stylistic revision

W 2/2Oral presentations and PowerPoint: understanding audience and the basics of visual rhetoric. Discuss client/user interviews and activity observation guidelines.

Reading for the week:

Norman, finish book

Outside-of-class term project activities: meet with and interview client.

Week Five

Rhetorical Focus: Users, Needs, and Problem-posing

M 2/7Workshop drafts of design analysis assignment. Discuss follow-up client communication: letter regarding your initial understanding of the project: needs/users/constraints/organizational context

W 2/9Workshop drafts of design analysis assignment. Discuss activity analysis phase of the project (user interviews, needs assessment).

Reading for week:

Gopen and Swan, “The Science of Scientific Writing” and other handouts on style

Norgaard, skim chapt 8 on style

Outside-of-class term project activities: send client brief project proposal, setting out your current understanding of the project. Conduct user interviews and an analysis of activities associated with project.

Week Six

Rhetorical Focus: Writing as a Technology; the Design and Circulation of Textual Spaces

M 2/14Workshop drafts of design analysis assignment.

W 2/16Textual organization and the design and navigation of textual space. More on visual rhetoric.

Reading for the week:

Norgaard, chapt. 5: Troubleshooting your Thesis

Outside-of-class term project activities: conduct user interviews and an analysis of activities associated with project.

Unit Three: Activities, Needs, and Rhetorical Invention

Week Seven