ENG2050: Business & Technical Writing
Favorite Links to Writing Resources
Writing Assignments
Angelfire Website
Charles County Community
College
La Plata, Maryland
20646-0910
Dr. Richard J. Siciliano,
Professor
Fall Semester 1999
(Last updated: 8/15/99)
Dr. Siciliano's Office:
Room LR-201 (La Plata campus, Faculty Resource Center)
Office hours and chat room
time: Wednesdays 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Phones (24-hour automated
voice mail):
from Charles
County: (301) 934-7826
from St.Mary's:
(301) 884-8131, ext. 7826
from Washington
metro area: (301) 870-3008, ext.7826
FAX number (LR circulation
desk area): 301-934-7699 (Note: Send documents by fax only if you're unable
to send e-mail temporarily.)
Catalog Course Description:
ENG2050- Business and Technical
Writing (3 credits)
(Prerequisite: ENG 1010-Composition
& Rhetoric). In this course, students develop writing skills through
composing a variety of clear, effective memos, letters, and reports. Subject
matter papers may come from the student's occupation or interests, whether
scientific, technical, or non-technical. All students should refer to the
schedule of classes for sections of this course taught in computer labs.
About this Web-based course:
In the course taught over the
Internet, all assignments are submitted to the instructor (and returned)
by electronic mail, with a course website that is coordinated with the
required textbook, Bovee and Thill's Business Communication Today.
The course website is password-protected
and contains lecture materials, links to other Internet resources, chapter
tests and quizzes, communications tools (private e-mail, chat, and a bulletin
board), a course calendar for the semester, and a student grade book that
a student may refer to at any time or day to check on his or her progress.
Purpose:
The intent of this course is
to help students identify and solve problems encountered when communicating
technical and scientific information. The main reason a report writer communicates
is informational, usually directing the message to someone with less knowledge
about the subject than the writer. The emphasis of this course, then, is
on developing the skills needed to write informative and persuasive correspondence
and reports directed to specific audiences. Writers will learn how to discuss
any subject in a precise, analytical, and informative way.
Course Objectives: By the end
of the course, you will be able to . . .
-
Understand the purpose of and
how to plan, organize, and produce several types of letters, memoranda,
and reports.
-
Use an effective style of writing
in the creation of each letter or report.
-
Understand and practice an accurate,
ethical, and thorough method of researching and documenting sources, and
practice browsing the Internet (if available) for information.
-
Use standard English grammar and
usage in business and professional writing.
-
Use the internet and the World
Wide Web to find, analyze, and evaluate information.
-
Use the internet to send and receive
documents that you've written.
-
Use computer graphics to enhance
business or technical presentations.
-
Present an oral report.
About this Distance Learning Class:
Unlike other classes taught in
a traditional classroom, this course is not dependent on students attending
a classroom on campus. Online students work at their own pace and may complete
almost all course requirements via email, bulletin board discussions (for
group assignments), and by referring to the course homepage for exercises
and discussions that accompany the text. Students are responsible
for reading the assigned materials (both in the textbook and on the course
website), will be expected to communicate with the instructor and classmates
(as required by assignments) using phone, email, and chat rooms; submit
reports via email and attachments to email; and will work on their own
at home or work. Except for attending an orientation (optional) and a "live"
oral briefing to talk about their long reports, students are freed from
the barrier of having to drive to campus for classroom-based activities.
Course Requirements:
-
Highly recommended: In-person
orientation: September 1, 1999 at 6:30pm - 8:00pm, room LR 202 (La Plata
campus library)
-
Reading assignments from the text
and companion websites, as explained in the Schedule
of Assignments of this syllabus. The online "Course Lectures" area
of the course website contains exercises that include required chapter
tests and participation in online discussions with the professor and classmates.
-
Five individual short and intermediate-length
reports. Note: The term "report" refers to any written document from
one to several pages; it may be in the form of a memorandum, letter, e-mail,
manual, or oher type of report.
-
Two collaborative (group) reports,
one of which is an oral briefing of the proposal.
-
Oral briefings must be done in
person. The room to be used for these oral reports (probably the MIDLN
or V-Tel interactive video classrooms at the three campuses) will be announced.
-
One individual long report.
-
See below
for point totals
Grading Procedure:
For the purpose of evaluation, each assignment in this course will be classified
in one of three general categories:
-
Excellent: A report of professional
quality in content, arrangement, style, format, and mechanics.
-
Acceptable: A report that has
enough information but contains a small number of easily correctable errors.
-
Unacceptable: A report that either
does not have enough information or contains major errors in arrangement,
style, format, and mechanics.
