CS 5301: Advanced Professional and Technical Communication

Spring 2006, Section 503 (TR, 3:30 – 4:45 p.m.)

“Documentation for Conversational and Social Robotics”

Dr. Gooch
Office Number: J0 5.608F
Office Hours: TR, 9 – 11:00 a.m. and by appointment
Office Phone: (972) 883 - 2076
E-mail: john.gooch@utdallas.edu

Course Description
The purpose of this course is to help you develop skills and competency in both oral and written
communication as these occur in engineering and technology work environments. You will work with
industry-specific projects, determine technical communication needs, develop professional-quality
documents, and make formal presentations on technical topics to technical and non-technical
audiences. We will learn the basic genres of technical communication: technical specifications,
technical summaries, memos, and oral presentations. Engineering and programming are collaborative
activities. This course is structured as a collaborative-learning environment where you will work with
a small team of peers to practice the fundamentals of collaborative decision making, documentation,
as well as master the logistics of successful team presentations.

This semester, we will complete a series of documentation projects for Hanson Robotics. David
Hanson (CEO of Hanson Robotics) and his collaborators have agreed to work directly with graduate
students enrolled in CS 5301, Sections 501 and 503 for Spring 2006. Hanson Robotics will specify
problem areas for written projects – specifically, white papers and specification reports that the
company will use to resolve complex code problems in software interfaces for robot technology.

Course Learning Objectives

• To teach students to adapt written and oral communications to both technical and non-
technical contexts and audiences
• To give students successful collaborative work experience approximating the industry work
environment
• To enhance students’ ability to analyze and interpret professional ethics as practiced by
engineers
• To refine students’ skills to conceive and draft written and oral projects through a rhetorical
process of revision
• To teach students how to receive and give critical peer feedback on written documents and
oral presentations
• To enable students to create professional quality technical documents such as specifications,
proposals, memos, abstracts, and letters
• To develop students’ skills in planning and delivering effective technical presentations
• To extend students’ ability to use PowerPoint and other computer generated visual aids to
enhance presentations and documents

Skills and Other Requirements for the Course

Communication
Technical writing and technical presentations require students to have college-level writing skills,
both written and oral proficiency in English, and a working knowledge of word processing. Students
must also possess a broad familiarity with computer science, systems engineering, technical
engineering, or electrical engineering, sufficient to write and speak knowledgeably about technical
content in these fields.
Technology
Students must have internet skills to conduct research. Familiarity with Microsoft PowerPoint will
be necessary for oral presentations. The curriculum is extremely fast paced and requires students
to be self-motivated learners of the technology used in our computer-intensive classroom. While
course instructors will guide students on how to operate the Smart Board and the digital
videotaping of oral presentations, students are expected to practice using the technology prior to
creating documents and delivering presentations.
WebCT
The course is taught using WebCT. All students must have UTD User IDs and passwords to access
course materials—including the submission of assignments. Students must ensure that the course
remains accessible to them for the duration of the semester.

Americans with Disabilities Act Compliance

It is the policy of UTD to provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals who are
students with disabilities. This university will adhere to all applicable Federal, State and local
laws, regulations and guidelines with respect to providing reasonable accommodations as
required to afford equal educational opportunity. It is the student’s responsibility to contact the
office of services for students with disabilities (Kerry Tate at (972) 883-2098 or
ktate@utdallas.edu) in a timely manner to arrange for reasonable accommodations.

Textbooks and Materials

• Dan Jones, Technical Writing Style
• Harry E. Chambers, Effective Communication Skills for Scientific and Technical Professionals

Policies
General Policies and Course Expectations
• At minimum, students must submit all major assignments (not including homework/class
work) to earn an A or B in the course. Students who fail to submit all major assignments
will receive a grade no higher than “C,” regardless of the number of points the student
has earned.

• Cell phones and digital pagers must be powered off during formal class hours.

• I will not accept late homework/class work regardless of the excuse.

• IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) style guide is required for source
citation.

