Contents

• Copyright
• Acknowledgements
• Syllabus
  • Administrative details
  • Required Texts
  • Recommended texts---on reserve in the Science Library
  • Also on reserve
  • Other interesting books, not on reserve
  • Homework Assignments
  • Evaluation
  • Collaboration
  • Special guest lecturers
  • Schedule (due dates)
  • Reading assignments
• Intake Survey
  • Purpose of the intake survey
  • Pre-requisite verification
  • Language background
• Job application letter and résumé
  • Goals---audience assessment and letter writing
  • Audience assessment
    • Mass-mailed résumé s versus tailored job letters
    • Finding an employment possibility
    • Doing the background research
  • Writing process---letter writing
    • Getting started
    • Doing this assignment
    • Doing the working draft
    • Experimenting with formatting
    • Tailoring your résumé
    • Preparing for peer editing
  • Things to keep in mind for editing
    • Understanding confidence in its cultural context
    • Including a statement of an objective or goal
    • Including other categories
  • The final draft
    • Deciding about length
    • Neatness counts
    • Hints
  • What to turn in
• Hiring Recommendation Memo
  • Goals---reading for content, writing memos
  • Audience assessment---Personnel Director
  • Writing process---persuasive writing
    • How to go about persuading the personnel director
    • Memo format versus letter format
    • Writing in class
• Electronic mail and newsgroups
  • New forms of communication---new writing styles
  • Flaming
  • Humor
  • Assignment---newsgroup discussion
• Algorithm Description
  • Goals---multiple audiences, graphics, sophisticated audiences
  • Audience assessment---writing for multiple audiences
  • Writing process---algorithm description
  • Figures and displays
    • Graphics
    • Pseudo-code
  • Explaining recursion
  • Titles, title pages, and executive summaries
  • Things to keep in mind for peer editing
    • About the algorithm
    • Mechanical details
  • The final draft
• In-program Documentation
  • Goals---recognizing that programs are documents
  • Audience assessment---maintenance programmers
  • Assignment---adding comments to Wirth's code
  • Writing process---in-program documentation
  • Format for in-program documentation
    • Identify your work
    • Use white space freely
    • Indent to show block structure
    • Name variables carefully
    • Use a block comment for each procedure interface
    • Use a block comment inside each procedure to explain method
    • Use a block comment for each data type
    • Use a block comment for each data structure
    • Use a one-line comment for each local variable
    • Use comments sparingly inside the body of the code itself
    • Use assertions.
  • Things to keep in mind for peer editing
  • The final draft
  • Wirth's description of the knight's tour program
• Naive-user documentation
  • Goals---better paragraphs and writing for non-technical audiences
  • Audience assessment---non-technical audiences
  • Writing process---paragraph structure
  • Things to keep in mind for editing and partner work
  • The final draft
• Library Puzzle
  • Catalog database ( CAT and TEN)
  • Magazine database ( MAGS)
  • World-wide web
  • Computer article database ( COMP)
  • You figure out what indices to use
• Survey article
  • Goals---short surveys, library practice
  • Choosing your topic
  • Textbook resources
  • Audience Assessment---fellow students
  • Writing process---finding, organizing, writing
    • Library search
    • Organizing the information
    • Writing the paper
  • What to bring for peer editing
  • Final draft
• Final project proposal memo
  • Goals---proposal writing, choosing the final project
  • Audience assessment---the instructors
  • Writing process---informal proposals
• Document specifications
  • Goals---three purposes for document specifications
    • Economy of effort
    • Work planning
    • Writing Organization
  • Audience assessment
  • Writing process---document specifications
    • Outlining is organizing
    • The basic tripartite structure of a formal report
    • Organizing the work and the writing
    • Which projects do not use the Tripartite Structure?
  • What to turn in
• Progress Report
  • Goals---writing progress reports, making sure there is progress
  • Audience assessment---instructors and supervisors
  • Writing process---short progress reports
  • Professional Ethics
    • Honesty is the basis of professional ethics
    • 1979 IEEE Code of Ethics
      • Preamble
      • Article I
      • Article II
      • Article III
      • Article IV
    • 1990 IEEE Code of Ethics
  • Assignment---final draft only
• Final project
  • Goals---formal report writing
  • Audience assessment---choose your own
  • Writing process
    • Writing the Report
    • The tripartite structure of a formal report
    • Explanation of Tripartite Structure
    • A note on page numbering
  • Oral Reports
  • What to turn in
• Oral Reports
  • Goals---clear oral presentation
  • Meeting the expectations of the audience
  • Presenting your report
    • Using notes, transparencies, charts, and displays
    • Practicing Your Presentation
  • Evaluation of the presentation---form and content
    • Form
    • Content
  • Scheduling the talks
  • Note on oral presentations at SIGGRAPH
  • Things I Hope Not to See or Hear at SIGGRAPH
    • Talks read verbatim
    • Illegible slides
    • Microtext
    • Yellow lines on a white background
    • The entire text of the talk echoed on slides
    • ``I'm sorry these slides are so dark.''
    • The tops of the speakers' heads
    • ``I'm almost out of time so I'll just run through the rest of the slides real fast.''
    • ``Uh, I guess that's all I have to say.''
    • Remember
• References
• Generic Evaluation Sheet
  • Accurate presentation of technical information
  • Overall document design and organization
    • Discourse structure
    • Formatting
  • Grammar, punctuation, and diction
    • Sentence grammar
    • Punctuation[#hackerref##1#, P,][#huckinolsen2##1#, Appendix A,]
  • Diction
    • Word use[#hackerref##1#, W,][#huckinolsen2##1#, Chapter 27,]
    • Tone
  • Spelling
• Grammar and format notes (read this appendix first)
  • Content errors
  • Discourse structure errors (see #discourseeval#1390>)
    • Sections and section headers
    • Paragraphs
    • Pronouns
    • Tone
  • Format errors (see #formateval#1424>)
  • Sentence structure errors (see #sentenceeval#1429>)
    • Faults in style
    • Faults in grammar
  • Punctuation errors (see #puncteval#1460>)
    • Hyphens and dashes
    • Quotation marks
    • Parentheses and brackets
    • Commas and related marks
  • Word choice errors (see #dictioneval#1483>)
    • Commonly misused words and phrases
    • Sentence grammar affects word choice (see #sentenceeval#1534>)
• About this document ...