http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Graduate A listing of the most recently indexed works about Graduate in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Graduate http://tc.eserver.org/35840.html http://tc.eserver.org/35840.html This article makes a case for why design research is important to contemporary design practice and the deepening of the design disciplines, especially at this point in our history. It identifies the pressures on knowledge generation exerted by the shift from a mechanical, object-centered paradigm for design practice to one characterized by systems that: evolve and behave organically; transfer control from designers to users or participants; emphasize the importance of community; acknowledge media convergence; and require work by interdisciplinary teams to address the complexity of contemporary problems. http://tc.eserver.org/35626.html http://tc.eserver.org/35626.html The problem with choosing a grad school is that it's basically a blind date based on an online dating profile. On paper, the compatibility seems obvious. But reality is often much more complex. And you actually have to work at it. The problem is that your advisor is going to be far less committed to working at the relationship than you as a student are going to want them to be. So there's going to be a lot of accommodation on your part. Again, not always a bad thing. Lots to learn, lots to learn. http://tc.eserver.org/35360.html http://tc.eserver.org/35360.html Reports on the current state of curriculum in 84 Master's programs. Answers questions about program location, degree names, course requirements, internships, and cumulative experiences. Suggests additional research areas to provide more information on how well academic programs are meeting the needs of students and other stakeholders. http://tc.eserver.org/35361.html http://tc.eserver.org/35361.html Provides extensive guidance on applying to Master's and PhD programs for practitioners. Provides tips on applying for current students. Provides tables listing current graduate programs in technical communication, organized by state. http://tc.eserver.org/25288.html http://tc.eserver.org/25288.html The Rocky Mountain Communication Review is a publication for and by students enrolled in communication graduate programs. It is staffed by graduate students nominated from communication programs in the intermountain west. Faculty members from these programs serve on an editorial advisory committee. http://tc.eserver.org/23617.html http://tc.eserver.org/23617.html This course covers the twentieth-century development of methods and practice in rhetorical criticism. We will examine the assumptions, achievements, and limitations of a variety of perspectives (for example, neo-Aristotelian, generic, metaphoric, dramatistic, narrative, feminist, sociological, ideological) and survey their application to a variety of discourses (political, institutional, scientific, legal, educational, religious, and the like) and modes (for example, visual and material, as well as oral and written). We will also consider the relationships between rhetorical criticism and literary and other forms of cultural criticism. http://tc.eserver.org/23595.html http://tc.eserver.org/23595.html Much of the discussion about online education appropriately focuses on pedagogy and technology. Any planning for online education must consider teaching methods and the technology to support them as well as the appropriateness of these methods and technology for the students and course materials. However, administrative decisions also influence the success of the course or degree program. This paper reviews these issues based on the experience of Texas Tech University in five years of offering an online Master of Arts in Technical Communication. Issues include course concept, costs, administrative authority within the university, and student selection and retention. The paper looks briefly at legal issues and at the concern about impersonality in online education. http://tc.eserver.org/23577.html http://tc.eserver.org/23577.html The panelists agree that the primary reason to pursue an advanced degree is professional improvement. There are many graduate programs in technical and/or professional communication with focuses ranging from practical application to theoretical development. Because of individual and program differences, graduate students have different perceptions even within their respective programs. This panel focuses on the perceptions of graduate programs from three panel members perspectives. http://tc.eserver.org/23347.html http://tc.eserver.org/23347.html What can I say about composition that will be useful to the Yale English department in setting up a good writing program? It's clear to me that I won't need to say anything about special teaching methods that are tailor-made for the Yale scene. Yale's admissions policy guarantees that entering freshmen are going to be very diverse in their backgrounds and in their writing skills, and Yale will want to adapt to this diversity by using methods that are flexible and eclectic. Even if Yale did try to create a novel program that could serve as a model for the rest of the nation, it's doubtful that the elements of the program could be new or that the human mind could devise more methods and programs than have already been tried out. The problem will be to choose methods intelligently and to apply them well; and in order to do this, the one thing needful is not machinery but motivation—professorial motivation. http://tc.eserver.org/23346.html http://tc.eserver.org/23346.html Increasingly, graduate programs are reflecting new critical approaches and making provision for their students to acquire skills in areas outside of literature. A number of departments offer alternate tracks, especially at the Master's level, for students interested in high school and community college teaching, in English as a second language, in creative writing, and so on. There are currently about 150 Ph.D. programs in English in this country; and, while it would be a gross exaggeration to say that each is unique, the differences among them are remarkable. http://tc.eserver.org/22811.html http://tc.eserver.org/22811.html This course focuses on articulating rhetorical opportunities present in the visual turn; the role of perceptual processes, time, movement, and