• Please do not bring meals to class. Students should eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a
time other than class time.
Room and Equipment Use
• Tampering with or destroying any of the computers, printers, Smart Board, white boards,
modems or wiring in the classroom is strictly prohibited. Violations will result in
disciplinary action by the Dean of Students’ office.
• The classrooms have scheduled open lab hours ONLY for 3390/5301 students and ONLY
for working on 3390/5301 course deliverables. If you need to use the lab, we
recommend that you sign up for a specific time with your instructors so that we may
open the classroom for you. Walk-ins are welcome but you need to sign-up with your
 instructors at their office. We shall not be holding office hours in the classrooms.
Instructor office hours are held in instructor offices.
• No cell phones, pagers, or other electronic messaging services may be used in the
classrooms unless you have cleared it with the instructor first and only on an emergency
basis.
• The room may be used only for ECS 3390 and CS 5301 related activities. You may not
work on other class projects, check your e-mail, print, work for other classes, burn CDs
that are not part of the ECS 3390/CS 5301 assignments, install software (games, music,
executables, programming languages, or any other software that has not been approved
by the IPC.) Any violation of the above restriction would refer a student to disciplinary
action with the Dean of Students office. A second violation will result in the student
receiving an “F” in the course regardless of the quality of class work.
Absence Policy
I will allow you two (2) days as personal/free/sick leave for this semester. In addition, you must
attend on presentation days. Students will receive grade reduction of one letter grade for every
absence over two; I will also penalize students for missing presentation days.

Because successfully completing CS 5301 depends upon your attendance and participation,
extended illness and otherwise legitimate circumstances can hinder your overall performance. If
an extended illness and/or hospital stay causes you to miss four (4) or more class days, then you
should drop this class and enroll again for a future term.

Incompletes Policy
As per UTD policy, an incomplete will not be given unless the student has completed 70% of the
course work and/or the conditions for not being able to complete the course work can be
documented through medical and/or emergency documentation. The decision to grant an
incomplete will be made by both the instructor and the program director.

Correspondence
I will send all electronic correspondence only to a student’s UTD email address and require that
all official electronic correspondence between a student and me be transmitted from the
students’ UTD email account. UT Dallas furnishes each student a FREE Network ID (netid) linked
to an email account. To activate or maintain a UTD computer account and/or to set email
forwarding options, go to http://netid.udallas.edu. NOTE: The UTD Department of Information
Resources provides a method for students to forward their UTD email to other personal and
business email to other personal or business emails accounts.

Plagiarism and Copyright

Plagiarism is the intentional or unintentional use of other people’s ideas, words, phrases, entire
paragraphs or single sentences without acknowledging the source in timely and appropriate
citations. Plagiarism is a form of scholastic dishonesty that is punishable by failing the
assignment, failing the course, being put on academic probation or in extreme cases dismissal
from the university. If you borrow content or graphics from other books, course lectures,
websites or other forms of print or electronic media, you must cite them according to
specifications mandated for this course. Everything you submit for peer or instructor review for
this class is bound by the academic honor code that requires it to be your unique work with
borrowed content properly cited.

In contrast to plagiarism’s inappropriate use of other sources’ information, cheating, or scholastic

dishonesty, includes a wide range of behaviors. The UTD Scholastic Dishonesty page lists
eighteen types of behaviors, including copying another student’s work, making work or
submitting an assignment that you did not prepare. This list is not exhaustive but does provide a
sense of common ways cheating occurs. While you can (and in fact should) seek the help and
advice of friends, classmates, and tutors, including the Writing Center in McDermott Library, be
sure that your individual work is completely your own.

Students may not submit work completed previously from another term, in whole or in part, in
this or any other semester. In addition, work submitted for this course may not be submitted for
any other course, in whole or in part, in this or any other semester. You may use the same ideas
from another course, but all your work (e.g., documents, presentation notes, presentation slides)
for CS 5301 must be original. Should you reference an idea or issue from another document, you
should cite that document, even if you are its author.

Non-Disclosure and Intellectual Property

Students in this course share their ideas through collaborative work, projects, and oral
presentations. Consequently, instructors cannot guarantee proprietary rights to an idea,
document, program, etc. When selecting topics for projects, assignments, and presentations,
consider whether you intend to pursue intellectual property rights such as patents or copyrights.
If so, please be advised that everything discussed or produced in this course belongs to the
public domain and as such will not give you any copyright or patent benefits. If that is a concern
to you, I strongly recommend that you select another topic for the assignment. Additionally,
students employed with local companies should review the employer’s non-disclosure agreements
and avoid revealing proprietary information in the course. UTD and the faculty assume no
responsibility when employees choose to disclose such proprietary information.

