Welcome to Professional and Technical Writing (ENGL 30503) at the University of Arkansas!

Professional and Technical Writing is an undergraduate-level course intended to prepare students for the writing they are likely to do in the future, especially writing they are likely to do in the workplace. In English 30503, students extend their prior knowledge of rhetorical situations, genre conventions, research, document design, and writing processes to practice common workplace writing genres like correspondence, proposals, and reports.

Ultimately, the goal of the course is not that students leave with knowledge of every technical genre they might possibly write. Rather, the course helps students to:

1. Evaluate the rhetorical situation (audience, purpose, and context) of any piece of workplace writing;
2. Practice technical writing genre conventions;
3. Learn what questions to ask when writing in and for different organizations;
4. Learn and practice research skills for technical writing, including finding and evaluating sources, using source information in documents, and citing sources appropriately;
5. Learn and practice document design skills and principles to create clear and useful technical writing;
6. Develop a professional “brand” or professional persona for workplace writing situations.

Through the major projects in the course, students will set goals for themselves, research and create technical writing documents, and assess their progress towards their goals.

Book Outline

This textbook is organized into parts, centered around the work you will do for major projects in the course. Within each part, you’ll find chapters that are intended to help you work through the process of creating each technical document required of you. Below, you’ll find a brief summary of the book’s contents.

Part 1: Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing

In Part 1, you will learn about professional and technical writing – what it is, who uses it and why, and how it is constructed. Chapter 1: Introducing Technical Writing defines the field of technical writing within writing studies and discusses the typical conventions of technical writing. Chapter 2: Ethics in Technical Writing discusses why ethics are critical for technical writing projects and how to think about making ethical communication decisions. Chapter 3: Setting Your Course Goals discusses why goal-setting is important for this course, and how you’ll use your course goals memo to help you do so. Chapter 4: Tracking Your Course Goals talks about how you can track the goals you set as you progress through ENGL 30503.

Part 2: Developing Your Professional Persona

In Part 2, you will learn about how to develop your professional persona through career application documents. In this project, you will practice technical writing and design skills to create a résumé and cover letter that respond directly to a real job ad in your career field. Chapter 5: Applying to Jobs discusses the job application process and how to construct the documents that respond to job ads. Chapter 6: Tailoring Job Materials discusses how to tailor those materials for your specific audience, so that you can increase your chances for success on the job market.

Part 3: Researching Problems and Proposing Solutions

Part 3 covers information for Project 3: Problem Primer and Project 4: Collaborative Grant Proposal. You will write these documents in response to the UArk Cares Foundation Community Improvement Grant Request for Proposals.

Chapter 7: Explore Potential Problems teaches you how to define a problem to explore with a technical writing solution, as well as how to create a community profile detailing information about your stakeholders. Chapter 8: Research a Technical Writing Problem includes information about secondary research methods, information literacy, and how to create a pitch for your project. Chapter 9: Design and Run a Pilot Study discusses the research methods you will use to create a primary research study for your problem primer. Chapter 10: Synthesize and Report Research takes you through synthesis skills and describes how to write a report.

Chapter 11: Create a Grant Proposal discusses the details of proposals as a technical writing genre as well as how to write collaboratively. Chapter 12: Remix Research for a Public Audience will teach you about using multimodal design to communicate with community stakeholders. Chapter 13: Write a Transmittal Letter teaches you about how to create a transmittal letter to frame your fourth project.

Part 4: Reflecting on Your Work

Part 4 details the final project for the course: the Course Reflection Memo. In Chapter 14: Reflective Writing for Technical Communication, you’ll learn about what reflective writing is, how it helps technical writers, and exercises to develop your skills.