Syllabus for ENG 204 | Summer 2012

English 204: Introduction to Professional Writing| Summer 2012

Dr. Colleen A. Reilly

Email: reillyc@uncw.edu
Office phone: 910.962.7548
Contacting me: I will be online every Monday-Thursday during Summer I from 2-4pm. During that time, I can Skype (reillycnc) or respond to email in real time. I will respond to email during other times of the day; however, my response may not be immediate. Email received in the evening may not be responded to until the next morning.
Course texts: Pearsall, Thomas E. (2010). The Elements of Technical Writing. New York: Longman.
Articles accessed online or from electronic databases

Student learning outcomes

develop strategies for analyzing organizational contexts, including audiences, purposes for writing, and organizational cultures
design documents that meet the needs of your audiences and accomplish your goals
construct arguments that appeal to several audiences at once and are based on evidence
conduct research that can be used to support arguments
conduct usability testing to support document/product analysis, design, and revision
write for different media including print and electronic media
design effective graphics for use in documents and presentations

Course policies

Time investment and interaction with course materials
If this were a f2f course, you would be in class on Monday-Thursday everyday for 2 hours and 5 minutes per day. Additionally, you would spend time outside of class to read material and complete assignment. Despite the fact that this is an online course, you will still need to devote the same amount of time to interacting with course materials and completing assignments.

This course is designed to be interacted with on a regular basis. You should plan to login to the course every Monday-Thursday during the Summer I term and complete regular reading and written assignments. The course is not designed to be done all at once. Failure to engage with the course site and material on a regular basis will significantly hamper your ability to successfully complete the course.

Technological requirements:
For this course, please use your UNCW email account so that we can take advantage of UNCW SeaPort/SeaNet, which allows me to email the class as a whole and allows class members to email one another.

Additionally, please back up all of your work to avoid losing important files. It is important to have multiple copies of all work and be able to provide a second copy of an assignment upon request. I strongly recommend that you purchase a USB/external drive for use in backing up your work.

Late work:
No late work will be accepted without prior arrangements with me. To request an extension on one of the four major assignments, please email me (reillyc@uncw.edu) at least twenty-four hours prior to the due date for the work. No extensions will be granted for quizzes or exercises; these must be completed during the specified time frames.

When you email me to request an extension, please specify the time and date on which you will submit the work. In general, the extension requested should not exceed one business day. The option to request extensions is open to all students. Most correctly requested extension requests are granted without question. I do caution you, however, to avoid taking too many extensions during the summer semester as the time goes by quite quickly, thus making it easy to get too far behind.

Plagiarism:
You must do your own original work in this class and identify that portion of your work that is collaborative with others, borrowed from others, or is your own work from previous courses. Whenever you borrow graphics, quote passages, or use ideas from others, you are legally and ethically obliged to acknowledge that use and follow appropriate conventions for documenting your sources.

To borrow someone else's writing or other texts/graphics without acknowledging that use is an act of academic as well as professional dishonesty, whether you borrow an entire assignment or a single sentence. Additionally, submitting work for the course that you have submitted in another course will also be considered an act of academic dishonesty. Any plagiarized or academically dishonest work done for this class will receive a failing grade and may result in you receiving a failing grade for the course.

Please review UNCW's new Honor Code. As per the guidelines from the Office of the Dean of Students, any instances of plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty of which I become aware must and will be reported to the Dean of Students.

Accommodations for students with disabilities:
According to Disability Services at UNCW accommodations for disabilities are made based on the documentation supplied by the student.

To obtain accommodations the student should contact Disability Services and present their documentation to the Director for review and verification. When the documentation is verified and approved, the student will be supported in his/her request for academic accommodations. Academic Accommodation Letters are provided for the student to take to the professor to discuss specific needs. Please contact Disability Services to begin this process. Be sure to share your Accommodation Letter with me at the start of the semester so that I can assist you.

Assignments: Please consult the relevant module for details about each assignment

Employment documents (50 pts)
Ethics case (25 pts)
PowerPoint vs Prezi report (100 pts)
Career center website content and usability analysis (group project) (100 pts)
Applications quizzes; completed during the prescribed time frames ( 5pts each)
Exercises; completed during each module (5 pts each; 40-50 pts total)
Standing extra credit opportunity (5 pts each; can be repeated 2 times)

Grading