INFORMATION

English 302 natural science is a writing-intensive course. You will work on one of the assigned writing projects every week in cyberspace. You may get help from your classmates, from the Writing Center, from me, or from other people unless I state that you have to do a specific assignment on your own. Usually you may get as much help as you need before you submit a project for grading. After you submit your final revision and receive your grade, you may not rewrite that project for a better grade.

Most assignment explanations are in Townhall. Your audience for the three essays and the research paper is the intelligent, interested, educated, but uninformedinyourarea reader. You will use standard formal written English for the three essays and the research paper.

After you post a draft, revision, other version of any writing, you should keep all versions of the assignments posted on your website until you receive your course grade at the end of the semester. When you email an assignment that you don't post, keep a copy of that email until after you receive your course grade at the end of the semester.

You will do all of your writing on a computer. If you do not have a computer, you may work in one of the campus computer labs. Some students do not own computers and do all their homework in campus labs. You will be responsible for keeping your disks free of viruses and for saving backup copies of your work. Dead computers or printers or ailing disks will not serve as reasons for missing deadlines.

You will post your papers to me for grading or post them to your classmates for electronic comments. You will create an English 302 website on the Mason server and will post all essay drafts, revisions, and final versions, and all research paper drafts on your English 302 website on the Mason server.

It is a class requirement that you use only .htm or .html files on your web pages. Don't use .doc or.pdf files on web pages. Also, don't include attachments with email or in Townhall. Because of software incompatibilities and virus problems, your classmates and I won't open attachments or download your files. If I can't read your writing as a .htm or .html file on your website, or as writing posted directly in Townhall or in email, I won't be able to grade your work or give you credit for submitting it on time.

We will discuss more details about the course during the semester.

It is a GMU requirement that you must send any messages about classwork or school matters to me from your GMU email account or I can't respond to your message. I can only send messages about class or school matters to your GMU email address.

THE RESEARCH PAPER

The research paper is a semester-long writing project. You will choose an issue in natural science/computer science/engineering/math that you are interested in learning about and analyzing. Don't select a social science topic--ethics, psychology, economics, politics, law, sociology, business. The issue you select must be one that lends itself to discussion/argument/persuasion. This is not a writing project of description or explanation; it is a paper of assessment/analysis.

There are several topics that you can't use because I've read too many papers about those subjects. Consult our list of topics to avoid.

Throughout the semester you will read chapters from The Research Paper and then use the information from those chapters for on-line exercises and discussion. You should meet all assigned deadlines for parts of the research project or you will not receive a passing grade for the project, even if you submit a final research paper.

You may not change your topic after I approve your narrowed topic. I won't read or grade research papers that are about a subject different from the one I approved.

Most papers will follow APA citation guidelines. Your research paper text includes guidelines for APA and other formats, and my main page includes links to writing style sites. You will use parenthetical citations.

Your paper will be at least ten pages long as measured in Word, typed and double-spaced. Use a businesslike font (no handwriting script) in size 10 or size 12 font. You'll use standard, reasonable margins. The research paper may be longer, but it may not be shorter. Ten pages means ten pages of text. Abstracts (required), lists of sources (required), graphics (not required), tables of contents (not required), outlines (not required) don't count as part of the ten pages. You will post your research paper draft and your research paper final as on your website as .html documents. But when you *WRITE* your research paper draft or final, you will write in Word and follow the above length instructions. Students ask about required numbers of pages/fonts/margins/other, so I included these writing-in-Word instructions to make it clear that you will write 10 pages as measured in Word.

Y ou may talk about your project with me if you have questions. Also, if you meet all the project deadlines you may show me your rough draft (required) and your revision (not required) for comments and help before you turn in your final paper.

There is more specific information about the research project in Townhall.

You have to choose four different topics for your three essays and one research paper. You can't write more than one paper about the same subject. You can't use the same sentence in more than one paper.

You'll email me most of these assignments. You'll post your draft and your final on your GMU website.

read chapters 1 and 2 of The Research Paper the first week of class

general topic due by email 1/28