The course is designed for Computer Science majors (sophomores or higher) to improve their applied communication skills (written, visual and oral). It aims to help students learn how to read and analyze technical CS texts as well as design and present technical Computer-Science related documents for professional or lay audiences. Assignments include job application materials, instructions, genre analyses, and proposals, and may incorporate recent Computer Science research at Carnegie Mellon, projects in related technical courses, and/or professional client-based projects. Working through textbook explanations and examples, analysis of sample texts, and the examination of common forms of workplace and academic communication, students will be able to focus on producing effective technical communication artifacts for their discipline.
Other Useful References
- Thomas Barker,
Writing Software Documentation,
Longman 2003
- Kristin Woolever,
Writing in the Technical Professions,
Longman 2009
- Richard Freed, Shervin Freed and Joseph Romano,
Writing Winning Business Proposals,
McGraw Hill 2008
- Richard Johnson-Sheehan,
Writing Winning Business Proposals,
McGraw Hill 2008
- John Swales and Christine Feak,
English in Today-F˘s Research World,-A
Michigan University Press 2000
- Karen Schriver,
Dynamics in Document Design,
Wiley 1997
Several handouts will be available on the course Blackboard site.
Course Etiquette
Class conduct
You should arrive in class on time (4:30pm), with mobile phones turned off, and ready to discuss, present, or otherwise participate. Additionally, as this course focuses on professional communication, all course-related correspondence (email, discussion board postings, notes to professors) should use language that demonstrates your professionalism. In other words, emails should not use slang or have misspelled words. Finally, since we are meeting in a computer cluster, you are expected to work with the classroom computers (not laptops) whenever you are asked to.
Attendance
There is no component of your final grade assigned to attendance. This simply means that your attendance will be required at all times, especially since this class is primarily conducted as a seminar/workshop. You are allowed up to three unexcused absences, but this does not exempt you from turning in work on due dates. We would therefore expect you to contact us if you know you are going to be absent. In the case of emergencies or sudden illness it is your responsibility to provide appropriate and prompt documentation upon your return to class. Anything more than three absences will result in a lowering of your grade by one-third letter grade for each absence over the limit (an A becomes an A- in the fourth absence, B+ in the fifth etc).
Conferences: Three times in the semester we will not hold our scheduled class, but arrange for a specific time to meet with your instructor(s). These are required meetings and if you fail to attend, you will receive an absence.
It is our goal to make this course successful, stimulating and enjoyable. If
at any time you feel that the course is not meeting your expectations or you
want to provide feedback on how the course is progressing for you, please
. If you would like to provide
anonymous comments, please use the feedback form on the
course home page or slide a note under our doors.
This is a 9 unit course.
Tasks and Percentages
- Projects: 85%
- Resume and Cover Letter: 15%
- Genre Analysis: 20%
- Software User Guide: 25%
- Proposal: 25%
- Weekly Component Skills Homework: 15%
Coursework Details
Projects (85% of the final grade)
In this course there are four distinct projects, each designed to help you develop a combination of skills essential in Professional and Technical Communication for Computer Scientists. For all projects you will be required to make some decisions about the area you will be working on and the content you will be using. The final grade for each project will be calculated based on your work on all the deliverables, including drafts, presentations, peer reviews and reflections.
Here is a brief description of the assignments:
- Resume and Cover Letter (15% of final grade)
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For this assignment, you will locate and apply for a job opening or internship. If you are applying to graduate school, you can use this assignment to apply as well. The position/graduate program you apply for must be real and one that you are qualified for. It should be related to your career goals and can be a full-time position or an internship. Once you locate a position, you will analyze the job ad or information and do background research on the employer, school and field to plan a strategy for presenting your relevant experience and qualifications. We therefore take an approach to creating cover letters and résumés that does not assume all applications packages work equally well for all audiences; applications should be carefully crafted, reader-centered documents that take into consideration the needs and wants of the audience. In the process of completing this assignment, you will have the opportunity to produce a professional CV which you will also upload on the website of the Computer Science Qatar department.
- Genre Analysis (20% of final grade)
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This assignment asks you to analyze in depth a document or series of documents within your discipline (Computer Science), but beyond the scientific or professional genres that we have discussed, ideally one you think is essential for your career. Your instructors will provide you with a list of possible genres to analyze, but then it is up to you to decide how you will collect information about them (interviews, library research, linguistic or rhetorical analysis). Your overall goal is to show that you understand where this document fits in relation to other documents, people and the work it accomplishes. Your deliverables include a poster presentation, where you will have the opportunity in 5-7 minutes to explain the findings of your research to your fellow students.
