#21982
Advanced Content Development for the WWW 
Advanced Content Development for the World Wide Web is a course for people who wish to explore concepts of content development and management in greater depth than is usually possible in an introductory course. This course is designed to give you a chance to analyze and experience creating effective content for the web.
Hart-Davidson, William. Michigan State University (2003). Academic>Courses>Content Management
#18412
Technical writing is a growing and dynamic field. Technical writers work in scientific, medical, and technological contexts, and because of that, need to be both good writers and active learners: they need to learn how to understand technologies and scientific concepts; they need to learn how to analyze and understand work and workplaces; they need to learn to write for and with audiences; and they need to learn how to conduct research.
Grabill, Jeffrey T. Michigan State University (2003). Academic>Courses>Writing>Technical Writing
#18428
There are several facts of contemporary business or technical communication that are now nearly universal: the acts of writing or managing any project occur in group settings; directions from employers are goal-oriented and the responsibility for development is left to a team (usually either external or internal to the assigning agency); organizations possess and frequently reassess corporate personae; and communication occurs with multiple audiences, with varying levels of knowledge. The purpose of this course is to give you practice in all of these skills. In addition, I intend to explore at length an issue far too rarely considered today: the ethical considerations of business and technical communication. For all these reasons, the design and specific requirements of the course are unusually (and, you should note, very intentionally) ambiguous. Given some goal, and composition into small teams of four to five people each, you will design and implement your own instruction in technical writing. Operating under certain requirements, constraints, and limitations, groups will propose, design, test, and recommend a specific solution to a particular need. I will base evaluation upon a percentage that reflects how well the groups (and individuals in them) achieve set criteria.
Maddux, Clark. Michigan State University (2001). Academic>Courses>Writing>Technical Writing
#22278
A PDF document for teachers to revise and adapt for their students. The worksheet helps writers to make audience-based decisions about content, organization, formatting, style, usage, and mechanics.
Zuidema, Leah A. Michigan State University (2003). Presentations>Rhetoric>Audience Analysis
#25481
Blogs and Technical Communication
Blogs are a simple, yet powerful tool and their popularity is rapidly growing. How are blogs affecting the community and technical communication?
Cottrell, Christina. Michigan State University (2003). Articles>Content Management>TC>Blogging
#30731
A Cultural Theory of Everyday Usability: Listening to the Ghosts of Consumption 
Posits that although some usability scholars in technical communication have forged fruitful connections between usability and user-centered design and human-centered interaction (HCI), these alliances have not improved usability studies writ large to the extent that it is able to account for culturally-specific complex information systems and how 'users' should, can, and do shape culturally-relevant information before delivery, from the invention to the arrangement, style, and memory of knowledge systems, structures, performances, and products.
Haas, Angela. Michigan State University (2006). Articles>Usability>Cultural Theory
#25302
The first thing you notice about the classroom is its aural texture—not quite silent, but very quiet—just a staccato, percussive clicking of fingers on keyboards rapidly typing.
Eyman, Douglas. Michigan State University (2005). Articles>Education
#11875
Guide for Writing a Funding Proposal 
This Proposal Guide has been created to provide both instructions on how to write a funding proposal and actual examples of a completed proposal. The Guide is designed as a tool for advanced graduate students and others to learn more about the actual proposal writing process. (This Guide is a companion to the Guide for Writing and Presenting Your Thesis or Dissertation.)
Levine, S. Joseph. Michigan State University (2001). Careers>Business Communication>Proposals
#30792
This course will provide an introductory level approach to professional web authoring. It is ideal for folks with little to no background in CSS, XHTML, Photoshop, iMovie, PHP, Database, TCP/Server experience, and other essential web authoring technologies. We will approach these technologies from both a production and a publication perspective.
Ridolfo, Jim. Michigan State University (2008). Academic>Courses>Web Design
#25989
MGM v. Grokster: Implications for Educators and Writing Teachers
What are the implications of the MGM v. Grokster case for institutions of higher education in general, for research, for rhetoric and writing, and for writing teachers?
