By: 2022 TCA Board | October 11, 2021
The following is the first installment of our informative pieces on the courses offered to MSTC students. The following discusses required courses for all MSTC students from the perspective of Sloan Hammer, Sarah Barnes, Jules Millward, Adrienne Nip, and Allison Fisk, who have successfully completed the courses.
During your time in the MSTC program, there are a total of five required classes that you must take in order to graduate. Keep reading to get an overview of each of these five courses and some tips to keep in mind while working through each course from students who successfully completed each course.
ENG 512: Theory and Research In Professional Writing
A course designed to introduce MSTC students to the wide range of research and scholarship in technical communication.
Delivery
As with all required MSTC classes, ENG 512 is taught at 6pm one day a week to accommodate both traditional and non-traditional learners. Typically this course is taught in-person during the Fall semester.
Overview
In general, ENG 512 has several assigned readings from week to week that are important since they contribute to group reading discussions, a large part of the class. Furthermore, learning about different research areas from the readings enables students to do what they want with the materials due to the open-endedness of the assignments. As a result, once you find an area of interest, you can use the class to dig in and learn more. Additionally, keeping tabs on class readings may come in handy as you continue on in the program towards capstone.
In addition to weekly readings and group work, there are four major assignments. All of the assignments build on each other and give you the ability to learn more about what you want to learn about without feeling weighed down by materials that seem irrelevant to your greater learning interests.
Tips:
- Really put thought into what you are interested in learning more about. If you find something you like, you can set yourself up well for future work in the program. If not, you still gained a depth of knowledge on a relevant area of interest in tech comm.
- Always keep up with group work! It can be an easy, fun and low stress part of class if everyone stays on top of it. You will be with the same people all semester so make the most of it.
ENG 515: Rhetoric of Science and Technology
A course that studies the relationship between language and science, critical analysis of texts from science/technology, public controversy in science/technology.
Delivery
Similar to other MSTC required classes, ENG 515 is taught at 6pm one day a week to accommodate both traditional and non-traditional learners. Typically this course is also taught in-person during the Fall semester.
Overview
Throughout the entire semester, you will work on a Learning Archive project. The topic of this assignment is centered around a discourse about a scientific or technological rhetorical event of your choice that is of interest to you. Your archive will consist of articles, videos, and other meaningful resources to gather information on your chosen event.
There are typically weekly readings for the course – only a few articles/chapters per week – but each is super important for the in-class discussions and activities. Each class there will be a discussion leader who guides how the class discusses each of the articles. Stay on top of your readings and the class discussions will be much more productive AND you’ll have a better understanding of the rhetoric of science and technology when writing your final paper.
Tips:
- You will likely give a short presentation of your archive during one of your class meetings. You get a say in when to present so if you want feedback before diving too deep into the project, sign up early. If you want inspiration from peers, hold out to see other students before presenting. Know yourself and your project management style and sign up for a presentation slot that accommodates you best.
- Take your archive seriously. Start gathering resources as early as you can and take good notes. Many students utilized software, such as Zotero, to organize and categorize their archive. You can also use a spreadsheet to save links and take notes – Just select a tool early on to keep things straight.
ENG 517: Advanced Technical Writing & Editing
A practice-oriented course that focuses on the advanced study of technical writing and editing through the guided development of specialized technical documents and products.
Delivery
Typically, ENG 517 is offered every Fall semester and is taught in person, once a week at 6pm to accommodate both traditional and non-traditional learners.
Overview
ENG 517 is a practice-oriented and technically-heavy course that introduces writing technologies and helps students develop more clear, concise, and concrete writing through weekly readings, instructive activities, and both individual & collaborative technical projects, such as written procedures, video tutorials, technical descriptions, API documentation, and structured formatting XML documents.
This class introduces students to advanced writing technologies such as GitHub, HTML & Markdown languages, API documentation, and DITA in Oxygen XML. Throughout the semester you will have several projects that allow you to develop valuable concrete skills and become familiar with advanced technical media while producing documentation for your tech writer portfolios.
