Course Syllabus

Course Syllabus

English 270 Instructor: Sydney C. Dietrich

Professional Report Writing Office: Room R 230, Office X

Fall 2006 Phone: 564-2109 (office, voice mail)

Sections 1326, 1327 564-2341 (A & H Office)

Email: sdietric@bcc.ctc.edu

Textbook: Technical Communication, by Mike Markel (8^th edition )

Course Requirements:

Textbook: Technical Communication (8th Edition, 2007), by Mike Markel

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

· Memo 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) 10% [1 x total points]

Report 1: Project Proposal 15% [1.5 x total points]

Report 2: Progress Report 10% [1 x total points]

Report 3: Project Data Report 15% [1.5 x total points]

Report 4: Final Project Report 30% [3 x total points]

Discussion Board (10) 20% [2 x total points]

______

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:

** All assignments should reach me through email by midnight on the due date.

(Please attach them as Word documents to my course email or to my campus email, sdietric@bcc.ctc.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 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 Your Work

Be sure to duplicate your 270 work from your hard drive to some other medium (memory stick, 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.

As verification of your work, research notes and sources for your Final Project Report should also be saved in duplicate as your work progresses. In other words, there is no bona fide excuse for not having proof of the work you have completed for class, especially at the end of the quarter.

Plagiarism

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 the IEEE Code of Ethics on p. 25, Technical Communication).

The BCC 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 BCC 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.

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