Technical English

Aim

This course aims to improve the student's abilities in technical English:

• to understand when listening or reading and
• to correctly convey the information when speaking or writing.

Required texts:

• ``Elements of Style'' by Willam Strunk. Available at:
  http://sut1.sut.ac.th/strunk/
• ``Technical Writing'' by Ronald B. Standler. Available at:
  http://www.rbs0.com/tw.htm
• ``Elements of Style for Web Design'' by Christine A. Quinn. Available at:
  http://www.stanford.edu/~cquinn/papers/bostonpaper.html
• ``Guidelines for Typography in NBCS'' by Charles Hedrick. Available at:
  http://www.nbcs.rutgers.edu/~hedrick/typography/typography.janson-syntax.107514.pdf

Other texts, lecture slide handouts, and notes are on the web.

Resources on writing and oral presentations:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/

http://www.angelfire.com/stars/techwriter/index.html

Course outline and handouts

All the lectures are available together as one file (notes.pdf) or individually below.

1. Introduction (class outline)
2. Study skills
   • http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/read.html
   • http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infocs/study/
   • http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/Education/How_To_Study/
3. Effective reading
   • http://www.une.edu.au/tlc/aso/reading.htm
   • http://www.jcu.edu.au/studying/services/studyskills/effreading/
4. Elements of Style: Elementary rules of usage
5. Elements of Style: Elementary principles of composition
6. Technical Writing
7. References and bibliography
8. Elements of Style for Web Design
9. Typography and tools (Unix, T_EX/L^AT_EX, FrameMaker, ...)
10. Preparation of visuals
11. Specific documents: Resume, Cover letter, Statement of purpose
    • http://jobsmart.org/tools/resume/
    • http://www.careers.ucr.edu/Students/Graduates/CV/
    • http://www2.sjsu.edu/faculty/gcallaghan/graduate/winningstatement.htm
    • http://www.cs.umd.edu/~arun/grad/sop.html
12. Specific documents: Research proposal/ Grant application
    • http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/research/writing.htm
    • http://www.research.fsu.edu/facultystaff/resources.html
    • http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/osr/proposal/prop_pr_tips.shtml
    • http://www.seanet.com/~sylvie/grants.htm
    • http://www.cpb.org/grants/grantwriting.html
13. Specific documents: Paper, Thesis
    • http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mleone/web/how-to.html
    • http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/chinneck/thesis.html
    • http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/
14. Conference presentations
    • http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~markhill/conference-talk.html
    • http://www.psichi.org/conventions/tips.asp
15. Interviews
16. Applying for a university abroad
    • http://www.grad.umn.edu/prospective_students/application_information/process/
    • http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/grad-school.html

To benefit from the course please

• read through the material before coming to class,
• come prepared with your questions,
• get involved in the discussion, and
• complete all the assignments.

Past exams

• May 2007
• September 2007
• May 2008
• October 2008
• May 2009
• October 2009
• June 2010