Tips:
- Take this course one week at a time, and try not to be intimidated by the new technical media and writing technologies.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions — and then more questions about those questions — about anything you’re confused about or need clarification on. You need to be proactive if you don’t fully understand something in this class, as the topics and projects tend to build on each other; make sure you’re building your knowledge on a stable foundation.
- Talk with your classmates and be open with your peers about the class and areas in which you might be struggling or succeeding.
- Start early on the collaborative projects, especially the DITA projects, and plan for many collaborative work meetings with your group members.
ENG 518: Publication Management for Technical Communicators
A course focused on introducing students to publication and project management strategies, skills, and techniques.
Delivery
Similar to other MSTC courses, this course is typically taught once a week from 6-8:45 PM to accommodate both traditional and non-traditional learners. This course is typically offered in the Spring.
Overview
Students in ENG 518 are given weekly readings relating to course material and real-world applications of project management to discuss within small groups and as a class. Throughout the semester, each small group is responsible for planning materials and presenting a case study highlighting project management skills and strategies within a role or real-world project.
During the semester, students generally work on two major projects: a professional portfolio and production assignment. The professional portfolio allows students to focus on professional development, completing deliverables such as a 5-year plan, resume, and an archive of work/portfolio. The production assignment offers students flexibility in choosing their own project on a topic of interest and consists of multiple deliverables depending on the self-selected topic. This project is typically collaborative. Both assignments allow students to apply project management skills as they propose a workflow, define project goals, assumptions, completion criteria, as well as build and adhere to a timeline.
Tips:
- This course focuses on general project management skills and strategies while allowing you to explore your original interests. Feel free to determine your topics depending on individual interests!
- The course also allows students to focus on professional development, allowing you to take time to plan out your goals. Be sure to take advantage of these opportunities to realistically consider your future.
- Because the course is required and only offered in the Spring, we would recommend you join the course in your first year if possible after other second-years have joined.
ENG 675: Projects in Technical Communication
A culmination course where you determine the work or research that you want to do based on your interests during the MSTC program.
Delivery
Similar to other MSTC courses, this course is typically taught once a week from 6-8:45 PM to accommodate both traditional and non-traditional learners. This course is typically offered in the Spring. Take spring before graduation, however, you will likely need to start some of the proposal work prior to the beginning of the class. Typically the first draft of the proposal will be due in October.
Overview
The practical project can look like a website, user guide, usability study, and much more. The possibilities are endless. Keep in mind that the purpose of this practical project will be to solve a problem, or set of problems, or institute a procedure for a specific audience. You’ll need to do research on the problem and write at least 5 pages about it.
If you choose to take the academic route, you’ll write at least 10 pages of a research article. Keep in mind that this needs to be written with a specific publication or journal in mind and needs to fulfill all the requirements of that journal or publication.
Tips:
- If you choose the practical version of this project, you’ll do just as much research as your counterparts working on the academic journal article version. The only difference will be that you will not have to hit as high of a page limit. Research as though you are writing an academic article.
- For both the academic article and the research paper, you will likely write much more than the minimum page requirement. While doing research, keep a record of everything you read and detailed notes so that you can easily pull information from your reading later. Also, create your citations during the research stage to save time when pulling in information into your writing later on in the process.
- Version control will be a very important aspect of your writing for this class. You will have multiple versions of the same piece of work, and making sure you’ve kept up with earlier versions will help you determine where your project’s scope may be creeping or changing.
- You will need to create a literature map before the proposal stage. The literature map can vary in design, but regardless of how you choose to organize the map, it will be a foundation for the work that you do in the class. Even if it’s no longer required, I would still suggest doing one.
- Look for people in your class who are working on similar projects or working with similar research methods. Brainstorming together will help you to refine your own research and will give you new insights on your work.
For more details about the Capstone project, you can check out the Department’s web page for it here.