Evans Leads Writing Certificate Program

Evans Leads Writing Certificate Program

by Aviva L. Brandt

Kate Evans

Technical writing wasn't in Kate Evans' plans when she started her career.

After earning a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of Washington and a doctorate in Renaissance literature from the University of Oregon, Evans did the logical thing: She became an English teacher.

She describes her early career as a "freeway teacher," teaching primarily freshman composition at three different colleges in the Washington, D.C., area: George Washington University, George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College. On the side, she taught report-writing workshops for various federal agencies, including the General Accounting Office, U.S. Army, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture graduate school.

"I sort of moved into technical writing from business writing," says Evans, who is now the program lead for the Technical and Professional Writing Certificate program at Portland Community College (PCC).

"When you look at a technical writing book and then you compare it to a business communications textbook, you'll find you've got almost identical material in the first couple of chapters where you talk about purpose and audience and clear and concise writing," Evans says. "There's a tremendous amount of similarity."

Returning to Oregon, Evans started teaching business communication and technical writing at PCC in 1980, becoming a full-time faculty member the following year, but it wasn't until 1986 that PCC launched its technical writing certificate program.

The PCC Program
The Technical and Professional Writing certificate program has evolved since its inception, expanding from a three-class sequence to five classes plus two optional courses.

The classes are:

Technical Writing I, which introduces technical and professional communications. The class includes projects such as writing a user manual and a professional report.

Professional Editing, which introduces different types of editors and edits and includes extensive editing practice with a variety of projects.

Graphic Tools and Layout Techniques, which introduces students to basic concepts of graphic design.

Graphics for Technical and Professional Writers, which applies the graphic art skills learned in the initial graphic design class to technical and professional writing projects.

Technical Writing II, which focuses on developing and producing complex technical and professional documents.

The Evolution of Technical Writing
Technical writing has gone through major changes since its early days, Evans says.

"One of the things that is completely different is what the personal computer means in terms of that the responsibilities of the technical communicator are," Evans says. "When we first started, we had a class called Graphics for Technical Writers, and what it essentially meant was learning to work with the photographer and the typesetter and the illustrator. Now, it's the technical writer who has to do all those things, and of course, we have the tools so we can do all that. That's just a huge, major shift, and I think it's very exciting."

The increasing use of the World Wide Web is another change just over the past five years, she says. "More and more companies don't even bother to produce the paper documents. They want to just have those CD-ROMs available and those webpages up there, going with the paperless idea," Evans says.

What hasn't changed in the 20 years since PCC launched its certificate program is that most of its students already have at least a bachelor's degree before they enroll in the program, Evans says. "A lot of them are in a career change. They've been doing something for a long time, and it's not satisfying anymore," she says. "They want to get back to something that they're good at and enjoyed doing in the past, which happens to be writing."

The last major change in PCC's program was in 1999, when a professional editing class was substituted for a grammar class. The class teaches students to develop an eye for detail, to pay attention to style sheets and consistency, and how to evaluate both paper documents and web pages, Evans says.

"The students are very happy with the change. I think we're meeting the needs of the students much, much better with that (professional editing) class," Evans says.

Aviva Brandt was a reporter and editor for the Associated Press for 11 years before transitioning into technical writing. She can be contacted at aviva@wolfenet.com.