What You May Expect from Your
Professor:
As with any course you take,
your instructor can be expected to manage the class in a certain way. In
this class, you should expect that your instructor will do the following:
-
Facilitate your learning by directing
you to resources (primarily in your textbook, but also on the Internet)
showing you how writers (including students writers) prepare their reports,
letters, presentations, etc. and to discuss the effectiveness of their
writing in an honest and frank manner.
-
Return your assignments with comments
and grades in a reasonable time (usually within one week) after they are
submitted.
-
Be available during live chats,
by email, or by phone during office hours to discuss your writing or your
class progress.
-
Provide you with periodic reports
of your progress in the class.
|
Fall 1999 Semester: Schedule of Assignments
and Point totals
|
| Grade Equivalents |
Minimum Points |
|
A
|
56
|
|
B
|
49
|
|
C
|
43
|
|
D
|
36
|
Required Texts:
Stull, Andrew T. Surfing for
Success in Business: A Student's Guide to the INTERNET. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1997.
Bovee, Courtland L. and John
V. Thill. Business Communication Today. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1998.
About Academic Integrity:
Plagiarism, a form of cheating,
is the use of another person's words or ideas without giving proper credit.
Plagiarism may include using a word, phrase, or passage taken from another
source, either word-for-word or in paraphrase, without the writer acknowledging
the source of information with complete and accurate documentation of that
source. Citing a source (and thus avoiding plagiarism) requires a four-step
process:
-
Lead into the borrowed information
by identifying the source by name and qualifications. (eg., According to
Timm and Stead, professors of business and professional writing, . . .
)
-
Quote, summarize, or paraphrase
the information accurately (eg., John Lannon, author of a leading technical
writing textbook, offered the following observation about grammatical mistakes:
"The single most common error in . . . ")
-
Follow the quote with a parentheses
containing the page number of the source: (eg., According to Professors
Paul R. Timm and James A. Stead, "Communication skills are fundamental
to the human experience" (27). Since the authors of the quote was named
in the sentence, there is no need to repeat the information in parentheses.
Just include the page reference, as shown next.
-
Include the source in a "Works
Cited" list. You'll notice in the example below that the page number isn't
given for a book source, only for magazine, newspaper, journal articles,
or any source that's contained within a longer work (such as a book)...
Works Cited
Timm, Paul R. and James A. Stead.
Communication Skills for Business and Professions.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1996.
Consequences: Anyone
or any group who submits a plagiarized report, or who commits academic
dishonesty with any assignment, whether or not that assignment is graded,
will receive a failing grade for the course, and the incident will be reported
to the Dean of Student and Instructional Support Services.
Methods: This course
will be conducted over the Internet, with attendance required for the oral
presentation only. This report (report #6) will be arranged during
November and December 1999, at one of the college's campuses. For that
report only, students are expected to attend the college campus nearest
their home to present their reports using the video teleconferencing technology
of the Maryland Interactive Distance Learning Network classrooms,
if those rooms are available. For the rest of the course, students
are expected to read the assigned readings, answer the questions posed
by the instructor, interact with one another on group reports and online
class discussions, and submit written reports by email by the deadlines
listed in the chart above. The oral presentation (individual and
group) is an integral part of the course, and students are expected to
attend one of the campuses to give the oral report. Students are
expected to participate in the online discussions and group assignments.
Preparing Assignments and
Reports: All written assignments should be prepared with a word processor
and submitted over the Internet. Although instruction on word processing
is not part of the course, students are expected to integrate basic word
processing techniques in their reports. If computer keyboarding or Internet
awareness skills need development, students should plan to spend time developing
those skills. They will also need to arrange times and a strategy with
group members to work on specific assignments via email and phone consultations.
Reports are due on the dates indicated in this course outline (usually
by midnight on Sundays). Reports may be accepted after these dates only
if prior arrangements have been made with the instructor.
Important Dates:
|
Sept. 1, 1999
|
Classes begin |
|
Last day to make class schedule
adjustments and to withdraw with refund |
| Oct. 18-23 |
Mid-semester week |
| Nov. 25-28 |
Thanksgiving vacation: college
closed, no classes |
Nov. 15
|
Deadline to withdraw
without a grade, to change to audit or credit |
|
Dec. 12, 1999 (midnight)
|
Final Analysis Report (#8)
is due |
Class cancellation and assignment
deadlines: In case of snow, ice, or other calamity, the Web course goes
on. If the server crashes, call me. Assignments are due on the dates indicated
by email (as attached word processed documents). In case your computer
(or mine) breaks down, you may send your reports to me by U.S. mail, but
the preferred format is via email:
RICHARD SICILIANO
CHARLES COUNTY COMMUNITY
COLLEGE
Faculty Resource Center
- LIB
8730 Mitchell RD,
P.O. BOX 910
LA PLATA
MD 20646-0910
|
Email: richs@charles.cc.md.us
