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ENGL& 235 – Technical Writing
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Instructor:
Sydney C. Dietrich |
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Winter Quarter 2013 |
Office:
R 230 O |
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Item # 1151 | Section HYB |
Office
Phone/Voice Mail: 425-564-2109 |
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e-mail: Sydney.dietrich@bellevuecollege.edu |
Office
Hours: T/Th 10:00-11:00 & W 12:00-2:00 |
Textbook: Technical Communication by
Mike Markel (10th Edition, 2012)
Course Description
This section of English 235 is a
hybrid class which meets twice a week on campus and provides the remainder of
your class work online in a Canvas online course site.
In a hybrid class, two hours a week are spent on campus and the remaining three
hours a week, that are required for a five-credit course, are spent working
online on the course site.
Regular attendance in both “classrooms” is required. You
will be able to access your assignments and supporting materials in both
classrooms. Class meetings on campus will give us the chance to discuss readings,
technical writing strategies, report samples, and assignments face-to-face in
full-class and small group discussions. All of your assignments will be
submitted online to the Canvas site. The online course site provides you with
another email function through which you may email me or your classmates, and
it enables online conferences with your instructor.
Class meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays will be used for
class discussions, small group peer reviewing of drafts, and small group
exercises. The Canvas online course site is organized in weekly modules to
provide you with complete information on assignments, a schedule of class and
homework activities, due dates, and the supporting documents that you will need
to complete all of your work for the course. Because our time in the classroom
is so limited, our class discussions will continue online in the Canvas site.
Course
Requirements:
1. Assigned
textbook reading (often 2 or more chapters a week)
2. Meeting
with other students in weekly Discussions on Canvas
3. Peer Review of classmates' rough drafts
4. Meeting with your instructor in online or in-person conferences
5. A
Comparative Feasibility Research Study [requiring technical data collection, analysis, and conclusions]
6. Five
(5) written technical reports from your research project:
Weekly Discussions: These will give
you the chance to discuss and share the technical communication (TC)
principles you are learning with your classmates; you cannot be a fully
involved student in the discussions unless you have finished the assigned
reading in the textbook and understand the concepts and strategies covered and
their practical applications.
Peer Review of
Classmates' Rough Drafts: Since the online environment keeps
you from meeting face-to-face with the other students in your class, you will
be able to share your writing-in-progress with each other by posting and
responding to drafts posted online. Each assignment will include a rubric for
both writing and revising that you will use to evaluate each other's drafts.
Conferences
with Your Instructor: These are essential in an online
class to keep you "connected" to the class and the course work in
real time. I will be meeting with you to help with your selection of a research
topic for your project and to answer any questions you might have about the
work you will be doing in class. You may always request a conference with me
through Canvas if issues arise.
Research
Projects:
Your five reports are generated from a feasibility
study that each of you will design, research, develop, and report on during
the course. You will be given complete instructions and topic choices for your
project early in the quarter. You will be asked to define a specific topic,
purpose, and reader for your project, usually by the fourth week of class.
Grading:
All assignments must be completed in order to pass
the course.
Your course grade will be
calculated in the following way:
Weekly Discussions (10) 10%
Peer Review of rough drafts 5%
Report 1: Topic Choice Form 5%
Report 2: Memo & Review of Sources 10%
Report 3: Project Proposal 15%
Report 4: Project Data Report 20%
Report 5: Final Project Report 25%
Participation & Attendance 10%
100%
Grades
on assignments are calculated using a 100-point scale:
|
A+ |
A |
A- |
B+ |
B |
B- |
C+ |
C |
C- |
D+ |
D |
D- |
F |
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|
100- 99 |
98-93 |
92-90 |
89-87 |
86-83 |
82-80 |
79-77 |
76-73 |
72-70 |
69-67 |
66-63 |
62-60 |
0-59 |
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Due Dates:
All
assignments are due on the dates listed in the course schedule:
Assignments should reach me by midnight on the due date. All assignments will be posted to the
Canvas course site for grading.
Please
attach the four technical reports as Word documents so that I may
use the Comment function in Word to insert my comments or questions in your
report. If you experience problems attaching your assignments to the Canvas
site, you may send them as attachments to the course email or to my
campus email address, sydney.dietrich@bellevuecollege.edu .
Exceptions:
You may take an "extra day" to submit Reports 2-5 by arranging it
with me on or before the due dates.
