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The Written Comprehensive Exam

Students must pass a written comprehensive examination covering the course work (including the readings, research, and projects) undertaken in the degree program. The exam is administered in 3 parts over a 2-day period at the same times that the MA exams are given. Each part is 90 minutes. Parts A and B each consist of two or more essay questions covering the reading list. Part C is a practical exercise in document design and editing. All three parts are given in a computer classroom. Many of the essays and two or more of the books on the list are assigned in ENGL 7010 and ENGL 6010, which are required of all MTPC students.

 

MTPC Comprehensive Exam Reading List

Part A:   History, theory, ethics, intercultural communication, gender studies

Connors, Robert. “The Rise of Technical Writing Instruction in America.”
Dobrin, David M. “What’s Technical About Technical Writing?”
Hagge, John. “Ethics, Words, and the World in Moore’s and Miller’s Accounts of Scientific and Technical Discourse.”
Kreth, Melinda, Carolyn R. Miller, and Janice Redish. “Comments on ‘Instrumental Discourse Is as Humanistic as Rhetoric.’”
Miller, Carolyn R. “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing.”
Moore, Patrick. “Instrumental Discourse Is as Humanistic as Rhetoric.”
Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. “Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post Industrial Age.”
Slack, Jennifer Darryl, David James Miller, and Jeffrey Doak. “The Technical Communicator as Author: Meaning, Power, Authority.”
Selzer, Jack. “Composing Processes of an Engineer” OR Winsor, Dorothy. “Engineering Writing/Writing Engineering.”

Dragga, Sam. “Cruel Pies: The Inhumanity of Technical Illustrations” OR “Hiding Humanity: Verbal and Visual Ethics in Accident Reports.”
Katz, Stephen. “The Ethics of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust.”
Paradis, James. “Text and Action: The Operator’s Manual in Context and in Court.”

St. Amant, Kirk. “Commentary: When Cultures and Computers Collide: Rethinking Computer-Mediated Communication According to International and Intercultural Communication Expectations.”
Ulijn, Jan M., and Kirk St. Amant. "Mutual Intercultural Perception: How Does It Affect Technical Communication?—Some Data from China, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Italy.”

Allen, Jo. “Gender Issues in Technical Communication: An Overview of the Implications for the Profession, Research, and Pedagogy.”
Baker, Randolph T., and Lisa Zifcak. “Communication and Gender in Workplace 2000: Creating a Contextually Based Integrated Paradigm.”
Durack, Katherine T. “Gender, Technology, and the History of Technical Communication.”

Part B: Theory and research in usability, document design, and visuals

Barnum, Carol.  Usability Testing and Research.
Johnson, Robert N. User-Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts.
Kostelnick, Charles. “From Pen to Print: The New Visual Landscape of Professional Communication.”
Nielsen, Jakob. Designing Web Usability OR Baehr, Craig. Web Development
Schriver, Karen. Dynamics in Document Design OR Kimball, Miles A., and Ann R. Hawkins. Document Design: A Guide for Technical Communicators. 
Nielsen, Jakob. Designing Web Usability OR Baehr, Craig. Web Development
Tufte, Edward. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

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Last updated March 3, 2008