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Rhetoric
3562: Technical and Professional Writing,
Fall 2003
Instructor: Amy D. Propen
E-mail: prope002@umn.edu
Office Hours: 49 ClaOff, Tuesday and Thursday 11:30am-12:30pm, or by appointment
Office Phone: 612.624.2741
Section 9:
8:45am-10:00am Tuesday, ClaOff B26
8:45am-10:00am Thursday, ClaOff 17
Section 12:
1:15pm-2:30pm Tuesday, ClaOff 17
1:15pm-2:30pm Thursday, ClaOff B26
Daily schedule
Syllabus and course policies:
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Course description
Rhetoric 3562, Technical and Professional Writing, is a four-credit course
that is considered "Writing Intensive," and counts as two Writing
Intensive Courses. It is designed to help you develop an effective method
of planning and completing writing tasks so that you can meet professional
writing demands. In the real world, most if not all technical professionals
write on a daily basis. Since succeeding in the professional world requires
not only technical knowledge but also effective writing skills, we focus
on the writing skills necessary for advanced academic and professional
writing, tailored specifically to your academic and career work as professionals
in a technical field. Successful technical communicators know how to organize
and present complex information so that the ideas are comprehensible to
many readers, viewers, and listeners. This class is conducted in a workshop
format, which means that we will be working together, in small groups
and as a class, using peer review and brainstorming sessions so we may
all benefit from the ideas and perspectives of others. In this course,
you will complete several smaller, cumulative, technical writing assignments
that will lead up to a 5,000-6,000 word (approximately 10 pages, single-spaced)
recommendation report on a topic related to your major. Indeed, this course
requires intensive writing, reading, and peer commentary; you will be
writing or revising almost every week. Although the course will require
much time and effort, by the end of the semester you will have produced
a professional portfolio of your work that you can provide to prospective
employers or graduate schools. You must make a serious commitment to Rhetoric
3562 if you want to pass the course and benefit from what this course
has to offer.
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Course objectives
By the end of this course, you should be able to do the following:
Analyze audience and adjust communication for varying
audiences.
Write in the following genres of technical and professional
writing: memo, proposal, annotated bibliography and source critique, procedures,
abstract, letter of transmittal, and technical recommendation report.
Manage a large research project.
Distinguish between popular and scholarly sources
and evaluate them for validity and credibility.
Use simple word processing to create usable, attractive
documents.
Prepare and deliver an oral presentation.
Write coherent, concise, and correct sentences.
Understand the concept of voice and adjust the voice
of your written communications to meet the needs and expectations of your
audiences.
Edit for clarity and grace.
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How do I know if I'm ready to take Rhetoric 3562?
In order to take this course, you need to have taken and passed EngC
1011 or Rhet 1101, or Rhet 1152 or an equivalent. You should also have
junior standing.
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Required
texts and materials
Kristen Woolever. Writing for the Technical Professions.
(2nd ed.)
Diana Hacker. Pocket Style Manual. (3rd ed.
w/APA update)
Diana Hacker. Research & Documentation in the
Electronic Age.
A college dictionary.
A UMN e-mail account. I often send updates and explanations
by e-mail and through the class listserv. To stay informed, you must have
a UMN e-mail account.
Plan to spend up to $20 on photocopying throughout
the semester and for professionally binding your portfolio.
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Final
recommendation report
The major project for this course is a 5,000-6,000 word (approximately 10-pages,
single-spaced) recommendation report--not a "research paper" in the college
course sense, but a professional recommendation report. You will use your
research to support a recommendation related to your topic within your field
of study. The final report must:
Be related to your major.
Be written for a specific audience, in a style appropriate
for that audience (include an explanation of technical terms unfamiliar
to your audience, either in a glossary or in the text).
Be analytic or persuasive for your field, rather
than merely informative, with a clear, specific, thesis.
Be well-organized, with your own ideas and analysis
as the focus, supported by information from at least ten credible, relevant
sources, including at least five recent (within the last three years,
i.e., 2000-2003) scholarly articles and a personal interview.
Use documentation/citation style as appropriate for
your discipline.
Demonstrate a thorough exploration of your topic.
Provide new insight into your topic, including recommendations.
Be approximately 5,000-6,000 words in length.
