This class meets in GCB 2018 MWF (sec 007 at 1300; sec 009 at 1400)

Tentative Syllabus for Fall Semester 1999 

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Required Textbooks

Thill, John V. and Courtland L. Bovee. Excellence in Business Communication. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.

CoursePak English 3880: Writing for Business & Industry. Fall 1999.

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Assignments

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

General Remarks

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. For an up-to-date list of lab locations, visit http://www.ecu.edu/itc/lab/labtable.html.

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

• 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

Submitting Assignments

• 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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Course Description

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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Policies

• Attendance
• Participation
• Plagiarism

Attendance

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

• 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!).

Plagiarism

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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Portfolio

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 the start of Fall Semester 199; any packets not picked up by Labor Day will be disposed of in an ecologically safe manner #};=).

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Course Objectives

During this course, students will have the opportunity to:

• Compose a letter of introduction and write various business letters and reports and a resume.
• Plan, propose, research, analyze, draft, revise, and report on a topic that is technical (as opposed to literary) in nature.
• Master grammar, rhetoric, and usage of the American English language.

• Organize their correspondence in an appropriate manner.
• Analyze each writing situation for its purpose, audience, and goodwill implications.
• Properly intergrate graphics into a formal report.
• Recognize proper business writing and develop an effective writing style.

'DA P'RFESS'R'S PAGE

Created May 1, 1998  Last Updated Nov. 15, 1999