This page began as a project for the "Creating Web Pages with HTML" class in at a community college that prefers to remain nameless. The college is located in Wake County, near Raleigh, NC.

The quote is from the E. Fitzgerald translation of the Rubiayat of Omar Khayiam.

East Carolina University offers a number of distance learning programs, including the Professional Technical Communications Certification program. You can even get a Masters degree in English, concentration in Professional Technical Communications without ever setting foot in Greenville, NC, although you might go there for your Comprehensive Exam (note that parking can be a challenge, but parking tickets are priced reasonably.)

The classes are focussed on research and writing. Papers that I prepared for these classes include the following:

• What to Do About XML. This is a work in progress about XML. I am gradually upgrading my site to use XHTML, which means a whole lot of clean up on the tags.
• Dysphagia and the Dialysis Diet. When people have trouble swallowing, they can use some tricks to ease the problem, and select foods that are easier to swallow. However, many of the standard foods recommended for dysphagia don't work on a dialysis diet. This paper combines swallowing tips and a tailored list of food recommendations for dialysis patients who have trouble swallowing.
• Avoiding Falls in Your Home. Another brochure about avoiding falls, and why exercise is important for seniors in regard to falling.
• Using Constructivism in Computer Documentation. Numerous papers have been written about using constructivism in web-based training. I found very little about using constructivism for documentation for a solitary learner, that is, a person reading a manual or using the online help.
• E-portfolio. E-portfolios, sometimes called webfolios, are a recent device to demonstrate skills and knowledge. As I was researching to see what the most popular designs are, I was surprised to find that not only are writers and graphic artists using e-portfolios, so are teachers, both for themselves and to help their students begin what should be a life-long project. Although many are designed as a job-seeking tool, e-portfolios are also used to help students reflect on what they have gained from their classes.
• Usability Report. Coming soon.

This is the tragic true story of why the Great American Novel remains unfinished.

An Illustrated History of Technical Communication is a frivolous look at the subject, as a straight text file.

This section is under construction. At present, it contains about 85% of the 1800 names collected and researched by Frederick Morey Latham, Sr. It also has some stories and statistics. Numerous broken links and errors have been corrected.