FI MUNI course: Technical Writing

This page contains information on the Technical Writing course at the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University for the spring semester 2023.

What do I need to know about this course?

  • The course is pioneering the format of “half-courses” at the faculty. That means it will fully conclude after 6 weeks (first half of the semester).
  • The course is open to all students (Bc, Mgr, PhD), the only prerequisite is good command of English. The maximum capacity is 20 students.
  • The course will feature five homework exercises. Majority of these will need to be completed to get credit (“započet”).
  • The course is the seminar group TechWriting of the course PV177 Laboratory of Advanced Network Technologies. It’s completion is awarded by 2 ECTS credits.

What will the course cover?

The course consists of six lectures delivered by technical writers from Red Hat. Each lecture tackles a separate topic according to the syllabus below.

  1. Introduction to technical writing
    • definition and purpose of technical writing, comparison between different writing styles, a day in the life of a technical writer, types of technical documentation and their specifics, target audience
  2. Style
    • accessibility, minimalism, modularity, and structure, user focus and information flow, style guides
  3. Soft skills
    • empathy, ethics, cultural awareness, communication skills, curiosity, proactivity, editorial skills, time management
    • Hard skills
      • definition of hard skills in technical writing, why we need them, product knowledge, engagement with the development team. Understanding user personas, teamwork across QE, product owners, engineers, support teams, planning for tech writing, how to create technical content, content strategy
    • Tools
      • introducing single sourced and modular documentation, advantages of using markup languages with ability to set attributes and use conditions, overview of text editors, version control systems, and publishing tools, creating and generating documentation using AsciiDoc and AsciiDoctor
    • Usability
      • usability of documented products, 10 usability heuristics, usability of documentation deliverables

    Who is teaching the course?

    The course was prepared and will be taught by Red Hat engineers from the technical writing team listed below. Selected lectures will have other relevant Red Hat engineers as co-teachers.

    • Sarka Jana Janderkova (Head of the program)

    • Alexandra Nikandrova (Head of the program)

    • Martin Ukrop (University liaison/RH project manager)

    • Ioanna Gkioka (Coordinator)

    • Arati Ajit Belgaonkar (Coordinator/Speaker)

    • Jana Vrbkova (Speaker)

    • Jan Fiala (Speaker, Editor)

    • Jiri Hermann (Speaker)

    • Servesha Dudhgaonkar (Contributor)

    • Jacob Valdez (Speaker)

    • Petr Kovar (Speaker)

    • Dominika Vagnerova (Speaker)
    • Lakshmi Venkat (Speaker)

    • Mayur Patil (Contributor)

    • Shweta Jalgaonkar (Contributor)

    • Gabi Fialova (Speaker)

    • Sagar Dubewar (Contributor)

    • Kalyani Desai (Contributor)

    • Jocelyn Sese (Contributor, Editor)

    • Renata Harcarikova (Contributor)

    • Filip Hanzelka (Contributor)Kavya Verma (Contributor)

    • Himadri Bisht (Contributor)

    • Chandralekha Balachandran (Contributor)

    • Misha Ramendik (Contributor)