Dr. Dean Taciuch
George Mason University

Fall 2020

English 302
Sections N03, N04, & N23

Course Syllabus

Course Description

English 302 will help prepare you understand how knowledge is created and transmitted in your field or discipline; understand key methods and conventions of scholarly research in your field or discipline; articulate and refine your own question for scholarly inquiry; situate your investigation in an ongoing context or conversation in your field; and design a final project that adds new perspectives to the conversation. Advanced Composition will help you engage in scholarly inquiry as you work on narrowing a research question and engaging with your discipline or field of study.

Course Goals

The goal of this course is to prepare you to conduct primary research in your discipline. As such, the course participates in the Students as Scholars and the Mason Impact programs

ENGH 302 Learning Outcomes

ENGH 302 Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to analyze rhetorical situations–audience, purpose, and context–in order to recognize the expectations of readers and understand the main purposes of composing across multiple contexts relevant to their fields of study.
• Students will understand the conventions of academic and non-academic genres, to include usage, specialized vocabulary, format, and attribution/citation systems.
• Students will be able to apply critical reading strategies that are appropriate to advanced academic and non-academic texts of relevance to their fields of study.
• Students will identify and synthesize multiple perspectives in articulating and refining a research question relevant to their fields of study.
• Students will engage in a recursive process of inventing, investigating, shaping, drafting, revising, and editing to produce a range of academic and non-academic texts of relevance to their fields of study.
  

Prerequisites

Students must have completed or transferred in the equivalent of English 100 or English 101. Students must have completed 30 credit hours and the Mason Core literature requirement before enrolling in the class. The program recommends that students enroll in ENGH 302 after completing 45 credit hours. Students should take a version of English 302 related to their major field.
 
Please note that the Volgenau School of Engineering requires students enrolled in the following majors to take ENGH 302N: applied computer science and computer science, electrical engineering, computer engineering, systems engineering, and statistics.

The Volgenau School also requires students in the following majors to be enrolled in either 302N or 302M: bioengineering, cyber security engineering, mechanical engineering and civil engineering. Information technology majors may enroll in 302N, 302M, or 302B.

Students enrolled in another version of ENGH 302 should contact their advisor immediately to make sure they are enrolled in the right course. 

General Education

This course is part of the Mason Core (General Education) Program, which is designed to help develop “a Mason Graduate [who is] an engaged citizen, a well-rounded scholar, and someone who is prepared to act” (Mason Catalog). It fulfills the Mason Core Upper Division Written Communication requirement. For more information on the Mason Core, visit the Provost’s Mason Core page

Textbook and materials

There is no required textbook for this class. We will use several online texts, however.

Writing Commons Open Textbook
GMU Writing Center Resources
GMU Library Tutorials
UNC Writing Center Handouts
Purdue OWL
Students as Scholars

Method of Instruction

Sections N03, N04, and N23 are online sections: the courses will have no face-to-face meetings. I will have virtual office (via Zoom) on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:30 to noon. I can also be reached via email.

Course readings, assignments, video lectures and lecture notes (PowerPoint slides) will be posted to the Course Content page in BlackBoard every Monday. Archived lectures and PowerPoint slides will be available in the Notes and Lectures folder on the Course Content Page. Do not share or post these materials online, as this would be an Honor Code violation ("Providing, using, or attempting to benefit from unauthorized academic material and/or assistance: This includes but is not limited to the posting or enabling of posting of homework assignments and/or exams or solutions on websites").

All course assignments will be submitted via Blackboard. Assignments should be uploaded as Word, PDF, or OpenOffice formats (doc, docx, pdf, odf).

In addition, we will have weekly BlackBoard discussions. The discussion are due on Wednesdays, but I also expect everyone to post and comment on other students' posts throughout the week.

An online course requires special attention to submission deadlines, discussion posts, and course announcements. You should check the BlackBoard site regularly. The course assignments will be explained on BlackBoard, as will any clarifications and changes to the assignments and course schedule.

Assignments

The Major Assignments are described on BlackBoard

• Discipline Awareness I assignment (5%)
• Audience Assignment (5%)
• Plagiarism Policy Essay (10%)
• Research Proposal (5%)
• Library Research Assignment (5%)
• Summary (10%)
• Annotated Bibliography (10%)
• Literature Review Thesis and Topics (10%)
• Literature Review (20%)
• Wikipedia Edit (5%)
• Discipline Awareness II assignment (10%)

The Minor Assignments are the weekly Discussion posts on BlackBoard. These should be posted before the week's class meeting. The weekly responses will make up 5% of the final grade.

Important dates

Course and Grading Policies