Writing Policy
Today's professional and technical communication specialists must be able -- through spoken, written, and visual communication -- to connect employers to employees, businesses to the public, products to consumers, governments to citizens, and mass media to audiences. To meet the entry-level demands of their career field, baccalaureate degree candidates in Professional & Technical Communication must be able to produce writing with these qualities:
Communicability and Organization
- Fluent Expression
- Clearly stated and logically developed ideas
- Coherently arranged materials
Appropriate Content
- Substantial relevant material
- Thoroughly developed central idea
Proper Diction and Effective Style
- Accurate word choice/usage
- Strategic tone
- Appropriate level of style
Effective Language Usage
- Proper sentence construction
- Few shifts in tense/point of view/antecedents
- Few misplaced modifiers/dangling constructions/awkward passive verbs/errors in subject-verb agreement
Effective Mechanics
- Proper bibliographical citation (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago)
- Minimal errors in spelling, punctuation, paragraphing
The Institute Writing Policy states that students "will be evaluated in terms of their writing proficiency by the end of their third year" (D.3). In the PTC program, this assessment takes place all through the student's academic career.
Throughout their course work in the major, students regularly complete writing assignments. In all courses, instructors monitor the quality of students' writing to ensure they develop the necessary abilities at an appropriate rate. Students with writing deficiencies are advised on how to raise their abilities to an acceptable level and, if necessary, may be referred to the Academic Support Center (ASC) for remedial instruction. In the latter case, the course professor who makes the referral will follow-up with the ASC instructor to monitor the student's progress.
In addition, all PTC students must take three upper-division writing courses: Technical Writing, Professional Writing, and Writing the Technical Manual. Students must pass all required upper-division writing courses with a grade of "C" or better. A student who receives a grade lower than "C" in any of these courses will, after consultation with his or her PTC advisor, either retake the course or be referred to the Academic Support Center for remedial instruction. In the latter case, the advisor will follow-up with the ASC instructor to monitor the student's progress.
