Course Descriptions
ENG 5300: Language Problems in a Multicultural Environment
An introduction to the study of multicultural language and linguistics with descriptive, psychological, social, and semantic emphases.
ENG 5310: Digital Literacies
The study of digital literacies, particularly their reciprocal relationships regarding rhetorical and socio-cognitive concerns for workplace, educational, and public lives. Students regularly explore digital literacies through scholarship, experiences with technology, and critical analyses. Students learn to speculate about consequences of choices or of ignoring digital literacies and what such decisions mean for their chosen areas of study or work.
ENG 5310: Studies in English Language and Linguistics
A study of the English language, with special attention to phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, dialectology, sociolinguistics, normal language acquisition, and/or writing and spelling systems. Repeatable with different emphases for up to nine hours of English credit.
ENG 5310: Writing Across Cultures
This course prepares students with the necessary theories and skills for cross-cultural writings. Students learn important models and theories for understanding cultural differences, language differences at the semantic, syntactical, and textual levels, and common rhetorical patterns used in different cultures.
ENG 5311: Foundations in Technical Communication
This course introduces students to theoretical approaches and rhetorical principles of communicating and writing that can be applied to any writing activity in the technical and scientific professions. The course includes an exploration of the role technology plays in enhancing and influencing writing and communicating and an examination of issues related to the practical writing expectations of professional communicators.
ENG 5312: Editing the Professional Publication
The editing, design, layout, and proofreading of a professional publication. This course is an internship. May be repeated one time with a different emphasis. (approved topics*) This course may be taken twice if approved topics* are different.
ENG 5313: Computers and Writing
Computers have revolutionized writing, writing processes, and the teaching of writing. In fact, many first-year and advanced writing courses are now taught exclusively in computer classrooms. This course will explore the impact of computers on writing theory and writing pedagogy, as well as the social and political implications of teaching writing in a networked environment. Our time will be devoted to discussion of and practice with specific technologies, including network-based writing tools and hypertext. This course is highly recommended for those who plan to teach writing at the university level.
ENG 5335: Technical Editing
This course prepares students to become information editors. Students will learn how reading research helps determine effective information editing, and they will develop expertise not only in conventional editing skills such as proper grammar, punctuation, and style but also in appropriate ways to present documents for readers. In addition, students will be introduced to FrameMaker, a software tool for creating online and paper documents.
ENG 5307: Visual Rhetoric
This course is about using visual design as a practical communication tool in a wide range of forms such as paragraphs, tables, pictures, charts, maps, and icons. The course will cover a variety of medium such as paper documents, hypertext, and websites. Students will explore how the rhetorical contexts of a communication act determine what and which visuals are most effective. In addition, students will be introduced to sophisticated software tools used by technical communicators. See samples of student work.
ENG 5313: Research Methods
This course will introduce students to methods of designing and conducting empirical research in technical communication/workplace settings. Topics will include usability testing and methods (surveys, interviews, think-aloud protocols, other forms of lab-based research), as well as case studies and workplace ethnographies.
ENG 5340: Discourse Analysis
This course mainly approaches discourse analysis from linguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives. The purpose is to understand how forms of language are used in communication. The principal concern is to examine how any language produced by man, whether spoken or written, is used to communicate for a purpose in a context. In addition, we will understand how text reveals identities, feelings, and different social relationships. We will learn the specific ways to do social analysis, discourse analysis, text analysis, and conversational analysis.
ENG 5313: History of Technical Communication
This History of Technical Communication course is about how technical communication history helps us understand the practices we do as technical communicators today, how to envision innovation, how to problem solve, and ways to enhance our communication effectiveness now and in the future. Ultimately, the purpose of the course is to make us better technical communicators.
Eng 5385: Power and Ethics in Technical Communication
Provides students with the theoretical knowledge and practical skills needed to identify and resolve ethical dilemmas in technical communication. Students will be introduced to theories and philosophies of ethics from various disciplines. Students will use case studies in technical communication to negotiate these theories and solve ethical dilemmas and conflicts.
ENG 5314: Narrative in Technical Communication
This course introduces students to theory in narrative and theoretical applications to nonfiction, particularly in technical and professional communication. Students will explore the problem of defining what narrative is in technical communication, why narrative is important for communicating in the technical and professional fields, and how and where narrative strategies can be found in paper documents, visuals, and online.
