This class meets in  GCB 1020 at 8 a.m. MWF

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Textbooks

CoursePak for English 1200-2000. Freshman Composition II. Fall 2000.

The Ballenger Packet, which includes:

Ballinger, Bruce. The Curious Researcher: A Guide to Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999.

Branscomb, Rick and Doug Gotthoffer. Allyn and Bacon Quick Guide to the Internet for Composition. 2000 ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

TakeNote! Primer. CD-ROM. Boston: Academix Software Development.  2000.

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Assignments

• General Remarks
• Format Standards
• Late Assignments
• Submitting Assignments
• Summary of Assignments

Please notice that your fees for this semester include a Computer & Technology Fee, which entitles you to any empty seat at most of the computer labs located around campus. Although some labs are restricted (the BVTE Lab is reserved for BVTE students, the Writing Lab is reserved for freshman composition students, etc.), most students use the lab in Austin.

Also, it's a pretty good idea to keep a backup copy of everything you write. You'll need a 3.5" DS/DD (720 KB) or DS/HD (1.44 MB) "floppy," and these are available at the bookstores.

Format Standards

A professional appearance establishes any writer's credibility and improves reader understanding; thus, all written work submitted for evaluation should follow the criteria below:

• Use 20 lb., white, bond paper (or whatever paper is available for printers in the various campus writing labs)--avoid onion skin or erasable paper.
• Maintain a 1-inch margin (top, bottom, left, and right margins).
• Printed text should be dark and clear but without smears and smudges (if a dot matrix printer is used, make sure to print in the letter-quality mode).

Late Assignments

There aren't any, but if an assignment is submitted after a deadline has passed, 10 points per class meeting will be deducted for the grade awarded.

Submitting Assignments

Assignments are submitted in either of two ways:

• Turning it in at the end of the class when it is due, or
• Delivering to the instructor (or his office) by the end of the day the assignment is due; actually if it's in the box by my door by the beginning of the next class day, that'll be okay, too (but remember that I get here around 7:00 a.m.).

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Table 2: Grades and What They Mean
Letter Grade	What the Grade Means
A (100 - 92)	Your boss would be impressed and remember you at promotion time.
B (91-83)	Your boss would be satisfied with the job but not over impressed.
C (82-70)	Your boss would be disappointed and ask you to revise before others saw it.
D	(That animal lives somewhere else.)
F (69-0)	Your boss would start looking for someone to replace you!

 

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This course is designed to help students develop skills and techniques for editing material that is technical in nature, especially material that has been written by another author. In order to achieve this, this course stresses copymarking, copyediting, and proofreading. Of course, the mechanics (spelling, abbreviations, and capitalization), grammar and usage, and punctuation are properly emphasized.

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• Attendance
• Participation
• Plagiarism

Because this course is built on a building-block format, in which each assignment builds upon the one before and prepares students for the assignment to follow, attendance is essential.

Although "life's little problems" often come up at the darnednest times, students are expected to be in class on time, every time, for all the time allotted to this course because it is in the classroom that information essential for the successful completion of this course is presented. However, if circumstances require your presence elsewhere, you are still responsible for material presented in class. If you anticipate any absences, please see me before hand.

As an incentive to help motivate students with their attendance, those who have perfect attendance will be rewarded by having one point added to their final grade average (additional points are not available to "give" to any students; students must get their grades the "old fashioned" way: they earn them!).

Participation

Class participation is an important element of the learning process, and students are expected to feel free to freely and openly discuss the subject at hand. Since participation demonstrates (at least in part) your preparedness for each class, you are expected to:

• Participate in class discussions and honor the Honor Code (read: Don't Plagiarize!).
• Develop and maintain a sense of professionalism and decorum at all times (by now, students should be serious about developing some degree of professionalism). Be honest--don't try to B. S. me (my two sons haven't been out of college that long!).

In the past, I have encouraged students to review their assignments as they prepare for future assignments. In order to do this, students necessarily have to have each assignment returned to them. Some students have allowed their friends (fellow members of clubs, fraternities, or sororities, not to mention those they are dating or their best bud) to make photocopies of their assignments (or worse yet) place their original, corrected copy in club/fraternity/sorority file).

Know this: such action violates the university's Honor Code and does a disservice to students who "copy the 'right' solution" from past assignments. Although former students have thought they'd help their friends, they have really harmed them (by robbing students of the opportunity to learn from their mistakes). The "real world" doesn't follow this unethical practice, and if I find that any of my students (either present or former) participate in this form of plagiarism (by either copying a completed assignment of a former students or by providing an assignment for you to copy) both students will be prosecuted to the fullest of my ability. This is not a warning; it's a promise.

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On the last day of scheduled class, students are expected to submit the following

• all drafts (assuming their first two writing assignments were submitted after revising one or more drafts),
• all graded material (to ensure the instructor's grade book is correct), and
• any other material the syllabus requires to be submitted then.

Packets may be picked up anytime after Spring Break; any packets not picked up by the last of class next semester will be disposed of in an ecologically safe manner #};=).

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During this course, students will:

• Become thoroughly familiar with the research process, especially doing research in Joyner Library.
• Develop the ability to narrow a topic for research, formulate a research question, how to take notes, and how to use and document a variety sources.
• Master the techniques for argumentative discourse and the uses of library research to support arguments.
• Become proficient in writing summaries, critiques, and syntheses--including a composition that defends an argumentative thesis by means of logical analysis and evidence derived from library research.

1) Thinking insightfully and critically

Students should develop the ability to think using these terms as guidelines:

• Circumstances. problems, and issues--discerning conditions within which a problem has arisen; understanding the nature of the issue.
• Claims--discerning solutions to problems conceived by others, and conceiving original ways to resolve issues; wording propositions that subsequent arguments will prove.
• Warrants--discerning convictions, assumptions and values shared with readers that lead readers to accept a claim as being valid.
• Backing--discerning facts, statistics, and precedents that make warrants believable.
• Rebuttals--discerning the validity of conflicting claims.

• Using the library to identify and locate resources.
• Reading journals and documents to understand issues and develop insights.
• Synthesizing information from various sources to conceive and develop a strong claim and to identify and evaluate conflicting claims.

• Providing and tracing the background and current circumstances of a situation so that readers are oriented to a crucial problem and motivated to explore answers and solutions.
• Developing reasonable claims and supporting them with specific evidence and relative warrants.
• Explaining strengths and weaknesses of conflicting claims.
• Leaving readers convinced of the power and reasonableness of the argument.
• Correctly citing publications used to develop arguments.

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'DA P'RFESS'R'S PAGE

Created May 1, 1998  Last Updated May 27, 1999