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Computer Science Graduate Program

Help With Effective Technical Communication

The following resources are intended to help you communicate technical ideas effectively. If you have any suggestions for improvement, please contact us.

Graduate School Professional Development Initiative

The mission of the Graduate School’s Professional Development Initiative is to support timely progress to degree and the professional advantage of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars during their time at NC State at beyond. It provides a wide range of innovative scholarly and professional support structures so that participants can develop a trajectory toward scholarly success and long-term career satisfaction in a range of disciplines and professions.

Learn more about the Professional Development Initiative

Check out our Workshops and Seminars

Browse a variety of writing support resources, including support specifically for students in the College of Engineering

Writing Retreat is an intensive week-long retreat designed to help advanced graduate students make significant progress toward the completion of their theses, capstone projects, or dissertations

Apply for a Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Completion Grant

Electronic These and Dissertations

http://www.ncsu.edu/grad/etd/

The ETD Website is a one-stop-shop for everything ETD. The ETD Guide explains in great detail the Graduate School’s formatting and production requirements, the review and final submission process, with step-by-step instructions and visual examples. The student should read the guide before writing and make sure to refer to the guide throughout the writing process.

Also highly recommended is the free ETD Workshop. Meet in-person with the ETD Editor & Graduation Coordinator, to get all of your questions answered. Invest 2 1/2 hours of time to save a huge amount of time on corrections.

Graduate Writing Center (GWC)

https://asc.dasa.ncsu.edu/undergraduate-writing-center/graduate-writing-center/

The GWC is open to all NC State graduate students. Students can bring any non-exam related writing at any point in the writing process to the GWC to get a fresh perspective: course work, big projects, grant proposals, cover letters, anything. The GWC is staffed by graduate students from a variety of disciplines trained to give writers an outside perspective on their work. Consultants help to make sure the writer’s ideas are clearly expressed to the reader. The GWC will operate by appointment only. All appointments meet at the Undergraduate Tutorial Center (101 Park Shops).

Resources

https://asc.dasa.ncsu.edu/resources/writing-and-research-resources/

Department of Foreign Languages and Literature

http://fll.chass.ncsu.edu/esl/courses.php

Oral Skills Courses

  • FLE 201 – Oral Communication in English
  • FLE 400 – American English Pronunciation
  • FLE 401 – Advanced Oral Communication for International Graduate Students

Written Skills Courses

  • FLE 101 – Academic Writing & Research
  • FLE 402 – Research and Technical Writing for International Graduate Students
    This course is intended to help foreign graduate students with technical and research writing. The class includes work on the analysis and writing of a research paper, including practice with the writing conventions and grammar necessary in technical writing. Students will complete a variety of group and individual assignments including a short literature review and analysis of writing conventions in their field of study, a group research project, critical reviews and class presentations, extended definitions, paraphrasing, and exercises designed to extend grammatical control in writing.

Professional Writing Courses

The Department of English offers three writing courses for juniors and seniors majoring in a variety of technical, scientific, and management-oriented fields:

These courses introduce students to the kinds of communication tasks they can expect to perform after graduation and in the workplace; instruction emphasizes the needs of various professional audiences, strategies of adapting organization and style to those needs, and ways of supplementing written communication with oral reports and visual aids. Since the rhetorical principles that form the basis for these three courses are similar, students are not permitted to receive credit for more than one of them

A graduate level course that may also be of interest:

  • ENG 626- Advanced Writing for Empirical Research
    This is a fine course for graduate students who would benefit from instruction in the primary kinds of writing that empirical researchers do, such as the research article, grant proposal, various kinds of abstracts, and posters. There is also help for students writing dissertations and theses.

OIS, English Resources

English Conversation Club

http://internationalservices.ncsu.edu/ois-programs/english-conversation-club/

If you’re looking for a relaxed place to practice your English or you are a native English speaker that enjoys interacting with international students and scholars, then English Conversation Club is the place for you! There is no application or registration required. We only ask that participants come ready to talk and have fun! English Conversation Club is a great place to learn commonly used idioms, practice your conversation skills and learn American vocabulary.

Language Labs

http://chasslabs.chass.ncsu.edu/laundry/home

Both labs are equipped with an excellent language program called “Tell Me More” to practice listening, speaking, and writing. The “Ellis” software is also available. Each lab also contains the software that enables the keyboards to type in different languages. In addition, there are practice tapes for the Speak Test in the Laundry 214 lab. This lab also contains web cameras, microphones, and headsets to use when calling to your home country.

English as a Second Language (ESL) Classes – Wake Tech Community College

http://basicskills.waketech.edu/ESL/classes.php

These ESL classes offer students opportunities to increase speaking, listening, reading and writing skills. There are a variety of sites, and students may enroll at each site until classes are full.

N.C. State’s Intensive English Program (IEP)

http://iep.oia.ncsu.edu/

This is a full-time, non-credit academic program offered Fall and Spring semesters for international students. Students who attend this program can take classes to acquire English proficiency in all key language skills. A Form I-20 (certificate of eligibility for an F-1 student visa) will be issued to admitted students.

NCSU Libraries

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/graduatestudents

Services for Graduate Students and Postdocs

Librarians provide workshops and research consultations for graduate students and research staff across NC State. We can help with:

  • literature reviews
  • managing citations
  • individual research project needs

Related Resources & Services

Useful Websites

N.C. State

UNC

The Writing Center at UNC has a wonderful series of visual demos. Here are links to a few we think you will find useful:

Other

There are many other resources out there for you. Here are links to a few we use often.

Faculty Web Pages

Some Guidelines on Technical Writing by James R. Wilson, Dept. of Industrial Engineering, N.C. State http://www.ise.ncsu.edu/jwilson/files/pres-tech-writ-s04.pdf