Fall 2003
MWF 1:25-2:15 048 Memorial Hall and Computer Classroom (ground floor of Memorial)
Instructor: Stephen A. Bernhardt
Office Memorial 23
Phone 831 3351 (email is better for messages)
Instructor email See Web-CT site and send mail there
Class email See Web-CT site for classmate mail and whole class mail
Office hours Mondays 230-430;Wednesday 2-330; and by appointment
A Student’s Guide to First-Year Writing at the University of Delaware.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. NY: Henry Holt, 2001.
Hacker, Diana, The Bedford Handbook, 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2002.
Tinberg, Howard. Writing with Consequence: What Writing Does in the Disciplines. NY: Longman, 2003.
This course is intended to make you a better writer. Writing is one of the most important life skills you have: it will open doors, be a source of pleasure and satisfaction, and help you reach your goals. Like any skill development course, what you get out of this course is in large measure dependent on what you put in. I can't force you to pay attention or read carefully or put lots of time and energy into the assignments (though I will try to be very persuasive). I can help set you on the right course, but the energy and commitment must come from you.
This course introduces the special demands of writing in academic settings. We will explore what it means to write in psychology, or animal science, or biology, or engineering. We will work part of our time in a regular classroom and part time in a computer classroom.
Working collaboratively is an important aspect of the course. We will count on each other throughout the course, sometimes as research partners, sometimes as peer reviewers, sometimes as team members, and sometimes as a full class. I will give each of you careful criticism of your work and try to be responsive to your needs for individual help.
The Writing Center is a campus resource that provides free help with your writing, whether for this class or any other. They will read your paper with you, serve as a “trial” audience, and ask questions or make comments that will help you improve your writing. If you like, you can meet with an Center instructor on a regular basis. They have great tutors—you should take advantage of this service to improve your writing.
If you have problems with writing correctly (grammar and punctuation), I will identify those problems and assign extra work to you (readings and exercises in the handbook). If problems persist, I will refer you to the Writing Center for additional help. You will need to follow through on the referral. This course is the perfect place to understand the kinds of writing problems you have and to take action to address those problems.
I expect you to take advantage of my office hours for one-on-one conferences. You can either schedule an appointment or drop in during my hours. I like it when you have specific issues you want to work on: to talk over ideas for a paper, to review an outline, to plan research, to revise a draft.
You should communicate with me and the class via email. We can discuss issues as a group on our class discussion board. You will also be able to ask the group through email for information about assignments, strategies, or requirements via the list. This is a class where we will consciously practice good communication in the context of doing our work. You will become more comfortable and efficient at using email and online review tools to improve your writing.
If you have a question about how to do an assignment or want help, post your question to the bulletin board on Web-CT, so everyone benefits from your question. If you are not sure about something, there will be other people in class with the same question. If you write to me personally, but I think the class would benefit from discussion the issue, I will forward your question to the group.
Develop your skills to work online with electronic texts. You can turn in assignments via email attachments, and I will give you feedback and return the text as an attachment. When you send me texts, be sure to write a message in the email telling me what kind of help you would like, where you are having trouble, and whether I am looking at a draft or a final text to be graded. If you would rather create a web page (html) text instead of a paper text, talk it over with me and we can adjust the assignment.
We have a lot of work in this course and I am sure you will feel busy. But should you want to undertake any kind of writing not required—for work or for pleasure—I would be happy to read and react to it and to give you extra credit. Let the class know if there is a certain kind of writing you would like to do. I also give extra credit when a student provides outstanding help to others in the class.
Specific points for assignments are on the grade sheet in WebCT. You will be able to see the overall total points and what you have so far, so you know where you stand. Your grade will be based primarily on the point values assigned from writing assignments, according to the following rubric:
Top Score Outstanding, beyond expectations, well designed and edited, strong and interesting content, insightful, thorough, professional, well documented
Mid-Top Good work, responsive to the task, strong thinking, highly acceptable, informative, well written
Mid Score Just satisfactory, has some problems, not a clear analysis, would not get you favorable attention in most classroom situations
Mid-Low Unsatisfactory, not responsive to task, poor information, bad thinking, badly organized, lack of research background or documentation, would call bad attention to your work
Low Score Careless, sloppy, not what was asked for in the assignment, missing information, bad analysis, would get you negative attention in most settings
0 Not completed; worse than F
Written work is due at the beginning of class, unless otherwise announced. A late paper will be graded down. Papers will not be accepted more than one week after they are due. Papers can be revised if you have
a) a plan for improving the work,
b) the desire to put more time into the assignment, and
c) a convincing discussion of the revision plan with me.
The points for the revised paper will be tallied alongside the original score. Graded papers can only be revised for added points once.
Some work (posts or homework) will be graded check (√) for satisfactory, √+ for better than expected, and √- for worse than expected. These marks can influence your grade up or down.
Homework, class participation, leadership, and work habits all influence your grade. You will be able to keep track of your points throughout the term.
