Professional Identity in Technical Communication (30%)

Assignment Components:

The Individual Project (a publication for which you are entirely responsible) is intended to help incoming technical communicators, STC & STA majors, develop a sense of professional identity. (If you are in another major, see me ASAP, and we'll modify this assignment for your major.) The STC program director and Karla Kitalong, the student advisor, need publications that will help students in high school and those coming into our program understand what it means to be a technical communicator. Those young people need to know why people value this major. Right now, most of the departmental promotional materials define our majors only in terms of the tools, techniques, and technologies they use. That is NOT a good thing. Instead we should be able to give new and incoming students more personal accounts of why and how Sacs and Seas came into our program (really), what they are getting out of the experience, and what they hope to make of their careers. Yes, eventually you WILL graduate!

Each individual in HA 330 is responsible for the final version of this publication: all of the planning finished, the copy written and proofed, graphics included that are well tailored to the message, and a comprehensive layout completed. This project has three distinct components: the initial research and project proposal, the publication itself, and a cover memo that includes a justification for the design decisions you made and some evaluation of the design process you went through.

For this project, choose one of the following formats:

 

Journals, Reflection, Research, Interviews, and the Project Proposal:

Journals: Start a research journal for this project. Keep track of the hours you work on specific components of this project: Those research components include personal journal entries, interview & research notes, and email & job ad analyses in this journal. Producation components include time spent writing, editing, revising copy; time spent designing and laying out the document; producing the graphics; printing, writing the final cover memo, and anything else related to the project.
 
Reflection:The first entry in your journal should be an "institutional autobiography." Respond to the following prompts:
How did you become an STC or STA major? (If you are neither, see me ASAP and we'll work out a prompt suitable for your major.) Why is this occupation important to you and to the culture at large? How exactly did you get to this point in your educational career (be honest)? What are you going to make of your STC experience? What do you see yourself doing in the professional world?

You might ask, "Why start with such personal information?" Our department needs to collect "human" stories from students and why they care about their major. We have all the technology-oriented reasons for being a technical communicator down pat. Now we need the human side. We don't expect you necessarily to use the same language found in your journal, but we are sure these responses will help you formulate your perspective on professional identity in this field.

Research: Besides your institutional autobiography, three sources of information will help you develop materials for this project: Two Career Development Reports from STC graduates, email lists with professional communicators discussing current trends and interests, and job ads from STCJOBS-L.

  1. Read Harrison Wither's and Stacey Hensley's Technical Communicators Career Development reports. Respond to their reports from your prespective. What is similar and different about your experiences? Collect and document interesting quotes and any useful information from their reports. Record ideas for material that you might include in your TC professional identity publication.
  2. Within the first couple of weeks of the term, subscribe to one of the following lists (or another relevant to technical communicators with instructor permission) for at least two weeks. During that time read the mail carefully and try to describe what characteristics these professionals seem to exhibit in their email messages: What are they like? What do they care about? How useful is the list? What specific issues came up that were important to TCers? Again, collect and document interesting quotes and any useful information. Record ideas for material that you might include in your TC professional identity publication. Later in the term, you will be asked to give an informal presentation on your observations of this list.
    1. techwr-l: http://www.documentation.com/techwrit/techwrit-l.htm
    2. usability testing list: Email tharon.howard@clemson.edu to subscribe to his usability email list. Tell him that I sent you and that you simply want to read and get a sense of what types of topics the lists discusses.
    3. attw-l: http://english.ttu.edu/ATTW/ATTW-L.html
  3. Subscribe to STCJOBS-L@mtu.edu. Write down the professional characteristics that you think would be important in answering these job ads. How are you going to develop these characteristics as you go through the MTU program? Will you have to develop some of these characteristics once you assume a paid position? Which ones and why? Later in the term, you will be asked to give an informal presentation on your observations of this list.

Interviews: We will do an in-class interview with a client, Karla Kitalong, for these projects on Tues. the 29th of Sept. Come to that class period with questions that will help you determine a publication format. You will need to find two other appropriate readers (e.g., incoming TC students, high schools students, transfer students from other departments) for your TC Professional Identity project and interview them outside of class. Your objective is to determine what TC information they really need and what format will best suite their needs. Identify these interviewees and summarize, in your project proposal below, the comments and suggestions they make--due by Sept. 29th in class.

Proposal: Now write a project proposal. The proposal is informal in the sense that it is amendable. It should be well written and complete, but later in the quarter, you may change the scope of the project and even the client after consulting with me. A project proposal (in memo form) for the publication you are considering should include the following information:

Due by Oct. 13th, Tuesday of week 6 in class. This memo will serve as a rough draft of the final cover memo due at the end of the term.

 

The Publication:

The requirements of this class do not require you to have the publication printed. For Publications Management, you need only do the following:

  1. Identify all necessary specifications needed to print your project.
  2. Choose and size photographs or artwork.
  3. Write and/or edit all copy (text) and headings.
  4. Complete the "mechanicals" of your project. Print as much of your final mock-up as you can (easily), using the CCLI network and our laser printers, and then physically cut and paste the rest. Indicate fold lines, spot colors, and all information needed to have the document published. It should be close to camera-ready!

The beta versions of this project is due sometime in the 9thor 10th week, the day set up for your in-class review. The final draft of the project is due on Tues. of Finals Week.

At the end of the course, you will have completed all of the planning needed to get your project printed except the camera-ready copy ("mechanicals"). Some students in the past have had their projects printed in the winter or spring. Following a project through to completion is an exciting and valuable experience. I strongly recommend it. But publication is not required for this class.

The Cover Memo

Write your cover memo to describe the publication you have created. It should include any information that will help me understand why you made your design and content decisions. Your cover memo should include at least the following components:

  1. Describe the audiences of the publication (see your earlier project proposal).
  2. Describe the purposes of the publication.
  3. Explain the rationale for designing each component of the publication the way you have.
  4. Assess how well you estimated the time spent on this project in the "guess-timate" in you project proposal. Evaluate the production process: how you would change the process if you were to do it again?

The cover memo should be at least 3-4 pages long and is due on Tues. of Finals Week.

 

HA 330 Description   Class Overview  Schedule of Readings
 Group Projects  Individual Projects  Interviews with Professionals