LIS4022 - Technical Writing
Welcome to the Course!
This front page - in Canvas - is the primary source of material for this course; everything you need will be available here.
That being said, many links and resources required for the course, as well as a mirror of this front page, are hosted from jrm4.com, my personal site. Please feel free to browse there as well, but again, the Canvas page is primary.
Contacting me should only be done through regular email, at jmarks@fsu.edu (Messaging through Canvas may be missed- is a better and safer tool for this purpose)
You don't need to do anything for the first day besides show up. The syllabus is below, and schedules and procedures will be discussed in class on the first day. See you then!
Permanent Course Link: Please also save elsewhere:
https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/a6c533b52bf043f6afd059c55a67d19d
On the first day, do not leave the class until the professor has taken attendance.
+Syllabus
+Calendar
Main Assignments Info
Second Day Notes
Grading Specifics
UNIT V - Bringing it all together
Week 14 - Portfolio
UNIT IV - Business Correspondence
Week 13
https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/10-ways-to-handle-difficult-customers
Deliverable IV.B - The Response
Deliverable IV.A - The complaint
Week 12
UNIT III - User Guides
Week 11 - User Guides (aka the sad sad state of document formatting on computers)
FORMATTED User Guide ... Guide
Seriously, Microsoft Word is TRASH
because WYSIWYG breaks down.
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/text-patterns/no-microsoft-word-really-is-that-bad
https://slate.com/technology/2012/04/microsoft-word-is-cumbersome-inefficient-and-obsolete-its-time-for-it-to-die.html
I'm seriously including the following article just so you can see how absolutely terrible and without merit arguments in favor of Word are:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/normal/2016/10/11/microsoft_word_s_haters_have_it_all_wrong.html
The alternative: WYSIWYM
https://www.developervoyage.com/2020/01/23/why-i-prefer-wysiwym-for-technical-writing.html
HTML
https://www.lifewire.com/why-use-semantic-html-3468271
Implementations and tools to try:
Pandoc - Absolute swiss army knife here:
Markdown
Markdown, generally
https://www.markdownguide.org/tools/
https://ghost.org/changelog/markdown/
Tools that use Markdown
Pandoc, above - also:
https://remarkableapp.github.io/ <--- My strongest recommendations. Simple and really nice default themes.
https://github.blog/2016-08-22-publish-your-project-documentation-with-github-pages/
https://md2pdf.netlify.app/
https://stackedit.io/
https://itsfoss.com/open-source-static-site-generators/
Similar to, but not quite the same as Markdown
Can probably convert:
Org-Mode
zim-wiki
Week 10 - User Guides
http://jrm4.com/slides/Week_9_-_User_Guides.html
Additional Materials
https://www.bath.ac.uk/guides/creating-a-how-to-guide/
https://online-learning.com/five-tips-writing-user-manual/
UNIT II - Internal Processes and Practices of Communication
Week 9 - Refining our Company Policy
Oct 13 Plan
Week 8 - Company Policy
Deliverable II - Company Mission Statement and Policy
Week 7 - Mission Statements
Mission Statements
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-to-write-a-mission-statement-2948001
Policy
https://www.sweetprocess.com/how-to-write-a-policy/
UNIT I - Sales and Business Introductions
Week 6 - Refining and Planning
https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2020/02/strategic-social-media-plan/
https://www.thoughtco.com/editing-tips-for-business-writers-1691276
Student Example 1 - Solar Panels
Student Example 2 - Discord
Week 5 - The basics
https://studiousguy.com/external-communication/
https://www.saleshacker.com/sales-pitch-examples/
https://adaged.blogspot.com/2020/04/good-writing-is-business-advantage.html
https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-write-a-business-plan-for-your-startup-e7c01df78296
Week 4 - Social Media and Our Space of Communication
Excellent concise review:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/effects-social-media-how-we-speak-and-write
https://ideas.time.com/2013/04/25/is-texting-killing-the-english-language/
https://medium.com/s/world-wide-wtf/the-interwebs-aint-ruining-r-grammar-e0ee4e9ca531
A little old, but worth it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/technology/how-the-internet-is-saving-culture-not-killing-it.html
Examples
https://www.cdc.gov/socialmedia/tools/guidelines/guideforwriting.html
Week 3 - Audience analysis and Rhetoric
https://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/ethical-marketing.html
https://www.comm.pitt.edu/oral-comm-lab/audience-analysis
https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/textbook/aud.html
https://ravishingink.blogspot.com/2010/01/brief-history-of-rhetoric.html
Week 2 - Processes of Communication
http://jrm4.com/slides/LIS-4022 - Intro
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-communication-process-1689767
https://www.educational-business-articles.com/communication-process-model/
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=canonical&q=paralanguage&ia=web
https://blog.jostle.me/blog/why-is-internal-communications-important
https://www.clearvoice.com/blog/yes-good-grammar-still-important-heres/
Recordings Here
2020-08-27 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_1
2020-09-01 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_2
2020-09-08 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_3
2020-09-10 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_4
2020-09-15 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_5
2020-09-17 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_6
2020-09-22 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_7
2020-09-24 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_8
2020-09-29 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_9
2020-10-01 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_11
2020-10-01 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_10
2020-10-06 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_12
2020-10-08 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_13
2020-10-13 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_14
2020-10-20 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_16
2020-10-22 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_17
2020-10-27 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_18
2020-10-29 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_19
2020-11-03 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_20
2020-11-05 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_21
2020-11-10 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_22
2020-11-12 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_23
2020-11-17 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_24
2020-11-19 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_25
2020-11-24 LIS-4022 - Writing For Information Professionals - recording_26
Backlinks: FSU Courses FSU Courses:LIS4022:Syllabus