Peace Through Education

Graduate Certificate in Technical Writing and Public Rhetorics

The Graduate Certificate in Technical Writing and Public Rhetorics is designed to help working professionals in Northwest Arkansas (and beyond) looking to improve their workplace writing skills or to launch a new writing-oriented career. With courses available online throughout the year, the Graduate Certificate can work with your schedule instead of against it as you look to improve your writing abilities. And, since each course can be taken individually, you can choose to improve your skills in the area you have the most concern about before choosing to commit to the full certificate program.

In addition, since the certificate program is fully online, you pay in-state tuition for the courses regardless of where you're currently living.

Our Philosophy

What exactly is the role of a technical writer? In today’s highly visual and socially-connected workplace, writers are expected to do more than draft memos or compile reports—often information is highly mobile and must be translated for any number of audiences across a variety of mediums and genres. A spreadsheet may be expected to become a tweet before it ever gets translated into a detailed report. Recognizing this reality, courses in the certificate program are designed to give students the theoretical and practical skills needed to adapt and succeed across a variety of genres and mediums.

Objectives

Students that have completed the certificate can expect to gain the following:

  • Analyze the rhetorical situation of professional and public writing tasks through theory-driven audience research and analysis
  • Produce high-quality texts that meet the audience, medium, and genre needs of a given writing task
  • Oversee and manage large-scale writing projects in the professional and public writing workplace
  • Utilize industry-standard technology and techniques to produce texts for online and paper-based audiences
  • Analyze technical information and synthesize texts that relay that information to audiences of varying levels of skill and proficiency in the subject matter
  • Demonstrate an understanding of and ability to write in a variety of styles
  • Leverage user-centered usability testing and textual editing skills to tailor a text for specific audiences and their needs

Completion Requirements

To obtain the certificate, students need to complete 12 credit hours of approved coursework as well as their professional portfolio. For more detailed information, see the Requirements page.

Contact Information

For more information about the program, please contact the program director Dr. Adam R. Pope via email (arpope@uark.edu) or phone (479-575-2286).