Technical Writing Webinar Series
Agenda
Planning Documents
Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM CDT
Effective technical communication characteristics
• Ensuring accuracy, clarity, conciseness, coherence, and appropriateness
Defining purpose and audienceo
• Identifying the document purposes and assessing your audience’s needs and expertise
Organizing and planningo
• 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
Writing Documents
Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 1:30 – 3:30 PM CDT
Writing
• Adopting an appropriate style and tone
• Using effective sentence construction
• Constructing effective paragraphs
• Building sentences and paragraphs
• Using sentence variety (emphasis, parallel structure, subordination)
Designing documents
• Page layout and design considerations
Graphics
• Creating and integrating visuals
Revising and Editing Documents
Thursday, August 15, 2019, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM CDT
Editing for grammar and style
• Choosing the right words and technical terminology
• Using the punctuation and mechanics correctly
• Ensuring clarity (ambiguity, awkwardness, logic errors, positive writing, voice)
Reviewing content
• Checking accuracy, completeness, and effectiveness
• Checking unity and coherence
• Ethical issues
Technical Writing Best Practices
Thursday, August 15, 2019, 1:30 – 3:30 PM CDT
Correspondence
• Business letters: formats and types of business correspondence
• Memos and electronic mail: advantages and disadvantages
of internal communication
Best Practices in Technical Documents
• Document elements: using formats to establish the order of content in
document front matter, body, and end matter
• Document types: correspondence, specifications, reports,
instructions and proposals
Webinar Instructions
All attendees must log-on through their own email – attendees may not watch together if they wish to earn continuing education credit. HalfMoon Education Inc. must be able to prove attendance if either the attendee or HalfMoon Education Inc. is audited.
Certificates of completion can be downloaded in PDF form upon passing a short quiz. A link to the quiz will be sent to each qualifying attendee immediately after the webinar. The certificate can be downloaded from the Results page of the quiz upon scoring 80% or higher.
Webinars are presented via GoToWebinar, an easy-to-use application that can be run on most systems and tablets. Instructions and login information will be provided in an email sent close to the date of the webinar. It is highly recommended that you download, install and test the application before the webinar begins by clicking on the link in the email.
GoToWebinar App requirements:
Windows 7 – 10 or Mac OSX 10.9 (Mavericks) – 10.14 (Mojave)
Web Browser:
The two most recent version of the following browsers:
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge
Internet Explorer v11 (or later) with Flash enabled
Internet connection: Minimum of 1Mbps Hardware: 2GB RAM or more
For more information visit the Support section at www.gotowebinar.
Credits
Engineers:
8.0 PDHs
Architects:
8.0 CE Hours
AIA:
8.0 LU|HSW
Architects: Please note Technical Writing webinars do not offer HSW hours.
Continuing Education Credit Information
These live, interactive webinars are designed to qualify for continuing education credit for professional engineers and architects in most states. Please see each webinar listing for the number of available continuing education credits. Course participants need to be aware of any licensing restrictions on online learning to fulfill their continuing education requirements.
HalfMoon Education Inc. is registered as a continuing education provider by the American Institute of Architects (No. J885). HalfMoon Education is an approved continuing education sponsor for engineers in Florida, Indiana (License No. CE21700059), Maryland, New Jersey (Approval No. 24GP00000700), North Carolina, and North Dakota. HalfMoon Education is deemed an approved continuing education sponsor for New York architects.
Halfmoon Education is an approved continuing education provider with the Landscape Architecture Continuing Education System. See Stormwater Infiltration webinars for available HSW PDHs.
Participation and knowledge retention will be verified for these webinar events. Certificates of completion will be provided upon successful completion of the quiz at the end of each webinar, and earned LUs will be reported to the AIA/CES.
New York engineers who wish to claim continuing education credit for the Technical Writing webinars are advised to attend all four webinars in the series. Individual webinars in this series will not be accepted.
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.
There are 4 Courses in This Seminar
