About the program

About technical writing

Course descriptions

Sample units

Representative student work

Tuition fees and duration

Software expenses and books

Brooklyn College: Technical Writing Certificate Program

This program has moved to CUNY Medgar Evers. Please visit the new website. Thanks for your interest!

Interested in a career in technical writing? Interested in adding something to that degree in English, History, Philosophy, Communications, Advertising, Marketing that will actually enable you to get a job? Tired of teaching school or working as a secretary? Want to put your language skills to use and do some writing in a respectable and rewarding profession? If so, the Technical Writing Certificate Program offered through Brooklyn College may be just for you!

The Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program took in its first students February 1999. It is a small program in which students have plenty of opportunity to interact with instructors. As of February 2009, people from all over the world have registered for and completed over 600 individual sections of the courses that are offered.

The Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program is an intensive eight-course program that introduces you to the essential areas in the technical communication and technical writing profession. The entire program is online: you can take the courses individually, or you can take some combination of the eight courses and earn the certificate—right in your own home and from anywhere in the world.

What you learn . . .

Each of the eight courses is eight weeks long, and each packs in a lot of writing, a lot of software, and a lot of learning. The courses introduce you to the technical communication profession, common page and book design, hypertext, HTML, web pages, online helps, technical reports, basic graphics techniques, desktop publishing, user guides, instructions, and more. You get valuable experience with essential software tools such as FrameMaker, RoboHELP, Dreamweaver, and other such applications. To get work as a technical writer, you need items like these on your resume and in your portfolio. The Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program guides you in building an attractive resume and a powerful portfolio that will help you get employment as a technical writer.

Also in the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program, you'll learn how to build a resume especially for technical-writing employment, how to start a portfolio that shows off your work in the key software applications employers are looking for, how to find technical-writing jobs, and how to become an active, responsible member of the profession.

How the courses work . . .

In each course, you have a plan of study and projects mapped out for you: you do readings from textbooks or the Web as well as exercises and quizzes to test your learning, and write several projects that your instructor reviews and comments on. Based on your instructor's comments, you then revise and have your instructor review again. See an example of instructors' comment style.

The Brooklyn College technical-writing courses are not for traditional academic credit. They are continuing-education courses. If you are interested in online technical-writing courses for academic credit, see Austin Community College Technical Communications Program.

To explore the field of technical writing (also called technical communication), visit these sites:

• TECHWR-L. The Internet-based community and resource for technical communicators worldwide. The TECHWR-L discussion list has more than 3,000 direct subscribers and an estimated daily readership of more than 10,000 people worldwide.


• Society for Technical Communication. An individual membership organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication. It is the largest organization of its type in the world. Its 14,000 members include technical writers and editors, content developers, documentation specialists, technical illustrators, instructional designers, academics, information architects, usability and human factors professionals, visual designers, Web designers and developers, and translators - anyone whose work makes technical information available to those who need it


• EServer TC Library. A free, open access index for professional, scientific and technical communicators (such as technical writers).

You can see detailed descriptions of the courses, even the syllabi for the courses (but without the links to the actual study units).

Here are some links to sample units:

Screen capturing
Cropping and sizing graphics
Creating tables in FrameMaker
Developing indexes
Help modeling project

• Windows Movie Maker 2011: User Guide by Andy Weingartner (using FrameMaker 10)
• Getting Started with the Gimp by Diane Ruddock (using Word 2007)
• Using the Logo Creator by Gail Port (using InDesign CS4)
• DocBuilder for AuthorIT by Vladimir Likhanov (using RoboHelp 8)
• Deploying the Parallels Containers Update Server in a Local Network: User Guide by Vladimir Likhanov (using FrameMaker 9)


• Portfolio of Eric Olson, program graduate
• Dan Morris Portfolio by Dan Morris, program graduate
• Portfolio of Uta Lange, program graduate
• Portfolio of Nidhi Srivastava, program graduate
• Portfolio of Diane Ruddock, program graduate

Here are the specifics:

• Each of the eight courses lasts eight weeks.


• Each course costs $355.00; there is a one-time $20.00 fee for registration per semester (not per course).


• If you pay for the entire program at once, tuition is $2840.00 and a one-time fee of $20.00 (a savings of $140).


• When you complete the entire program, there is a $25.00 certificate fee.


• Certificates are not provided when you complete individual courses. Brooklyn College will send a letter confirming your completion of an individual course at your request.


• You can take course in any order, but we recommend TW101 first.


• You can take more than one course at a time (but we strongly advise not taking TW103 or TW104 concurrently with anything else).


• You can start a course you've paid for seven days after Brooklyn College receives your payment, or you can request a later start date.


• Please be aware that Brooklyn College will not refund tuition payments.

Required and recommended books are listed in the course syllabi.

One of the big problems in getting your technical-writing career going is the expense of the software. Employers will have licenses for the software they want you to use, but in the meantime you've got to get access to that software on your own. Here are some of the costs as of June 2007 (but keep reading . . .):

* Recommended but not required; other options can be used.

There are several ways to get around some of these costs:

• Some software vendors will allow discounts up to 50-70% if you can show proof that you are registered in a Brooklyn College continuing education course (such as any of the technical writing courses).


• Read the detailed descriptions carefully: some courses may allow other software.


• One obvious way is to find friends or work colleagues who have a license to some of these products. See if you can arrange to use their computer.


• Download a trial version. These trial versions typically last 30 days, half the length of courses in the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program — you'll have to work fast!


• Purchase "down-level" versions of the software. For example, as of January 2010, Adobe FrameMaker is at version 9. Earlier versions may be as low as a third of the cost of a current license. (Be aware that some employers are adamant for experience with the current release also that the interface for FrameMaker 9 is radically different from previous versions). Here are some links to dealers for discounted, down-level software (found through www.sitemap.com/ --> Computers>Software):



Gradware
Academic Superstore
Computer Products for Education
BizRate.com
Outpost.com
DealTime
PriceGrabber.com
PriceSCAN

Contact hcexres@prismnet.com for additional information.