Porter, James E. and Martine Courant Rife. Michigan State University (2005). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright
#25301
Moving In from the Periphery: Exploring the Disciplinary Labyrinth
Once you discover or identify work that you can be passionate about, use that as both a driving force and as a method of developing your place within the profession.
Eyman, Douglas. Michigan State University (2004). Articles>TC>Professionalism
#30732
On Material Rhetorics and the Canon of Memoria: Rethinking the History (and Future) of Rhetoric
This presentation looks to the past to explain the present lack of attention given to memory and to imagine a possible future for the canon in contemporary rhetoric with the inclusion of the study of material rhetorics, or a comprehensive inquiry of situated things produced in cultural contexts that investigates both the material dimension in rhetoric and rhetorical dimension in the material. To this end, this essay summarizes noted reasons for memoria's limited study in contemporary rhetoric; revisits classic rhetoric's memoria and mines it for features worth recuperating for contemporary study; introduces material rhetoric and its potential to recuperate memoria in light of these features; and calls for further discussion of material rhetoric, the canon of memory, and the place of both in the study of rhetoric.
Haas, Angela. Michigan State University (2007). Articles>Rhetoric>History>Theory
#30062
The Problem of Ingesting and Delivering Complex Objects from Digital Repositories
The recent emergence of online digital archives has brought educators a major step closer to bringing original, reusable digital objects into undergraduate classrooms. Yet having to search multiple archives through mind-numbing search-and-browse routines can make it extremely difficult for educators to use the repositories successfully in their curriculum. What educators need is a suite of tools that allow them to reduce the search for relevance, expand the metadata with user-specific annotation, and tie the digital libraries' content directly to course materials. The keys to creating these resources are to build distributed networks of users and repositories. Cost containment often severely limits the amount of descriptive metadata that can be catalogued. Students and instructors create topical annotated bibliographies or lists of media clips (or segments of media clips) and 'publish' these for class, work group, or more general use. Allowing teachers and students to annotate and segment media as well as build their own galleries greatly enhance the educational value of digital objects by augmenting the minimal descriptive metadata and facilitating the building of complex digital objects tailored to the needs of specific education standards and curricula. The project uses a METS XML schema that provides an encoding format for administrative, descriptive, and structural metadata that is fully compliant with OAIS, and open source applications to facilitate ingestion and delivery (as well as help to control costs).
Kornbluh, Mark, Jerry Goldman and Dean Rehberger. Michigan State University (2005). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML
#22279
A PDF document intended as a resource for teachers who want help describing the memo to students. This (relatively lengthy) sample memo attempts to make an all-too-familiar document strange again by explaining what it is and how to use it.
Zuidema, Leah A. Michigan State University (2003). Academic>Course Materials>Writing>Technical Writing
#20373
Simplifying and Optimizing HTML Construction
Using relational databases to create HTML.
Adams, David. Michigan State University (1996). Articles>Web Design>Databases
#25295
Students as Builders of Virtual Worlds: Creating a Classroom Intranet
As composition pedagogy has moved from the current-traditional model toward a collaborative process-oriented model which focuses on an epistemology of socially constructed knowledge.
Eyman, Douglas. Michigan State University (2000). Articles>Education
#18413
Technical Communication Resources in Civil and Environmental Engineering
We hope the resources available through this page will help you to improve of your technical writing and presentation skills.
#22277
Technical Writing: An Overview
A PDF document intended as a resource for teachers. The overview handout defines technical writing, lists examples, states rationale for teaching technical writing, reviews principles for writing instruction, explains basic technical writing concepts to be taught to students, and outlines methods for evaluating technical writing.
Zuidema, Leah A. Michigan State University (2003). Presentations>Writing>Technical Writing
#30730
A study of how three historical rhetorical concepts (kairos, memoria, and mestiza consciousness) are relevant to professional communication practices today, and productive historical concepts for contemporary practitioners.
Haas, Angela. Michigan State University (2004). Articles>Rhetoric>History>Technical Writing
#18414
Writing Better Reports: A Handbook for Civil and Environmental Engineers
Based on faculty concerns, this handbook offers guidelines and exercises to help you improve your technical style.
Adams, David. Michigan State University (2003). Reference>Style Guides>Writing