memory in the act of seeing; the interanimation of the verbal and the visual in representation; the circumstances of visual culture and art; visual communication in print and on the Web; and identification as a visual/rhetorical process. Is there potential to create critical verbo-visual literacy? The course explores what such definitions of literacy mean for communication, argumentation, persuasion and narration. http://tc.eserver.org/22449.html http://tc.eserver.org/22449.html This presentation will investigate a number of questions involved in re-shaping a program, including: shaping a curriculum that adequately prepares students; creating opportunities to foster PhD candidates' professional development; identifying and capitalizing on our unique program strengths; balancing between theoretical knowledge and applied skills for PhD candidates; maintaining legitimacy in a traditional English department while still teaching applied skills; providing opportunities for intra-disciplinary research; and creating PhD candidates who are excellent teachers, researchers, and practitioners. http://tc.eserver.org/21816.html http://tc.eserver.org/21816.html Discussions concerning the structure of technical communication programs raise a multitude of questions: how do we include both theory and practice? How much theory is appropriate for a program in an applied area? What do our students need and want? How can we meet our students’ needs and ourown academic goals? These questions can become even more intense when they relate to master’s degree programs and the demanding students they attract. We are faced with decisions about what thenature of a master’s program in technical communication should be. http://tc.eserver.org/21815.html http://tc.eserver.org/21815.html Over the past few years, we have been re-thinking the focus and direction of the graduate program in technical and science communication at Drexel University. At the same time, we are also dealing with a disciplinary change, as we have split from our long-time home in the Department of Humanities and Communication and formed a new Department of Culture and Communication with our colleagues from sociology and anthropology. http://tc.eserver.org/20914.html http://tc.eserver.org/20914.html In this course, you will extend your critical and rhetorical skills beyond the classroom and the library into the world of community action and service by working or volunteering at least two hours a week at a local nonprofit community service agency or group (dealing, for example, with homeless outreach, adult literacy, tutoring inner-city children, elder care, AIDS support, drug rehabilitation, domestic violence, environmental issues, or civil rights issues). Up to one hour a week on-site may be used to gather information for assignmen http://tc.eserver.org/20881.html http://tc.eserver.org/20881.html The main objective of this practicum is to encourage your pedagogical, technical, and professional development. http://tc.eserver.org/20744.html http://tc.eserver.org/20744.html Crossroads is a student-run publication of the ACM. http://tc.eserver.org/19802.html http://tc.eserver.org/19802.html Graduate researchers in technical communication help prepare other students for using the National Information Infrastructure, known as the super information highway. Here graduate students report recent research on the importance of logical screen sequences in hypertext, eight types of information to include to make proposals persuasive, and a profile of surveyed university computersupported writing facilities to point out needs such facilities have. http://tc.eserver.org/19668.html http://tc.eserver.org/19668.html You finally applied to that graduate technical communication program, and you got accepted. Congratulations! Now what? Whether you’ve been spending the past several years raising a family or working a full-time job, heading to graduate school after years away from college can be a daunting experience. If you’re ready to return to campus, here are some tips to help you become a successful student and a better technical communicator along the way. http://tc.eserver.org/19530.html http://tc.eserver.org/19530.html This course focuses on two interrelated subjects of importance to the field of professional communication: human factors and structured user research. Class readings, discussions, and projects will provide you with opportunities to build on your existing knowledge about professional communication and how knowledge about human factors and user research can enhance your work. We will examine strategies for user interfaces in a variety of contexts, including both online and print publications. http://tc.eserver.org/19507.html http://tc.eserver.org/19507.html Recounts the experiences of seven professionals entering the field and the ways their perceptions of the profession and roles within it have changed. Explores the variety of roles technical communicators are expected to assume http://tc.eserver.org/19508.html http://tc.eserver.org/19508.html Reports the results of survey research profiling 1995–2000 doctoral graduates in professional, technical, and scientific communication. Explores implications for recent graduates, prospective doctoral students, faculty, and administrators in the field. http://tc.eserver.org/19109.html http://tc.eserver.org/19109.html Although we only used Durst's model as an initial starting point to help us articulate one of the main tensions in our revision process and then basically abandoned it, the final reading list we generated--although not perfect--does reveal a degree of 'reflective instrumentalism.' Students who have seen the new list make positive comments about it because the list manages to bring what seem to be opposite poles--reflection and instrumentalism--into a single reading list that represents the current state of our discipline. Although we seemed during the process have lost sight of our model, our list, though not perfect, does seem to represent reflective instrumentalism. http://tc.eserver.org/19071.html http://tc.eserver.org/19071.html Despite the success of internship components, however, a common complaint from industry professionals still exists: that students still don't know how to write. Part of this complaint could be explained by specific industry practices for which students still need to be trained. Another