Why This Class
Technical writing is a skill that is rarely taught in the course of a CS PhD student's academic career. Often students are expected to already know how to write concisely, logically and with purpose, only to discover technical writing is nothing like the papers or essays they wrote in college. Some mistake command of the English language as the ability to write. In reality, language is only tangentially relevant, and plenty of native speakers have trouble formulating clear, logical arguments in a technical setting.
As an advisor, I have been teaching my students how to write for over a decade, usually in one-on-one settings, at a desk over a printed hardcopy. As a professor, I've been frustrated by the level of writing in papers submitted to my class projects over the years. After many years, these seminars are my attempt to do something about it that (hopefully) scales better than one-on-one meetings.
Similarly, giving effective presentations is a critical skill that is generally taught in an ad hoc manner in CS PhD programs. I (and most CS faculty) have seen countless job talks derail an otherwise slam-dunk academic job interview, or poorly organized conference talks scare audience members right out of the room.
This class will hopefully address some of these issues. It is inspired by a similar class designed and taught by Janet Kayfetz, an applied linguist currently teaching at Columbia. I hope to help students improve their skills using techniques pioneered by her technical writing classes, combined with my past experiences reading, editing and evaluating technical writing.
What this class is NOT: This is not an English class. The focus here is on clear writing and presentation, not grammar or vocabulary. We assume students have a sufficient command of the English language for technical writing, e.g. intermediate English skills.Finally, please enroll only if you are fully committed to improving your writing skills. The course will not function well if students disappear near the end of the quarter when other deadlines pop up.
