Technical Writing Workshop for Engineers Seminar
DISCLAIMER
Before undertaking any on-demand effort, you should review the rules of your licensing/certifying entity. It’s your responsibility to determine whether or not this on-demand course meets your continuing education requirements.
You must take and pass a quiz in order to receive credit. You can take the quiz as many times as needed and there is no time limit on the quiz. Once the quiz is completed, you will be asked to download your certificate.
Videos that qualify for AIA, LACES, ASLA, or CLARB credit will require an extra week for processing.
Streamable MP4/PDF
Available approximately 1 week after the date of the live event or the date of your order, whichever is later.
To track your purchase you will need to create an account on the website using the email address used for your registration.
For most customers, the videos run like most streaming videos on the web. For videos that qualify for AIA credit there will be occasional question prompts that will not allow the video to progress unless they are answered and you will not be able to skip forward while watching the video.
If you attempt to resume watching the video on a separate device, your progress will not be saved.
Click the link which appears at the end of the video to be taken to the course quiz.
USB MP4/PDF
HalfMoon will mail these materials via USPS. Please allow 2 weeks from the date of purchase to receive your product. If the live seminar is in the future, please allow 2 weeks from the date of the live seminar.
The link to the quiz will be available in a PDF in your USB drive marked QUIZ.
HalfMoon will contact you and issue a full refund if the product you ordered is not available. However, refunds will not be issued if completion certificates are requested.
Please contact HalfMoon Education if you have any questions during the process of taking this course. (715) 835-5900 or qchapman@halfmoonseminars.org
Agenda
Registration: 8:00 – 8:30 am
Morning Session: 8:30 am – 12:00 pm
Lunch (On your own): 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Afternoon Session: 1:00 – 5:00 pm
Planning Documents
Effective technical communication characteristics
• Ensuring specificity, accuracy, structure, and visual appeal
Defining purpose and audience
• Identifying the document purposes and assessing
your audience’s needs and expertise
Writing Documents
Adopting an appropriate style and tone
Using effective sentence construction
Using sentence variety (emphasis, parallel structure, subordination)
Designing documents
• Choosing the right words and technical terminology
• Ensuring clarity (ambiguity, awkwardness, logic errors, positive writing, voice)
• Constructing effective paragraphs
• Page layout and design considerations
Organizing and planning
• Developing work strategies to set priorities and to make the best use of writing time
• Creating project plans outlining specific details for a predictable and
logical structure to help your audience understand technical information
Revising and Editing
Editing for grammar and style
• Using punctuation and mechanics correctly
Reviewing content
• Checking accuracy, completeness, and effectiveness
• Checking unity and coherence
• Ethical issues
Graphics
• Creating and integrating visuals
Best Practices in Correspondence and Technical Documents
Business letters
• Formats and types of business correspondence
Memos and electronic mail
• Advantages and disadvantages of internal communications
Document elements
• Using formats to establish the order of content in
document front matter, body, and end matter
Document types
• Specifications, reports, instructions, and proposals
Credits
This seminar is open to the public and offers 7.0 continuing education hours/PDHs to professional engineers in all states. Educators and courses are not subject to preapproval in Pennsylvania.
HalfMoon Education is an approved continuing education sponsor for engineers in Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey (Approval No. 24GP00000700), New York (NYSED Sponsor No. 35), North Carolina, and North Dakota.
Attendance will be monitored, and attendance certificates will be available after the seminar for most individuals who complete the entire event. Attendance certificates not available at the seminar will be mailed to participants within fifteen business days.
Speakers
Dr. Mark Decker, PhD
Professor and Department Chair in the Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania’s English DepartmentMr. Decker teaches Technical Writing and Writing Technical Manuals in support of the Professional Writing minor. Dr. Decker has PhD and MA degrees in English from The Pennsylvania State University (2001, 1997) and he graduated summa cum laude in English from Utah State University (1995).
While an undergraduate, Dr. Decker worked for several years as a staff writer for Aerotech News and Review, an aerospace and defense industry trade newspaper published in Lancaster, California. During graduate school, Dr. Decker was a member of the Leonhard Center for Technical Writing Initiative, a collaboration between Penn State’s Department of English and College of Engineering designed to promote an exchange of ideas between technical writing instructors and the scientific and engineering communities. Dr. Decker also taught Business Writing, Technical Writing, and an Advanced Technical Writing course that enrolled graduate students from technical and scientific disciplines.
After graduate school, Dr. Decker spent four years at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, where he taught Technical Writing in support of that school’s major in Technical Communication and served as the advisor for the student chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. Dr. Decker has given presentations at several national and international conferences and has published both a book and a co-edited book as well as several scholarly articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia chapters.