Assignments
Assignment Points Percentage Due Date
Ethics Assignment (Individual) 100 10% Feb 4
White Paper (Individual) 200 20% March 4
Individual Presentation (White Paper) 100 10% Feb 21, 23
Team Contract/Document Management Plan 100 10% March 25
Team Presentation (Group performance) 50 5% April 18, 20
Team Presentation (Individual performance) 50 5% April 18, 20
Team Specifications Document 200 20% April 28
Merit Review #1 50 5% April 1
Merit Review #2 50 5% April 15
Personal Performance Evaluation 50 5% April 22
Participation, Class Work, Homework 50 5% Varies

Grading Scale
900 – 1000 = A
800 – 899 = B
700 – 799 = C
699 and below = F

(Grading scale is consistent with the UTD Graduate Catalogue, 2004-06.)

General Grading Criteria (Written Documents and Oral Presentations)
Analysis of Audience and Purpose
When presenting technical information in oral or written form, it becomes critically important to
analyze audience and also to identify the purpose of the document or presentation. Technical and
scientific communicators should learn as much as they can about their audiences and then make
certain they effectively address those readers or listeners.

Organization and Development (Overall Content)

For both written documents and oral presentations, it is important to structure effectively the
information and also provide adequate support for ideas and arguments through evidence and
analysis. Writing documents also requires that you effectively structure each paragraph and each
section.

Thesis or Main Point

Both oral presentations and written documents should advance a basic assertion or main point.
You should organize the content of your presentation or document around this basic, main point.

Accessibility (Written Documents)

People read technical documents for information. Therefore, the audience (readers/users) should
be able to access easily the information in the document. Accessibility requires the use of a table
of contents, tab dividers, heading and subheadings, page numbers, running headers and footers,
and any other feature that enables an audience to locate quickly and easily the information they
need.

Style
Word choices, use of language, and sentence structure become very important to the document’s
overall effectiveness. When preparing a technical document or oral presentation, writers or
speakers should maintain an appropriate level of style for the audience and also for their
intended purpose.

Delivery
“Delivery” in written documents refers to formatting (font size/type, font style, margins, white
space, etc.) whereas “delivery” with regard to technical, oral presentations refers to use of the
voice and appropriate and effective body language (enunciation of words, avoiding verbal and
pregnant pauses, audible tone, mannerisms, etc.). I will also evaluate “delivery” issues with
regard to the visual elements (e.g., images, font size, spacing, etc.) of PowerPoint slides.
Students will submit copies of their slides and visual aids before giving their presentations.

Professionalism
You will prepare work according to the same professional and ethical standards expected of you
in the workplace. As future or current professionals and also as graduate students, I expect you
to proofread and edit carefully all work you submit in this class. I also expect you to adhere to
conventional English grammar and mechanics on all assignments. Professionalism also means
that you use appropriate source citation wherever and whenever necessary so that you avoid
violations of copyright – even if those violations are inadvertent. Remember: your work reflects
upon you and/or your group as a member or members of the software engineering profession.

NOTE: To earn an “A” grade for an assignment, it must meet and exceed these expectations.
Graduate level writing is expected in this course. Assignments that do not reflect graduate level
writing will not earn high grades.
CS 5301 Schedule, SPRING 2006*
WEEK TOPIC/THEME READING
January 10, 12 Introduction to Course
David Hanson, CEO, Hanson
Robotics

January 17, 19 Principles of Communication Chambers, Chapters 1-2

Technical and Scientific Jones, Chapters 1-2, 7
Communication as Genre
Style in Technical Communication

January 24, 26 Ethics and Communication Jones, Chapters 10-11

Citation Chambers, Chapter 3
Dombrowski, “Challenger
Disaster” (handout)

January 31, Feb 2 Rhetorical Situation and Audience Jones, Chapters 3-4
Analysis, Persuasion
Workshop: Ethics Assignment

February 7, 9 Organization and Development Jones, Chapter 8

February 14, 16 Oral Presentation Skills

Workshop: White Papers

February 21, 23 PRESENTATIONS

February 28, Mar 2 Collaboration Chambers, Chapter 4
Workshops: White Papers

March 6 – 11 SPRING BREAK

March 14, 16 Communicating with Non-Technical Chambers, Chapter 6

Audiences Jones, Chapter 5-6

March 21, 23 Specification Documents

Mar 24 – Last day to Team Contract Document
withdraw
March 28, 30 Editing Jones, Chapter 12

April 4, 6 Communicating in Organizational Chambers, Chapters 5, 10,

Contexts 12-13

April 11, 13 Workshops: Specification

Assignments
April 18, 20 PRESENTATIONS

*This schedule is subject to change.