part could rest in the need for more research about industry contexts. Still another, and probably the most likely, is the perceived differences in academe and industry expectations for theoretical components of curricula. Academics assume that industry professionals seek practical skills dealing with 'correctness' in language (e.g., grammar, spelling, punctuation) at the expense of theory; while industry professionals assume academics seek more conceptual components (e.g., philosophy) at the expense of practice. I think both parties are asking for the same thing: they seek students/employees who can develop an understanding of the how and the why of their work (Miller, 1979); that is, students who possess productive knowledge about a particular craft. In other words, they exemplify a techne (Atwill). In classical rhetoric, techne is associated with the 'knowledge of arts and crafts associated with the making of things' (Johnson, 1998, p. 51). In Technical Communication, one way to think of techne is through genre knowledge, that is, knowing which form suits a particular situation and why. http://tc.eserver.org/19084.html http://tc.eserver.org/19084.html This paper discusses the phenomenon of a sense of timing as a sense of timely design and of timing as active response to unfolding demands as the key elements in making any program effective and durable. Indeed, I claim that timing is everything. Auburn's extended experience developing a new, high-profile Master's degree out of beginnings as a low-profile adjunct to a deeply conservative 'Great Books' English department has shown this clearly. Across the chronological stretch of a decade occupied with paying close attention to program elements, not only was effort required for time-keeping, or chronos, to establish and stabilize program elements, but a strong sense of timing, or kairos was also needed to meet and adjust to shifts in academic, political and industrial climates in and around the program. Rather than following a model or sticking to a set design, our decade of experience in transforming a 'concentration' program primarily serving undergraduates to a fully professional Master's degree has been a decade of improving our sense of timing. http://tc.eserver.org/18922.html http://tc.eserver.org/18922.html This course provides a theoretical and critical overview of communication in cyberspace, such as email, MOOs, Web pages, Usenet newsgroups, e-lists, and other forms of Internet-based communication. Although television and radio have had significant impacts on the rhetorical situations of human discourse, the interactive, simultaneous, global technologies of the Internet are being viewed as an even greater force (some say revolution) in how we communicate with each other. This revolution can be understood from many perspectives, but rhetoric offers a critical lens through which to see the social and cultural implications--particularly the persuasive power and implications for personal privacy-- of this technology. Communication in cyberspace is different from traditional communication in many ways. In rhetorical studies, for example, communication is usually evaluated first by deciding if it is spoken or written and then by considering such communication in terms of the rhetorical canons. Yet online communication blurs the boundaries between oral and written discourse and raises questions about the traditional canons. In addition, interactions in cyberspace raise questions about identity, literacy, gender, community, intellectual property, privacy, commerce, the classroom, and the corporation. An interdisciplinary body of research called Internet Studies has arisen in response to this phenomenon. As a result, this class will analyze Internet discourse using rhetorical and other theory, with an emphasis on the persuasive power of electronic space. We will apply these ways of thinking to discourse taken from the Internet. Students will have an opportunity to publish white papers as part of the Internet Studies Center at the University of Minnesota. http://tc.eserver.org/18889.html http://tc.eserver.org/18889.html This is the first course you need to receive a Masters in Professional Technical Communication at New Jersey Institute of Technology. It provides the foundation and direction for all MSPTC coursework and includes modules on bibliographic research; usability analysis; working in teams; report writing; visual thinking; communicating with new technologies; and technical writing style. http://tc.eserver.org/18890.html http://tc.eserver.org/18890.html The Greek word for persuasion derives from the Greek verb 'to believe' Therefore, we can see that rhetoric may be argumentative but also expository (modes of discourse that seek to win acceptance of information or explanation). This understanding is critical for those of us who seek to accommodate technology or science to a user. http://tc.eserver.org/15012.html http://tc.eserver.org/15012.html Course goals: to prepare you to communicate effectively, ethically, responsibly, and professionally in a workplace environment; to provide you with skills, strategies, and conceptual knowledge to help you address a variety of communication and research tasks related to grant proposal writing; to help you understand the symbiotic relationships among form and content, and audience and purpose; and to give you practice in researching, writing, reviewing, and editing a grant proposal, and to improve your own individual communication and management skills. http://tc.eserver.org/15011.html http://tc.eserver.org/15011.html Course goals: to prepare you to communicate effectively, ethically, responsibly, and professionally in a business environment; to provide you with skills, strategies, and conceptual knowledge to help you address a variety of communication tasks; to help you understand the symbiotic relationships among form and content, and audience and purpose; and to give you practice in collaborating with other professionals in managing and completing group projects, and to improve your own individual communication and management skills. http://tc.eserver.org/14966.html http://tc.eserver.org/14966.html In this course you will build a pedagogical and theoretical foundation for teaching an introductory technical writing course in a community college, university, or industry setting. You will learn by means of