Since this is a workshop class, participation is important and I will credit you during grading on the basis of your overall participation, contributions, and leadership. Bring samples of interesting writing to class to share. Talk in class about what you are learning. Help others be successful. Take an active role and your grade will take care of itself.
To participate, you need to be in class, on time, having read the work and being prepared to work. We will follow the University policies on excused absences (see the catalog). To validate such an absence, the student should present evidence to the Dean's Office of his or her college. The Dean's Office will then provide a letter of verification to all of the student's instructors for the term.
I can accept one or two absences for personal reasons or special events, as long as you explain to me in an email the reason for your absence. You should do this before the absence, if possible. Additional absences will cause your grade to be lowered. If you miss a class, talk to someone first and then see me if necessary to be sure you don't miss important information about assignments.
I cannot accept habitual tardiness or absence, nor can I accept work that is late or poorly done. Withdrawing from class within deadlines is up to you. I will initiate withdrawal procedures if someone misses several classes (3-4) during the first four weeks of the term and is obviously not going to pass the course.
Students with disabilities should use the services the University provides: diagnosis, support, special consideration. Let me know if you have a disability that affects your performance in this class and we will find ways to work together, in confidence. Sit up front if you need to see or hear better. Ask me to repeat if you have trouble understanding. If your situation means you need extra time for completing written work, let’s make the adjustments as necessary.
1) Attend class
2) Deadlines are an important part of a writer's life. It is important to keep up and to bring the work to class that is requested. Keep track of reading, writing, and homework assignments in your planner. Late assignments will be graded down two points..
3) Drafts: When the syllabus calls for a “draft” version of your work, that means a complete, word processed document that is ready for review and revision. If you don’t bring strong, complete drafts to our workshops, we can’t work together. I will give zeros to those who show up without their drafts on the due dates.
4) Word process all major assignments. I am not concerned with how you prepare short exercises or planning documents, though doing exercises on a word processor may be most efficient. We will make good use of the computer lab. If you have a Mac at home, learn to save and convert files to Windows format. If you are using recent MS Word versions on either Mac and PCs, the files are interchangeable.
5) Lab time: We will spend time working in the lab. Come prepared with disks and back-ups of your work, with the materials you need to work productively. Lab time is not free time, and I expect you to use the time well. Do not skip labs and do not plan to leave early, unless there are special situations you make me aware of.
6) Format texts according to what kind of document you are composing. Use plenty of white space, ample margins, boldface, underlining, headings, and other devices to highlight the organization of your texts. Use headers and footers to label your text well. Don’t feel compelled to double space everything. Be consistent in documenting sources: follow an acceptable style guide (APA, CBE, Chicago). We will discuss format in class, and I will always be ready to take questions. Title pages and blank pages are rarely necessary. Save a tree.
7) Collaboration with another writer in the course is sometimes an option. We learn a lot by working collaboratively with other writers. If two of you work together, put both names on the text. Always get others to review your work, and take advantage of the Writing Center to improve your writing.
8) Printing and saving assignments: Keep a copy of all assignments, both your originals and graded assignments. Always back up your work. You will lose files, so protect yourself and your grade. Print your assignment well before class so you are ready to turn in your work (unless you sent me an email attachment). Having file or disk problems or being unable to get to a printer is not an excuse for late work nor for being tardy, just an example of bad planning. Do not plan to print your assignment when our class goes to the computer lab—it is due when you arrive.
Simply stated, "plagiarism" is presenting as your own original work something that is not. If you borrow words, ideas, or information from other people and include those under your name, you must properly document and make fair use of the borrowed material. This requirement applies to images and data, web-based and electronic information, as well as published and printed text.
Do not give me work that someone else wrote. Do not give me work that you wrote for another class (unless you talk it over with me and the other professor and it makes great sense to combine the assignments). Do not copy passages from printed or web material or borrow ideas without giving credit. Always let your reader know where information comes from. Ask questions about how to avoid plagiarism.
The University of Delaware protects the rights of all students by insisting that individual students act with integrity. Accordingly, the University severely penalizes plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty. See the section on "Conduct Expectations" within the student handbook. The Faculty Handbook says "It is the official policy of the University of Delaware that all acts or attempted acts of alleged academic dishonesty be reported to the Dean of Students Office. At the faculty member's discretion, and with the concurrence of the student or students involved, some cases, though reported to the Dean of Students Office, may be resolved within the confines of the course. All others will be adjudicated within the Undergraduate Student Judicial System."
If you have any questions about why and how to document sources, please see your text. Talk with me about any issue of concern before it potentially becomes an issue of plagiarism. The Writing Center's web site provides a useful handout on plagiarism designed to help students understand the difference between types of plagiarism:
(http://www.english.udel.edu/wc/handouts/plagiarism.html)
Plagiarism can cause you to fail the course.
This is not an idle issue–each term we discipline numerous students for stupid acts of plagiarism. As a member of the academic community, you have the ethical obligation to understand plagiarism and to be as honest as you can when using another person's writing or ideas.