ENG 5309: International Technical Communication
ENG 5314: Proposal Writing
The course will engage students in searching for public and private funding sources and writing grant proposals for real-world funding needs. They will use print and electronic tools for identifying funding sources, preparing proposals, and making professional presentations.
ENG 5314: Writing for the Government
The course introduces students to technical communication theories and practices used to produce persuasive government documents. Students will engage in collaborative writing exercises that stimulate the invention processes used to create regulation preambles, regulations, legislative impact statements, responses to public comments, requests for rulemaking, board/council memorandums, advocacy group websites, and E-rulemaking websites.
ENG 5341: Software Documentation
In this course students explore the process used to develop computer-related information, online and paper, for non-expert users/readers/viewers and learn how research informs that process. As students follow the document development process, they plan, write, develop, edit, and test their own documentation for software programs.
ENG 5314: Literature and Technology
A study of one or more literary genres over several historical periods or from a variety of cultural perspectives. The course focuses on genres such as the following: the epic, the novel, the story, the lyric, the pastoral, and the romance. Repeatable with different emphases for up to nine hours of English credit. The Literature and Technology offering focuses on the interaction between the two conventions.
ENG 5314: Technology of the Book
This seminar will explore the varied technologies of book production that have enabled communication from the invention of writing to the electronic revolution. The course draws from history, literature, marketing, technology, mass communication, sociology, art, cultural anthropology, and journalism fields. Activities will include organized field trips to view rare book collections at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and elsewhere.
ENG 5314: Medical Rhetoric and Writing
This course introduces students to key principles and issues in the writing/editing/designing of online and paper health communication documents. The course offers students opportunities to practice applied health communication genres like charts, forms, health education materials, public health campaigns, grants, and government documents. A key element of the course is the integration of a service-learning component in which students work on "real" communication activities for a health care organization or facility in the area. During the semester students will also reflect on their service-learning experiences so they will carry the principles they have learned and practiced beyond the semester into careers.
ENG 5329: Usability Testing & Research
This course explains how to plan, conduct, and analyze usability tests to understand the way users interact with different artifacts in order to improve products. It situates user testing within the field of audience analysis, and it covers the principles and methods of this form of applied research. The course covers concepts of usability research in the context of relevant literature, as well as best and new practices in the field. The course also offers hands-on learning experiences in Texas State University's Usability Research Laboratory. The course requires planning, designing, and conducting usability tests, then analyzing data and reporting the findings.
ENG 5314: Technical Content Marketing
Technical Content Marketing focuses on providing informative (or content-rich) and persuasive information about science and technology innovations to potential consumers. In this graduate seminar, we will: (1) cover the foundations and ethics of marketing technical products, (2) analyze the conventional genres of informative (content) marketing, and (3) examine the use of technology and new media in technical marketing.
ENG 5314: Video Writing and Production for Technical Communicators
In this course, students will learn to create professional-quality digital videos as technical communicators. Students should expect to plan and write short, but well-developed, video scripts. Specifically, this course will cover the following phases of video writing and production: (1) planning informative and instructional videos, (2) scriptwriting and storyboarding, (3) directing, shooting, and filming, and (4) video editing and distribution (focusing on sharing the video on the Web).
ENG 5314: Rhetoric of Risk and Emergency Communications
This course will examine strategies technical communicators use to write and communicate effectively in times of risk and crisis. We will consider ways technical communicators analyze potentially crisis situations in an effort to inform and alert audiences. We will also explore how technical communicators capture the experiences of individuals in risky and crisis situations through documentation and other communication methods to ultimately improve communication for future uncertain, risky, and crisis times.
ENG 5383: Rhetorical Theory for Technical Communicators
In this course, we will examine classical and modern rhetorical theories most relevant to technical communication as a discipline and as a set of practices. Emphasis will be placed on the dynamic, reciprocal nature of research, theory, and practice in technical communication—on the ways in which 1) research informs theory and practice, and 2) practice interrogates and shapes research and theory.
ENG 5399A: Thesis
This course represents a student's initial thesis enrollment. No thesis credit is awarded until student has completed the thesis in English 5399B. Departmental approval required.
ENG 5399B: Thesis
This course represents a student's continuing thesis enrollments. The student continues to enroll in this course until the thesis is submitted for binding. Departmental approval required.
Note: ENG 5313 and ENG 5314 courses may be taken a maximum of three times each. Different topics are required.
*Effective Spring 2015 – English 5312 and 5317 topics must be approved by the MATC Director prior to enrollment.