Late
reports should be turned in no more than one day after the
original due date, and must arrive in electronic form by midnight.
Any report turned in more than one day late will be marked down for
lateness.
Assignments
turned in late because of illness should be cleared with me before
submission.
Revisions:
You
may revise Report 3, the Project Proposal, for a better
grade. The revised grade will be the original grade averaged with
the revision grade. Revisions should show substantial work and improvement
to earn a higher grade.
Saving
and Sending Your Work:
Be sure to duplicate your 235 work from your hard
drive to some other medium as backup. Keep your rough drafts until your report
is returned to you after grading. All graded reports should be saved until the
end of the quarter as proof of work completed. This will save you from having
to rewrite a report that did not attach to the course site or to an email you
send me.
Your
assignment submissions are recorded on the course site when post them to
Canvas, but you are responsible for verifying that I have received any
assignments that you send through email. If you do not
receive a confirmation from me, please check with me to verify that I have
received it.
Plagiarism
Please Note: Re-using reports from former
students in my classes is considered plagiarism of the worst kind. Plagiarized
assignments will receive a failing grade and the plagiarism will be reported to
the Associate Dean of Student Services. I submit your assignments to Turnitin.com,
an originality checking service. Your assignments are automatically scanned for
authenticity by Turnitin.com on the Canvas site.
Submission of plagiarized research reports as your own work can
result in failure of the class.
The ethical considerations of cheating in technical writing
are much greater than in other kinds of writing. Since you will use technical
writing in the workplace, it is mandatory that you communicate all technical
information accurately, completely, and honestly. Most
professional organizations, including the Society for Technical Communication,
have clearly defined codes of ethical behavior (see Chap. 2 and the IEEE Code
of Ethics on p. 34, Technical Communication).
The
BC Student Code is also very clear about the seriousness of cheating and the
actions that faculty members are required to take in cases of plagiarizing:
The BC Student Code prohibits cheating, stealing,
plagiarizing, knowingly furnishing false information to the college, or
submitting to a faculty member any work product that the student fraudulently
represents as his or her own work for the purpose of fulfilling or partially
fulfilling any assignment or task required as part of a program of instruction.
All forms of cheating, stealing, and plagiarizing will be reported to the Dean
of Instruction.
Please
read the entire section on “Academic Honesty” in Student Procedures
and Expectations on the Arts & Humanities Division website.
Support
Resources for English 235
Canvas Instructure Student Support
The Student Guide to using the BC Canvas online course
environment is found at the following link:
http://depts.bellevuecollege.edu/ir/students/studentguide/class-sites/
The Writing Lab
The Bellevue College Writing Lab gives students a free place
to go for revision of any writing project, including class assignments,
college applications, resumes, and personal projects. During 25-minute
sessions, tutors in the Writing Lab help students individually by identifying
weaknesses in a student’s writing and explaining how to overcome them. However,
students meet with a tutor on duty; we will not make appointments for
students to work with specific tutors. Also, students may only have one
tutoring session per day. Students who want to work on their own may take
any of the Writing Lab’s free reference handouts or may use English handbooks
in the Writing Lab.
http://bellevuecollege.edu/writinglab/LAB.htm l
Disability Resource Center (DRC)
The Disability Resource Center serves students with a wide
array of learning challenges and disabilities. If you are a student who has a disability
or learning challenge for which you have documentation or have seen someone for
treatment and if you feel you may need accommodations in order to be successful
in college, please contact us as soon as possible.
If you are a person who requires assistance in case of an
emergency situation, such as a fire, earthquake, etc,
please meet with your individual instructors to develop a safety plan within
the first week of the quarter.
The DRC office is located in B 132 or you can call our
reception desk at 425.564.2498. Deaf students can reach us by video phone at
425-440-2025 or by TTY at 425-564-4110. Please visit our website for
application information into our program and other helpful links at www.bellevuecollege.edu/drc
Public Safety
The
Bellevue College (BC) Public Safety Department’s well trained and courteous
non-commissioned staff provides personal safety, security, crime prevention,
preliminary investigations, and other services to the campus community, 24
hours per day, 7 days per week. Their phone number is 425.564.2400. The Public Safety website is your one-stop resource
for campus emergency preparedness information, campus closure announcements and
critical information in the event of an emergency. Public Safety is located in
K100 and on the web at: http://bellevuecollege.edu/publicsafety/