Bulletin Board Writing Rules:
Bulletin board entries are expository writing assignments that help you practice your writing skills, taking the place of writing longer research papers. These should be structured as short, expository essays, and should show your best writing skills in introducing and concluding your subject, paragraphing with good supporting detail, and transition--those skills that you learned in English 101. Your writing should show personality and style--this is your chance to write more creatively!
These bulletin board exercises should be written in your word processor so that you can revise and spell check and also because of the nasty habit of the computer network crashing occasionally. If you are writing directly on the bulletin board when your computer loses contact with it, everything that you have written will be lost. If it is on your word processor, you can paste the file into the bulletin board and eliminate this danger and frustration of lost material. Assignments can then be transferred to the forum using the copy and paste features described earlier.
Structure of Writing on the bulletin board: The writing that goes on the bulletin board is single spaced, which can make for hard reading if you do not take special precautions when formatting your document. For ease of reading, structure your writing assignments with an extra line between each paragraph, as your indentations will be stripped out when you post the writing.
Bulletin board entries are graded holistically (few written comments). The grade for each assignment is posted in my grade book and is sent to you by e-mail. If you are having a particular problem with these writings, I will contact you by e-mail. If you are not receiving the points you thought you would get, compare your writing with some of the other writing in the forum.
Class Forum Points - extra credit
Up to 20 Class Forum (extra credit) points are awarded in the first unit for replies written on the bulletin board, and 10 extra credit points in the final unit. Entries written after the unit's due date will not be counted. These EXTRA CREDIT points are awarded following these requirements:
- Polite disagreement with an opinion given by an author on the forum--with meaningful, concrete support for the disagreement.
- Agreement with an opinion given by an author on the forum--with meaningful, concrete additions to the opinion.
- Help with an author's research question and subject, or help with structuring the author's research paper.
- Meaningful discussion and opinions on the course, the assignments, etc.
Class forum points are provided as extra credit, so you can make up points that you may have lost on the research assignments.
Numbers 1-3 should be written using the REPLY command. Read carefully on how to reply to a bulletin board entry in your bulletin board instructions.
No matter how many words are written in a reply, no points will be awarded if there is not thought and reasoning behind the writing. Replying for the sake of getting points will not automatically see points awarded.