A large portion of this course will focus on a culminating project: the formal analytical report. Each Module in the course focuses on specific aspects of technical writing, which will help you build the skills necessary to design and write a large research paper that will be completed by the end of the course. The first Credit Unit of WR 227 will give you experience and practice in small writing assignments to build these skills, and the second and third Credit Units will take you step-by-step through the process of planning, designing and creating an analytical report.
Although you will not begin working on the course project until the second Credit Unit, it is important to have an understanding of what will be required in the project. Therefore, before you begin the first Module, take a few moments to review the specifics for the report in the following document:
Analytical Report Overview and Expectations (Google Doc)
Credit Unit 1 will introduce you to three aspects of technical writing: audience analysis, persuasive writing, and creating technical directions. You will begin to get a sense of how audience analysis shapes the way we communicate, and how this impacts technical writing. You will learn to analyze audience and purpose, ways in which to discern through research or critical thinking, and the various ways in which tone, word choices, formatting, and style better convey meaning to specific targeted audiences.
Analyze the rhetorical needs for college-level evidence-based technical writing assignments.
Implement appropriate rhetorical elements and organization in their written assignments, with an emphasis on technical evidence-based analysis, reporting, and evaluation assignments.
Craft sentences and paragraphs that communicate their ideas clearly and effectively using words, sentence patterns, and writing conventions at a high college level to make their writing clear, credible, and precise.