Business & Technical Communications Certificate

ENGLISH 206X—INTRO TO BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

Assess and address rhetorical situations

• Research and assess audience, purpose, and context, using local, organizational, national, cross-cultural, and global perspectives
• Select appropriate communication channels and media
• Select appropriate logical and rhetorical strategies (e.g., arguments of fact, policy, worth, expediency)

Write clearly for audience, purpose, and context

• Write with effective style, demonstrating knowledge of plain, passive, and persuasive approaches and good use of tone, word choice, vocabulary, and level of information
• Maintain mechanical and grammatical correctness
• Demonstrate ability to write effectively for international audiences, ESL audiences, and translation

Demonstrate effective self-presentation skills

• Understand the role, possibilities and norms of speech, including examples of digital orality (e.g., IM, SMS, social media) in public face to face and online interactions
• Able to take an ethically defensible, dialogic stance
• Able to deliver an effective presentation online and F2F

Master professional and technical genres

• Demonstrate understanding of genres (e.g., letters, memos, social media posts, technical descriptions, instructions, proposals, multiple kinds of reports), including rhetorical purpose, common traits, and organization
• Format and effectively structure documents using appropriate professional tools
• Conduct effective research and make effective and ethical use of sources and documentation (APA, MLA, etc.)

ENGLISH 428X—STRATEGIC WRITING FOR ORGANIZATIONS

Understanding crisis communication

• Demonstrate understanding of systems perspective on communication
• Analyze crisis situations in terms of pre-crisis, crisis event and post-crisis
• Evaluate responses to crisis situations, by organizations and individuals

Apply theories of strategic communication planning

• Identify and explain theories of strategic communication
• Analyze possible applications of relevant communication theories
• Compare and contrast various communication theories for their usefulness in message development

Manage stakeholders and organizational issues

• Understanding stakeholder groups relative to specific organizations and issues
• Analyze relationship between specific crises and stakeholders
• Create responses to specific crises relative to relevant and appropriate stakeholders (for organizations, issues and individuals)

Develop communications plans for organizations

• Identify the components of an organizational communication plan
• Analyze and evaluate examples of organizational communication plans
• Creating functional organizational communication plans for organizations

ENGLISH 429X—TECHNICAL COMMUNICATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Analyze group processes from the perspective of a member and a leader

• Assess a given situation and determine appropriate leadership strategies, taking into consideration the charge and the modality (ex. FTF, Skype, e-mail)
• Understand the functions of different group member roles and how they enhance group process
• Justify choices about role-taking and communication strategies in the group setting

Demonstrate understanding of specific audiences and message design choices

• Apply knowledge of communication norms to a variety of professional situations
• Make reasoned decisions about communication choices
• Demonstrate knowledge about the importance of communicating appropriately, effectively, and ethically

Describe effective and efficient collaboration relative to writing projects

• Effectively and efficiently delegate responsibilities to other group members in a computer-mediated context and face-to-face when assigned a leadership role
• Manage others in the process of revising and editing group work
• Effectively use online collaborative tools (e.g., Google Docs)

Explain how conflict resolution strategies apply to the technical communication process

• Analyze conflict situations in workplace projects and identify possible management strategies
• Identify potential strategies for de-escalating conflict among members of a group working on a project
• Analyze how feedback is used in order to respond productively to conflict that arises in task groups

ENGLISH 435X—ADVANCED BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

Master all phases of document life cycles

• Self-reflectively manage drafting and revising
• Conduct and manage multiple levels and types of editing
• Manage documents, including cycling, tagging, storing, and retrieving

Demonstrate skill in researching business cases

• Define research subjects and formulate questions/hypotheses
• Develop research methodology and triangulate data collection
• Evaluate, synthesize, and compile information from multiple text and online sources

Master document testing

• Define metrics that will indicate the success of documents
• Design and conduct evaluations that will test documents against those metrics
• Synthesize, analyze, present, and implement test results

Demonstrate advanced writing and presenting skills

• Articulate and apply knowledge and importance of copyright, trademarks, patents, privacy, and proprietary information
• Employ rhetorical strategies for effective visual and document design
• Reflect on and justify composing processes and rhetorical decisions

ENGLISH 437X—PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Master project definition and analysis

• Define project phases and project manager roles
• Identify project audiences, purposes, and goals
• Plan for project requirements and constraints

Master project scheduling

• Determine tasks and time frames
• Delegate work
• Create planning charts

Master strategies for project control

• Monitor project quality and progress
• Manage project risk and change
• Resolve project difficulties

Master leadership and team management

• Develop skill in project leadership
• Learn effective strategies for team management
• Monitor team communication and collaboration

ENGLISH 439X—INFORMATION DESIGN

Analyze and critique information designs

• Analyze design situations, relying on research from rhetoric, cognitive psychology, and graphic design
• Employ framework of principles (such as Williams’s contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity) to evaluate paper and electronic designs
• Use common design terminology related to layout, typography, information architecture, and graphic elements

Design effective graphics, tables, and other visuals

• Identify and appropriately utilize tools and methods for design and publishing
• Plan and implement usable design solutions to information problems
• Test and evaluate design effectiveness

Design effective interfaces and documents

• Identify and use appropriate tools and methods for design and publishing
• Research and develop solutions for design problem
• Design layouts, typography, and graphic elements needed for implementation

Design effective information architectures

• Identify and use appropriate tools and methods for design and publishing
• Research and develop solution for structure/architectural problem
• Design layout, architecture, metadata, and other elements required for implementation