extensive readings, writing, collaborative activities, classroom observations, interviews, and conversation ('teacher talk'). http://tc.eserver.org/14877.html http://tc.eserver.org/14877.html An international directory of graduate academic programs in PW, TW and Rhetoric. http://tc.eserver.org/14806.html http://tc.eserver.org/14806.html A list of graduate programs in technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/14571.html http://tc.eserver.org/14571.html This course will teach students to: * investigate various definitions and philosophies of ethics pertinent to the field of technical communication. * examine the nature and scope of ethical dilemmas in technical communication. * determine possible solutions to the ethical problems encountered by technical communicators. * explain the applicability of theories of ethics to the field of technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/14263.html http://tc.eserver.org/14263.html This course will cover how reading theory interacts with a rhetoric of graphics to influence the way that documents are designed for maximum effect on the audience. http://tc.eserver.org/14042.html http://tc.eserver.org/14042.html Technical and professional communication is a growing field, and there is a need for teachers and trainers at all levels (e.g., high school, college, and business/corporate settings). My goal is to prepare you to meet that need. In this course, you'll learn about professional writing and develop strategies to be a more effective teacher of writing through a hands-on apprenticeship and classroom practice. You'll be exposed to several classroom settings, and you'll learn to design and test assignments. In addition, we'll talk about ways to connect strategies for teaching professional writing to strategies in related fields such as composition, corporate training, and instructional design. Finally, we will study the recent history of the field to better understand current issues: the essential ones of audience, purpose, and exigency, as well as document design, ethics, the rhetoric of science and technology, and the relationships among technology, corporate culture, and professional communication. http://tc.eserver.org/13970.html http://tc.eserver.org/13970.html In the mid 1970's, the bleak employment outlook for English Ph.D.'s and the increasing demand for writing teachers, particularly technical writing teachers, lead our department to develop a rhetoric and composition component within our traditional English graduate program. One of the courses developed for the graduate rhetoric program was Analysis of Technical Writing. When it was designed, the course had three goals: (1) to provide study in the rapidly growing area of applied rhetoric; 2) to provide training necessary for English doctoral students to begin teaching a basic course in business and technical writing on the junior or senior college level; and (3) to enhance the employability of these graduate students by preparing them to teach sections of our basic technical writing course while they were completing their graduate work. The department believed that providing interested students an opportunity to gain experience in teaching technical writing would give our graduate students a definite advantage in applying for college teaching positions. http://tc.eserver.org/13906.html http://tc.eserver.org/13906.html This graduate course studies theoretical constructs and issues that inform all technical communication. Inherently a multi-disciplinary activity, tech comm draws on theories from fields as different as rhetoric and science, psychology and philosophy, sociology and linguistics. This term we will focus specifically on rhetoric, on the relationships between author, text and reader, and on philosophies of science and language. The purpose of this seminar is to explore relevant theories in sufficient depth and detail to do justice to their complexity, and, at the same time to examine their applicability to technical communication. Students will be expected to comprehend and challenge these theories on their own terms as well as to understand their value for the interpretation and transfer of technical information. Such understanding is crucial to intelligent decisions in professional practice; it allows the technical communicator to look beyond surface issues and see the essential problems and possible solutions. Theoretical knowledge of the field distinguishes the professional from the practitioner. http://tc.eserver.org/11921.html http://tc.eserver.org/11921.html This graduate course was taught in the Spring 2001 term in the MS program at the University of Washington. The students published four anthologies of papers resulting from their study of information architecture. http://tc.eserver.org/10385.html http://tc.eserver.org/10385.html This article is an update of the article by Rebecca S. Kelly and me in an earlier issue of Technical Communication (Rainey & Kelly 1992). My purpose here is the same as we had then: …we focus on making known the wide variety of doctoral research in professional communication emanating from many academic institutions. Specifically, we look at doctoral research in professional communication with a view to learning what academic institutions sponsor it, what methods researchers employ, and what topics doctoral candidates explore. (553) In this article, I use 'professional communication' to mean technical, scientific, and business communication.) In what follows, I first summarize the findings of this current search and then discuss the method of collecting information. Next, I identify the academic institutions that have doctoral programs in technical, scientific, and business communication, what methodologies the researchers use, and what topics they have researched in the period since 1989. http://tc.eserver.org/10013.html http://tc.eserver.org/10013.html The Orange Journal is a graduate student journal of Technical Communication. It strives to foster critical thinking and discussion on a wide variety of topics and issues important to technical communicators. http://tc.eserver.org/10004.html http://tc.eserver.org/10004.html This graduate course was taught in the Winter 2001 term in the evening MS program at the University of Washington. The students published five anthologies of papers resulting from their study of information architecture.