English 112
Report and Technical
Writing online course
Instructor: Martha Nichols
Office: BR 23-D
Email: mlnichols@ccp.edu
Office phone: 215-751-8633
Office Hours/conferences: conferences are available online throughout the week and by
appointment on campus at announced times throughout the semester
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course introduces students to many typical modes of workplace communication. Topics include audience analysis, technical research and report writing, and internet use. Report and technical writing provides preparation for
writing assignments at the 200 level while allowing students to continue to develop
skills learned in English 101.
REQUIRED TEXT:
Guffey, Mary Ellen. Essentials of Business
Communication (7th edition). Thomson, 2007.
COURSE OBJECTIVES: English 112 introduces many typical modes of written workplace and technical communication. In this course, students engage in writing for various audiences in order to inform, educate, persuade and ultimately prompt their readers to action. Traditional rhetorical modes such as description, classification, compare/contrast, and the important fundamentals of writing in support of a thesis are given a practical spin; in addition, layout and presentation of documents are emphasized as rhetorical devices with their own rules and rationale.
Students will also become acquainted with use of the library
and bibliographical methods for research. Use of the internet for research,
graphics and layout will also be covered in the class.
WEBSTUDY ONLINE METHOD: Students want to go to the Timeline Tab to see the Materials and Assignments for each week. There is an overall stated goal for the week and due dates for each assignment. Students may also see the Work for each week under the Work2Do Tab. An online grade book records the grade for each assignment. Students want to keep track of those grades each week. Most weeks also require participation in a forum with fellow students and the instructor. The forums are an essential component of the course and will be graded.
Library: Students will use the CCP library and other libraries in the city as needed. Access to CCP databases is available online for research at home.
Learning Lab: Students should utilize the Learning Lab faculty in B1-28 for their tutoring needs.
Conferences: Conferences
with the instructor in her office will be available at mid-semester and the end
of the semester and are highly recommended.
Times and days will be announced online.
Attendance: It is highly important that students commit
themselves to attending and completing all online sessions, which include reading,
writing and forum assignments. College
policy does allow for 6 hours of absence or two weeks of class work; after that
limit, the student may be withdrawn from the class or receive a failing grade
for the course. Students should consider
withdrawing themselves as well from the class if this should occur.
Late work: Late work is not accepted after the Sunday
THEME FOR THE
SEMESTER: Students will imagine
themselves in a workplace environment of their own choosing for the
semester. This may be a place where they
are working now or have worked in the past, but it must be a real rather than
an imagined place. This will facilitate
audience and purpose awareness in the writing.
One assignment, the Formal Proposal, will center on the student’s
neighborhood or community as an audience.
GRADING: Each formal piece of writing will be
graded with a letter grade, and a certain number of points will be assigned for
informal writing. These will be listed
in the online syllabus on WebStudy. Each assignment will be detailed online as
well along with the grading criteria for the formal writing assignments. Grades will then be recorded in the online
grade book for each week.
In general, all writing needs to show basic competence
required for passing English 101 and for passing English 102 which includes: essay coherence, development of a series of
paragraphs to support a point or thesis, adequate research when required,
evaluation of researched sources, integration of sources, avoidance of
plagiarism using MLA or APA documentation, and grammar/expression/word choice/punctuation
at a college level.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
1. Memos and emails (5%)
2. Resume (5%)
3. Informal Proposal
(20%)
4. Writing Techniques (10%)
5. Research Report (40%)
6. Informal Reports
(10%)
STATEMENT OF PLAGIARISM: See WebStudy for CCP plagiarism statement. All students are expected to abide by this college policy. Failure to do so will mean an F in the class. Students will be asked at the beginning of the semester to sign a plagiarism statement.
DISABILITY STATEMENT: If anyone in the class has a disability that needs special accommodation, please let the instructor know during the first week of class. The Center on Disability may be contacted for those accommodations.
SCHEDULE
WEEK ONE Introduction
Creating Business Messages
Understanding
audience and purpose
Chapter 2 pages 34-55
WEEK TWO Improving Writing
Techniques
Chapter
3 pages 56-79
Revising
and Proofreading
Business Messages
Chapter
4 pages 80-96
WEEK THREE Memos and Emails
Chapter
5 pages 98-133
WEEK FOUR Resume Writing
Chapter
383-402
WEEK FIVE Begin
Informal Proposal
Chapter
10 pages 267-272
(with a partner)
WEEK SIX Submit Informal
Proposal
Begin
Formal Reports
(the research report)
Chapter
10 pages 272 – 278
WEEK SEVEN Research report continued
WEEK EIGHT Research report continued
On-campus
face-to-face conferences
WEEK NINE Research report
continued
WEEK TEN Research report
continued
WEEK ELEVEN Research report continued
WEEK TWELVE Submit final research report
WEEK THIRTEEN Informal reports
WEEK FOURTEEN Informal reports
WEEK FIFTEEN final face-to-face
conferences