- Software User Guide (25% of final grade)
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In this assignment you will be asked to produce an illustrated set of instructions (in an appropriate medium) to guide a specific audience trying to use a software application or device. This assignment will require you to become acquainted with the software or device, conduct an audience and context analysis, translate that analysis into a document plan, write and revise the user guide based on user and instructor feedback.
- Proposal (25% of final grade)
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In the final assignment you have to influence your audience's thinking and acting, as you will be requesting their support or endorsement for a proposed project which your instructors will identify. You will have to: 1) persuade your audience that a serious problem or opportunity exists; 2) propose a detailed, practical solution that the audience will be able and willing to implement with your support. This project includes an oral presentation, a 60 second elevator pitch.
Weekly Component Skills Homework (15% of final grade)
In the same way you go to the gym for an hour/week to keep fit, you will have to do some practice with some of the technical aspects of professional writing. These might include:
- reading explanations will require you to produce a short piece of writing based on the New Touring Omnibus readings you will be assigned.
- Short Exercises focusing on technical style and language.
- Small Scaffolding Assignments to help you understand common genres or types of writing that are commonly used in the workplace, such as email communication, technical definitions, research results summary or paraphrase, or data commentary.
Putting in a good faith effort and completing 15 of these exercises will give you the full 15 points.
Evaluation Criteria
For each project you will receive a rubric to guide you and help you understand the evaluation criteria. Rubrics will follow a 5-point scale, roughly corresponding to the following:
- 5: top-notch, excellent, extraordinary accomplishment. Really strong conception and execution. Minor tinkering at most needed to make this professional quality work.
- 4: very strong work. Everything in order, well conceived and well executed. Minor editing problems at most.
Note: The differences between a 4 and a 5 have to do with a combination of originality, excellence, thoroughness, and attention to detail in execution. Although 4 grades may include comments on sentence level editing, doing this type of editing would not be sufficient to raise a 4 to a 5.
- 3: ;acceptable and somewhat above average, but missing some components that elevate it beyond the ordinary. No glaring conceptual or execution problems, but nothing particularly outstanding in either department. Topic or problem may be somewhat limited, or execution may be less than optimal.
- 2: acceptable, but barely average or below average work. Either conception or execution, or both, definitely need to be improved.
- 1: work is not of acceptable quality.
Note that this is not a traditional grading scale; that is, 5 does not translate into an A, 4 into a B, and so on. In fact, if you have 4's on every assignment throughout the term, you would have a final grade in the 90's range.
Final course grades will be assigned using the following scale:
| A >= 90 |
B=80-89 |
C=70-79 |
D=60-69 |
R < 60 |
Late Work
All work must be submitted in class on the due date. You can receive an extension only if you meet two conditions:
- Contact me before the date on which the assignment is due to explain why you need an extension, and
- Submit the assignment within one week after the scheduled due date.
Using these procedures, you may submit a late assignment. 5 pts (on a 100 pt scale) will be deducted for each day the assignment is late (e.g., If you are two days late, 10 points on a 100 point scale will be deducted). This policy does not apply to the final homework, which must be submitted on the due date (in order for me to get final grades in on time).
Acceptance of late work that does not meet these conditions is at the discretion of the instructor.
Academic Resource Center Assistance
We strongly encourage you to take advantage of the free services the ARC (Room 1048) offers to students. You can visit the Center at any stage of your writing process and receive feedback on anything from grammatical issues to organization and development of ideas.
Academic Integrity
The CMU Handbook defines various forms of academic dishonesty and procedures for responding to them. You should familiarize yourselves with this portion of the Handbook (p. 194) and note that penalties for any form of cheating can be quite severe. Since this is a writing course that requires a lot of research, you have to be especially careful to avoid plagiarism, which can be defined as:
the use of the work, words or ideas of others that give the impression that this work, these words or ideas are the author's own. Copying information word-for-word without using quotation marks and footnotes, and paraphrasing another's ideas or research without giving proper credit are examples of plagiarism.
The penalty for plagiarism is the same as cheating, which is automatic failure for the course.
University Aims
- help students acquire the ability to communicate with others on topics both within and outside their chosen field of specialization.
Course Objectives
The assignments and lectures in this course are intended to improve your ability to:
- Communicate with a variety of real audiences that will actually depend upon and use what you have created.
- Achieve a variety of rhetorical purposes, such as informing and persuading.
- Develop a meta-awareness of reading processes and purposes, which will help you become more effective readers and writers of material in Computer Science and related fields.
- Analyze the generic structure and social use of documents in Computer Science.
- Incorporate visuals (graphs, visual images, page/screen design) into your writing and speaking.
- Make effective oral presentations depending on situation and audience.
- Assess your own work and the work of classmates.
