About the Course
ENG 505 - Computer-Assisted Publication: Writing and Design
Spring 2008, January 22 - April 29
T 4:30 - 7:10pm, IN 328
Instructor
Office
Office Hours
Phone
"Document design is the field concerned with creating texts (broadly defined) that integrate words and pictures in ways that help people to achieve their specific goals for using texts at home, school, or work.... Document design is the act of bringing together prose, graphics (including illustration and photography), and typography for purposes of instruction, information, or persuasion" (Karen Schriver, Dynamics of Document Design).No longer are media separate, but instead they are woven and interconnected, often relatively seamlessly. We would argue that all writing is computer-mediated; all writing is digital. That writing today means weaving text, images, sound, and video—working within and across multiple media, often for delivery within and across digital spaces. (DigiRhet.net, "Teaching Digital Rhetoric")Course Goals
In this course, students should expect to:
- Understand rhetoric and design as the key processes and tools for both analyzing and producing (both print and digital).
- Learn to evaluate and apply effective principles of document design to print and electronic texts.
- Learn technological skills for facilitating such designs/compositions.
The goal of the course is to provide a foundation for each student's future electronic publishing efforts, whatever they may be. This foundation will be different for each student, who will enter the course with widely divergent experiences with technology. Consequently, the workload in this class will vary with prior knowledge. In a workshop environment, students with more skills will be asked to help advance the foundation for students with less experience. No one will come out of the class an expert, but it is important that each person leaves with a higher level of knowledge and skill. Much of this will depend on individual student effort.