Syllabus
English 111: Technical Writing Course Line # 2545
Instructor: Mary E. Aldridge Office Location: LO 10 Office Phone: 480-461-7361 E-mail address: maldridg@mail.mc.maricopa.edu Office Hours: M,W, & F 10-11am, T 1-2pm online only, Th 10:30-11:30am, and by appointment.
Course Description This writing course may be unlike any you have enrolled in before because our focus won't center on your finished “products.” Instead, the goal of the course is to help you to develop strategies for using writing to construct meaning—which in turn assists you in generating thought-provoking discourse for your intended reader. Current research indicates that writers must become well-versed in a variety of approaches to types of writing required in their college courses (now) and in the workplace (later). When students are equipped with appropriate strategies for generating texts, they typically approach their writing with confidence and commitment. Additionally, students report that they find the writing process and the writing they construct both rewarding and pleasurable. Upon completing this course, you will have learned that all writing involves a recursive (and often messy) process of thinking and writing strategies often referred to as peer review, invention, prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. Working through these various steps allows for more in-depth and critical writing process that ultimately produces a stronger and more complete written product.
This technical writing course will focus on professional based rhetorical situations. In other words, the writing projects will be constructed with work related purposes and audiences in mind. In the course students will construct a job advertisement specific application packet and a research project about writing in their specific field or profession.
Requirements
Time Commitment Please remember this is an sixteen week course! Also recognize that most college courses expect two to three hours of work outside the class, for every one hour in class. So, for a three credit hour class (during sixteen weeks) that would equate to three hours in class, and six to nine outside of class. So, hypothetically, you should be spending 9-12 hours a week on this course. I'm fairly confident that most of my students do not spend that much time; however, that is the workload to be expected. Although most of my students tend to be overwhelmed in the first couple of weeks, those that survive usually do well and learn a lot.
Course Policies
Attendance, Participation, and Withdrawal Policies
Because so much of our learning will take place in class, you must participate in class on a regular basis to receive credit for this course. The college catalog allows students absences equal to the number of time the class meets each week during a full, 16 week, semester. Since we meet for sixteen weeks, you are only allowed one deadline’s absence from this course. If you are do not participate, by turning in work, for two consecutive deadlines, I will withdraw you from the course. Please take attendance and participation seriously; since this class is a community of writers who will workshop and collaborate, your absence or lack of preparation hurts others as well as yourself. So please participate in class on time and have your homework completed. If you are absent, for whatever reason, you are still responsible for course work. As per the policy below, no homework assignments may be made up any under circumstances.
Completion Policies Due dates and times for assignments are listed in the course schedule. All assignments must be turned in by the date and time listed, no late assignments will be accepted! Because you will be responding to other students' work in this class, your timely completion of assignments affects others in the course. Although it is possible that the technology can fail, it is ultimately your responsibility to submit the work, in the method requested, by the due date. (If there is an institutional, server side, technology error, I will learn about it. If no one is able to submit there work, a new deadline will be assigned. However, if only a few people were unable to submit the work, it is not an error on the instructor’s, institution’s, or district’s side.) If you are having difficulty submitting an assignment, it is your responsibility to contact the instructor before the assignment is due. Otherwise, you risk receiving no credit for the assignment.
Homework All homework is worth ten points, unless otherwise noted. Late homework will not be accepted and cannot be made up under any circumstances. You will receive zero points for late assignments. Except as noted, all homework is:
Major Writing Projects You must submit final versions of each major project:
to pass the class. If you ask for them prior to the posted due date, you may receive extensions on the major writing projects. Even with extensions, no papers will be accepted past December 9, 2005.
You will be docked points for late major writing projects (projects that did not ask for an extension in advance). You will loose a full letter grade for every 24 hours that the project is late:
Essay Format All final drafts of writing projects must be double-spaced, with 1-inch margins. Please be sure to include your name, the date, the class section #, the assignment name, and your project title in appropriate places in the document. Please use a standard, 12-point font (such as Times New Roman). For this course you will be responsible for using the citation style guidelines most appropriate to your line of research. Drafts of major projects will be posted to the WebBoard for peer review. Final versions of final essays will be emailed, as attachments, to the instructor. (The instruct will reply with either a "got it" or instructions for resubmission within 24 hours of a final version deadline. If you do not hear anything via email from the instructor 24 hours after a final version deadline, the instructor did not receive your submission. Be sure to check your email after final version deadlines; the instructor is not responsible for emails being lost in cyberspace.)
Disposition of Papers Students should keep their own papers for at least one semester. Among other things, any student who appeals a course grade will need to submit copies of all graded course papers with the appeal.
The Public Nature of Writing and Issues of Confidentiality Part of becoming a good writer is learning to appreciate the ideas and criticisms of others, and in this course our purpose is to come together as a community of writers. Remember that you will often be expected to share your writing with others. Avoid writing about things that you may not be prepared to subject to public scrutiny or that you feel so strongly about that you are unwilling to listen to perspectives other than your own. This does not mean that you are not entitled to an opinion but that you adopt positions responsibly, contemplating the possible effects on others. In particular, please do not write about any criminal activity you may have knowledge of—as a witness, as a victim, or as a perpetrator. This may seem like an odd thing to caution you about, but if you were to write about such activity, I may be legally required to report it to the authorities.
A Note on Plagiarism Plagiarism is stealing; it is presenting work as your own that is not exclusively your own. Plagiarism can include turning in part or all of someone else’s writing as your own or using information from another source without giving credit. The consequences of plagiarism are severe, including failure of the assignment, probable failure for the course, disciplinary referral to the Dean, and possible expulsion from the institution. Whenever you borrow a phrase, sentence, paragraph—or even an idea stated in your own words—from any outside source without giving credit, you have plagiarized. If you have any questions about how to acknowledge someone else’s words or ideas, or you have a question about whether a source needs to be acknowledged, come talk to me. Please also remember that any writing that you turn in for credit in this course must be written for this course.
Statement of Accommodation I would like everyone to know that I am willing to make any reasonable accommodation for limitations due to any disability, including learning disabilities. Please see MCC’s Disability Resources & Services center (http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/services/disability/) and then me to discuss any special needs you might have.
Grading
Grading Scale Grades are determined according to the following scale:
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