Course Description

The course focuses on the design, practice, and presentation of research for technical communicators.  We will explore research methods appropriate for technical and professional communication with an emphasis on research that is done on the job and in the workplace.  Research practices we explore may include usability testing, contextual inquiry, survey or questionnaires, case studies, interviews, or others depending on the interests of the class.  Each student will conduct a research project based on his/her interests and specific career path.  The class is designed to allow students to focus on the research practices that are most useful to them in their job or career while also learning generic principles for designing a research project, collecting data and information, and reporting/presenting results.

Outcomes

Outcomes articulate the skills, abilities, and knowledge that students learn in the MWTC Program. In your capstone portfolio you will present examples of your work from the courses you have taken to demonstrate your learning based on these outcomes. As you are taking courses, an understanding of the outcomes will help you in two ways: 1) it will help you understand how the various courses tie together and integrate work and experiences and 2) it will help you think about your own work in each course as part of a larger context. In this course, the outcomes that are specifically addressed include:

• Rhetorical Knowledge
  • R1: Identify, articulate, and focus on a define purpose
  • R2: Respond to the need of the appropriate audience
  • R3: Understand the role of a variety of technologies/media in accessing, retrieving, and communicating information
  • R4: Use appropriate technologies to organize, present, and communicate information
• Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing
  • C1: Understand that research, like writing, is a series of tasks, including accessing, retrieving, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate information from sources that vary in content, format, structure, and scope
  • C2: Integrate previously held beliefs, assumptions, and knoweldge with new information and the ideas of others to accomplish a specific purpose within a context
• Processes
  • P1: Develop research strategies appropriate to the context and situation
  • P2: Understand research and writing as an open process that permits writers to use later invention and re-thinking to revise their work
  • P3: Understand the collaborative and social aspects of research and writing processes
  • P4: Learn to critique their own and others' work
• Knowledge of Conventions
  • K1: Learn standard tools for accessing and retrieving information
  • K2: Apply appropriate means of documenting work
  • K3: Understand and apply legal and ethical uses of information and technology, including copyright and intellectual property

Texts

Required readings are posted in the Course Documents section of Blackboard. There is an additional list of recommended readings and sources for specific research methods.

Course Evaluation

+/- grades are not used in this course

Assignments and course discussion are designed to evaluate outcomes as they relate to this course. This semester you will work on a research project that is related to your work and career interests. The primary evaluation tools for this course will be a portfolio of documents related to your own project and your contributions to your classmates' projects.

TWC494:

Scale:

TWC553:

Scale:

Academic Integrity

Students with Special Needs

If you have a documented disability that may impact on your ability to carry out assigned course work, I encourage you to contact Disability Student Resources (DRS).  Their phone number is (480) 965-1362 (voice) or (480) 965-9000 (TTY).  They can also be accessed on the web at http://www.asu.edu/studentaffairs/ed/drc/

Last modified: 8 January 2007