Communicating Complex Information Certificate

Program Website: https://www.towson.edu/cla/departments/english/programs/communicating-complex-information-certificate/

Program Director: Sarah Gunning
Phone: 410-704-3139
Email: sgunning@towson.edu

This graduate certificate is designed to help graduates gain confidence in their writing and visual communication skills and prepare them for career advancement. Professionals regularly produce workplace presentations, journal articles, conference talks/posters, and documentation, and must communicate complex information to a variety of audiences and are likely unaware of best practices in presenting that information.

Learning Goals & Objectives

Students will be introduced to the concepts behind information design within the field of technical communication. Information design is a subset of visual rhetoric: how information is organized and presented to make a cohesive argument.

Information design involves:

  • Analyzing the audience’s interests and priorities
  • Building effective sentence structure, flow, and word choice for cohesiveness and clarity
  • Using plain, clear language
  • Using white space, grouping, contrast, color, headings to enhance the message
  • Designing figures and graphics
  • Applying these principles to a variety of communication genres

Students will learn how technical communication has been practiced within their field and how it will continue to evolve in the future. Communicating complex ideas is essential to all fields and will build on the interdisciplinary nature of the liberal arts.   

Students will produce a professional portfolio consisting of three deliverables and will speak intelligently about the design choices they make to arrive at their finished product. Students will understand and describe the logic behind technical communication design choices.

Certificate Requirements

Required Courses
PRWR 624FOUNDATIONS IN TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION3
PRWR 623TECHNICAL WRITING AND INFORMATION DESIGN3
or PRWR 621 BUSINESS WRITING
Electives9
PRWR 617
EDITING
PRWR 621
BUSINESS WRITING 1
PRWR 623
TECHNICAL WRITING AND INFORMATION DESIGN 1
PRWR 628
DESIGNING CONTENT FOR THE WEB
PRWR 629
CONTENT STRATEGY AND WRITING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
PRWR 731
SCIENCE AND ITS PUBLIC AUDIENCE
Total Units15
1

Course may be selected if not taken as a required course

  • Demonstrates awareness of the audience’s interests and priorities.
  • Builds effective sentence structure, flow, and word choice for cohesiveness and clarity.
  • Uses plain, clear language.
  • Applies information design principles (white space, grouping, contrast, color, headings) to enhance the message.