NOTE: Since many readings, assignments and support materials are online, EXTENDED and RELIABLE computer access is indispensable to success in this course.
All work should be saved in at least TWO places in case of machine failure or difficulties with transmission to WebCT.
Grammar will be taught in this class only occasionally, on an as-needed basis for the whole group. Please contact the instructor if a particular grammar question plagues you.
COURSE OVERVIEW
This course falls roughly into five sections:
An opening exercise exploring the library, personal, professional and Internet materials specialized to each student's field of study. This will be supported by a class session with a university librarian and will produce the first paper of the semester, the Publication and Authority Paper, as well as a review of the Elements of a Scientific Paper.
An option to complete either two professional readings or two university-sponsored events. The former allows students to explore in depth the documentation format and publication standards of their fields; the latter exposes students to the rich variety of resources available to them at GMU.
An exploration of the wide variety of resume formats now in use in various career fields. This leads directly to preparation or updating of students' own resumes, professional reference lists, and accompanying cover letter
A research component, including a brief proposal for research leading to an independent research project related to the student's field. and
A poster presentation prepared as a group and involving all group members, exploring an unresolved ethical issue now confronting professionals in the field.
The poster will reflect the format now in use at professional conferences in the social sciences. PLEASE NOTE: since the English Department requires a research component in all sections of English 302, anyone not completing the research project will
FAIL THE CLASS.
In addition to requiring a minimum of 3500 written words from each student, the English Department has identified the following objectives for English 302:
- Use strategies that focus on writing as a communicative process, to include invention, drafting, revision, editing
- Give and receive useful criticism of their writing from their teacher and their peers in order to promote effective revision
- Produce writing that demonstrates basic proficiency in Standard Edited American English
- Recognize and write within different rhetorical situations, to include purpose and audience, especially as related to their majors and possible future work places
- Produce writing that employs the organizational techniques and formats typical in their disciplines
- Recognize that way(s) that knowledge is constructed in their disciplines
- Use newly emerging technologies for communication, to include email and word processing
- Identify and use research sources (print and electronic), to include advanced online library searching of databases pertinent to their disciplines and the critical use of web sites, and documentation styles preferred in their majors
- To compose and present work-place related documents, which may include resumes, proposals, reports, and web pages, produced either individually or collaboratively
- Use campus support resources (the University Writing Center, the Disability Resource Center, and the Counseling Center) as needed to enhance their success in ENGL302
| INSTRUCTIONAL TYPE | EXAMPLE |
| Direct instruction | Presentations by Student Services, Library Instructional Staff, Career Development representative, instructor |
| Guided Practice | Workshops on writing skills, citation formats, analysis of journal articles, grammar and punctuation as needed, etc. |
| Online tutorials and mastery exercises | university web site materials on plagiarism, editing, and documentation |
| Guided and independent research | library orientation with hands-on practice, location of appropriate articles for research review |
| Group processing activities | editing student drafts, proofreading citation entries, preparation of oral presentation on ethics |
COURSE REQUIREMENTS/ GRADING POLICY
In all General Education English classes (English 100, 101, 201 and 302), students must achieve a grade of C or higher to receive credit for the course. Students with averages of C- or lower will receive an NC (No Credit) for the course.
In order of weight, assignments will carry the following percentage values:
Reading or Event #1 5%
Reading or Event #2 5%
Resume 10%
Cover Letter 5%
References 5%
Resume Analysis 10%
Publication and Authority Paper 10%
Group Poster Presentation 10%
Research Paper 20%
The final examination is optional; it may be attempted if a student wishes to seek a grade higher than the one achieved from the semester's work. The final examination, if attempted, is worth AN ADDITIONAL 20%. It will be averaged in with the other grades for the semester. If not elected, the assignments listed above will determine the final course grade, with no penalty for not attempting the exam. Again, anyone not completing the research project will FAIL THE COURSE.
On the last day of regular classes, each student will be informed of his/her semester grade to date and must then choose whether or not to take the exam. Students electing to take the exam will receive exam preparation instructions at that time. Any student electing the exam but not appearing on the scheduled date and time will be assumed to have elected to receive the grade earned as of the last scheduled day of classes.
All work is due on the date specified in the syllabus. Unless by prior arrangement with the instructor, late work will be penalized one letter grade for each week or portion thereof and two letter grades thereafter. This penalty cannot be removed from work resubmitted or revised.
In addition, late work may be delayed in being graded and returned to you; delay is usually one week but may be more. Please keep this in mind if planning to resubmit a paper at the end of the semester. No work will be accepted after the date indicated on the syllabus as the last day to submit rewritten assignments.
There is no formal attendance requirement, in this class. However, missing any substantial part of class instruction or activities has the following disadvantages that the student is responsible to overcome:
- missing instructions for writing assignments
- lack of workshop preparation in formatting and writing skills
- nonparticipation in writing and presentation groups
Students who neglect to attend class typically struggle to complete work, do poorly on group assignments and have lower semester averages than students who attend regularly. Anyone who must unavoidably miss a class isadvised to notify the instructor as promptly as possible to avoid falling behind.
POLICY ON PLAGIARISM
In a research and writing course, it is especially important that students respect the intellectual property of others. Especially in thesciences, integrity of results falls under acute scrutiny from fellow professionals. All students are therefore expected to scrupulously observe all GMU policies as well as individual instructors' guidelines. Please read and observe the English Department's Statement on Plagiarism below.
Plagiarism means using the exact words, opinions, or factual information from another source without giving that source credit. Writers give credit through the use of accepted documentation styles, such as parenthetical citation, footnotes, or end notes; a simple listing of books, articles, and websites is not sufficient. Plagiarism is the equivalent of intellectual robbery and cannot be tolerated in an academic setting.
Student writers are often confused as to what should be cited. Some think that only direct quotations need to be credited. While direct quotations do need citations, so do paraphrases and summaries of opinions or factual information formerly unknown to the writers or which the writers did not discover themselves. Exceptions to this include factual information which can be obtained from a variety of sources, the writers' own insights or findings from their own field research, (what has been called common knowledge). What constitutes common knowledge can sometimes be precarious; what is common knowledge for one audience may be so for another. In such situations, it is helpful to keep the reader in mind and to think of citations as being "reader friendly." In other words, writers provide a citation for any piece of information that they think their readers might want to investigate further. Not only is this attitude considerate of readers, it will almost certainly ensure that writers will not be guilty of plagiarism.
FORMAT
Each assignment has related instructions in a link to that assignment in the online version of the Syllabus. The format for each assignment is presented in the file of instructions. Please refer to the Syllabus itself at http://mason.gmu.edu/~jjohnsto/syllbs05.htm
Assignments submitted electronically MUST be in Word (.doc) or PowerPoint format, especially if sent as attachments. GMU's e-mail will not read Mime, NotePad or WordPerfect documents, and regards zipped documents as possible viruses. Therefore, any material sent in any of these formats cannot be accepted and may not even arrive.
Finally, any assignments or correspondence should be directed to the instructor's GMU e-mail: jjohnsto@gmu.edu. A Google or other search will reveal other e-mail addresses, but all GMU-related correspondence is handled through that address and only that address.
Mail sent to other addresses will receive no response.NOTE: Be careful when responding to mail sent to the class list. The Registrar's Office provides the capability to e-mail the whole class from its online registration site, but requires the sender to use whatever mail program is resident on the machine (s)he is using rather than GMU's mail program, which is web-based. DO NOT reply to the mail address used for class mailings, but to the GMU address above.
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES