RE: What should an introductory seminar on tech writing cover?

["Guru Kamath" <guru -at- bom5 -dot- vsnl -dot- net -dot- in>]

Hello Peter,

I have been conducting one day seminars in India for about five years now
for the public.  These were done to promote technical writing in India. I am
happy to provide you the contents below (the signature). Depending on your
audience and objectives, you may have to tailor the contents.

One of the major defects of my seminar has been the lack of excercizes and
feedback to participants.  This would require one more day.  But my hope has
been that participants would keep in touch with me, share their work with
me, and I could provide practical feedback.

My assumptions for the audience are:

a) Good knowledge of English.
b) Good communication skills.
c) Computer literacy (word processing, windows, etc)

I generally do not cover Grammar -- though questions on grammar are answered
during the Question/Answer session.

I would be happy to contribute further to this discussion or answer any
questions that you or others may have.

Thank you for raising this important topic.

Guru
guru -at- bom5 -dot- vsnl -dot- net -dot- in

Introduction to Technical Writing

Time	Lecture/Activity
9:00 to   9:30	Registration

9:30 to 10:30  	Session 1

Technical Writing, Qualifications, Scope,

10:30 to 11:15  	Session 2

Writing Basics, Writing Cycle, Reviewing

11:15 to 11:30	Tea/Coffee Break

11:30 to   1:00  Session 3

Editing Basics, Manual of Style, Indexing

1:00 to  2:00	Lunch

2:00 to  3:00	Session 4

Documents in Document Development Life Cycle

3:00 to  4:30	Session 5

How to write a User Manual

4:30 to  4:45	Tea/Coffee Break

4:45 to  5:30	Session 6

Questions and Answers