Course Syllabus

English 235 Instructor: Sydney C. Dietrich

Technical Writing Office: Room R 230, Office O

Fall 2009 Phone: 564-2109 (office, voice mail)

Sections 1283, 1286 564-2341 (A & H Office)

Email: sdietric@bellevuecollege.edu

Textbook: Technical Communication by Mike Markel (9th Edition, 2010),

Course Requirements:

1. Assigned textbook reading (often 2 or more chapters a week)

2. Weekly Discussion Board

3. A Comparative Feasibility Research Study [requiring technical data collection, analysis, and presentation

4. Three Short Written Assignments

· Email Evaluation

Topic Choice Form

· Instructions Revision

5. Four (4) written technical reports:

· Project Proposal

· Project Progress Report

· Project Data Report

· Project Final Report

Weekly Discussions ask you to apply the technical communication (TC) principles you are learning; be prepared to participate by understanding the information covered in the assigned reading. Through discussion, we will discover the reasons for various technical writing strategies and their practical applications.

Research Projects:

Your four 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 in the second week of the quarter. You will be asked to define a specific topic, purpose, and reader for your project 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:

Short Written Assignments (3) 15%

Report 1: Project Proposal 15%

Report 2: Progress Report 10%

Report 3: Project Data Report 15%

Report 4: Final Project Report 25%

Discussion Board (10) 20%

______

100%

Grades on assignments are calculated using a 100-point scale:

A+

A-

B+

B-

C+

C-

D+

D-

100-

98-

92-

89-

86-

82-

79-

76-

72-

69-

66-

62-

Due Dates:

All assignments are due on the dates listed in the course schedule: Assignments should reach me by midnight on the due date.

The three Written Assignments should be posted to the Assignment Drop Box.

Please attach the four technical reports as Word documents to my course email or to my campus email, sdietric@bellevuecollege.edu.

Exceptions: You may turn in each of your first three reports one day late by arranging it with me on or before the due dates. Everyone may take an extra day to complete Report 4, if needed.

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 that has not been pre-approved by me, will be dropped one grade level each additional day it is late.

Assignments turned in late because of illness must be cleared with me before submission.

Revisions:

You may revise Report 1, the Project Proposal, for a better grade. The revised grade will be the original grade averaged with the revision grade. Revisions must show substantial work and improvement to earn a higher grade. Please remember to resubmit your original graded draft with your revision.

Saving and Sending Your Work:

Be sure to duplicate your 235 work from your hard drive to some other medium (USB Drive, CD, etc) 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 is destroyed or lost.

You are responsible for verifying that I have received your assignments sent 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 Assistant Dean of Student Services.

I provide student samples of the four technical reports you will be writing for this class. They are provided as models for structure, page design, and some phrasing, but should not be plagiarized or cut-and-pasted into your reports.

» Samples of Reports 1-4 may be downloaded from the Electronic Reserve portion of the

Library Media Center (LMC) web page:

1. Click on English 235, Sydney Dietrich, in the Electronic Reserve

2. You will find sample project reports written by my former students:

· Project Proposal

· Project Progress Report

· Project Data Report

· Final Project Report

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.