Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) courses aim to help you learn skills to communicate effectively and efficiently about technology and in your professional life. The courses introduce you to the rhetorical principles and composing practices necessary for writing technical and professional documents, designing and analyzing technical research, and communicating about technical issues in common documents such as policies, processes, and reports.
If you're wondering which class to take first, ENGL 288 is a great starting point. You can learn more about the class from this short YouTube video: Why Take ENGL 288? Explore Technical Writing!
| Course Name | Description | MyPlan |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Technical and Professional Communication | Covers how to communicate ethically, accurately, and clearly in a variety of technical and professional genres and rhetorical situations. Students engage in the writing process by analyzing, writing, and reviewing technical and professional documents. | English 288 |
| Business Writing | Theory and practice of written, visual, and digital writing within business contexts. | English 289 |
| Professional and Technical Writing | Prepares students to become conscious and conscientious communicators in various modes, platforms, and professions. | English 388 |
| Careers in Technical and Professional Communication | Covers how to successfully negotiate the job market in fields related to English, such as technical communication, user experience (UX), and publishing; prepare for careers by familiarizing students with the discursive practices of their professions; develop successful job application materials such as a portfolio website, resumes, cover letters, and social media profiles; and prepare for job interviews. | English 390 |
| Technical and Professional Editing | Editing technical, business, government, and scientific reports through the manipulation of documents, project management, and contemporary production processes. | English 392 |
| Technical Communication: Big Data, Privacy, and Surveillance | Introduction to big data as an issue for technical communicators. Focuses on how big data, privacy, and surveillance have been studied in technical communication and rhetoric research, and how to make this academic knowledge publicly accessible through writing and design. Students learn frameworks for understanding big data issues, and how to develop and practice techniques for translating expert knowledge to broader public audiences. | English 394 |
| Software Documentation | Covers how to create, edit, and maintain technical documentation that supports software end-users and developers. Includes conceptual overviews, instructions and tutorials, code samples and comments, release notes, best practices, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and application programming interface (API) references. Builds digital literacy by working with tools and concepts used in the production of software documentation. | English 396 |
| Workplace Research Methods | Explores a variety of text-based and empirical approaches and research methods for addressing questions and problems related to the workplace. | English 480 |
| Advanced Topics in Technical and Professional Communication | Students study topics designed to enrich their understanding of technical and professional communication. Topics include crisis communication, ethics and technology, legal writing for technical communication, visual communication, project management, and user experience design. | English 482 |
| Grant Writing | Studies the grant-writing process through analysis, research, and practice. Focuses on procuring money to fund ideas through understanding the parts of grant writing; generating ideas for funding; locating funding sources; knowing the parts of a grant proposal; and submitting completed grants. Provides students with foundations in persuasive writing by focusing on the rhetorical genre of the grant. | English 487 |
| Writing in Health and Medicine | Explores the intersecting fields of science, health, and medical writing with an eye towards critique and attention to writing genres. Topics focus on health disparities related to policy, social determinants of health, ethics, health care systems, medical humanities, and preventive medicine. Students learn to identify connections between individual- and community-level health disparities and community health. | English 488 |