Foundations of Technical Communication

COMM-6200

Technical communication today has a remarkably broad scope, including almost every area of life that involves technology, such as health, business, government, and scientific communication. This course addresses an essential part of communication studies and human-computer interaction: the authorship of the signifying level of interface design. Technical communication has grown way beyond people sitting in front of beige boxes writing manuals on how to operate other beige boxes. Instead, it has emerged as a central collection of skills aimed at how to get the right information to the right people at the right time, in a usable form. It has as much to do with information architecture, knowledge management, and information design as with writing reports and instructions. In addition, RPI has a long-standing heritage in technical communication, as the first academic degree in the field was offered here. In technical communication, RPI still maintains a high level of respect and market value for students and faculty at other institutions.

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