Be entirely your own work, exclusively for this class,
presented in a professional portfolio.
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Topic selection
The in-depth nature of the research, as well as the very short time you
have to complete the final report, make it essential for you to delve
into your topic almost immediately. For this reason, all paper topics,
as presented in your proposals, are final.
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Sources
You must have at least ten sources for your final report; at least five
of these sources must be scholarly articles published within the last
three years (i.e., 2000-2003). Avoid using encyclopedias, books, etc.
Instead, use professional journals (not Time or Newsweek magazines), company
reports, interviews (minimum of one personal interview required), surveys,
association literature, etc. All sources must be cited in-text and in
a reference list at the end of the report according to the documentation
standards in your field. For electronic sources, you must follow the guidelines
of the "Policy for electronic use," which we will discuss in class.
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Portfolio
At the end of the semester, you will submit a portfolio that presents
clean copies of all finished work in the course. This portfolio includes
the final report as well as the shorter assignments. It also includes
a cover, a letter of transmittal, an abstract, and a table of contents.
You must hand in this portfolio in order to pass the course.
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Participation
Since this course is a workshop class, you should always come to class
prepared and ready to contribute, and take an active role in class discussions
and workshops. Your participation in peer reviews is especially important,
both to you and your fellow students.
I will expect you to come to class with all texts and materials on a regular
basis, and be ready to discuss and summarize the readings. You'll each
be responsible for giving status reports to the class regarding your research,
and I'll also assign you sections of the text that you should be able
to summarize and discuss in class.
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Attendance
I will take attendance. Attendance is mandatory in this class. After three
absences (even with a medical excuse), I may recommend that you withdraw
from the class. If you are absent from class, it is your responsibility
to find out from other students what you missed that day.
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Assignment deadlines
You must turn in or have all assignments ready at the start of class on
the day they are due. Late assignments will be penalized by one-third
of a letter grade for each class meeting that the assignment is late (that
is, a B will become a B-). "The computer ate my file" or "The printer
wouldn't print my paper" are no more legitimate excuses than "The dog
ate my homework." Such excuses will not be accepted.
I will not
accept any assignment more than one week past the due date (e.g. if an
assignment is due on a Thursday, I will not accept it after the following
Thursday). However,
you are required to complete all assignments for your final portfolio
regardless of whether or not you receive credit for them.
Furthermore, because of the collaborative nature
of this course, it is essential that each student has drafts of assignments
on the days they are due. Remember, when you do not have a draft ready
on the day it is due - including bringing in the required number of copies
for peer review - you will not be able to participate in peer review,
which will affect your attendance, your credit for peer commentary, and
your grade for the assignment.
If you are going to miss a class on a day when an assignment
is due, turn in the assignment to me early or arrange to have a classmate
turn in your work at the beginning of the class period it is due. In other
words, make arrangements for your work to be in class even if you can't
be. If you are sick, please make every effort to get the assignment in on
time. If you cannot get your work in on time, bring a signed doctor's note
to me; otherwise, the regular late assignment policy still applies. If you
are absent from class, it is your responsibility to find out from other
class members what you missed that day and what I have assigned for homework.
You are responsible for the material covered in class, as well as any changes
to the syllabus and daily schedule.
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Students with
disabilities
If you are a student with a disability, you need
to register with the Office
of Disability Services right away, and bring
me an official letter
from the Office of Disability Services,
with a detailed accommodation plan. You need to do this within the first
week of class. This information will be kept confidential.
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Format of assignments
All work must be typed or word-processed and printed with a readable printer.
Papers should have one-inch margins on all sides, and text between 10-
and 12- point type in a professional-looking font (no Courier or Courier
New). For several assignments, you will need to use visual aids, but these
graphics do not count toward the page length requirement for the assignment.
For you own protection, keep copies of all work on floppy disks, hard
disks, and paper in case an assignment is lost. You must staple the pages
together if the assignment is more than one page. Also, be sure your name
and the page number appear on all pages that you hand in to me.
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Grading
I rarely give incompletes.
Anyone who does not have an essentially complete draft by the 10th or
11th week of the course should consider using a discretionary
withdrawal. Written
assignments will be graded on focus, organization, originality, completeness
of discussion and of meeting assignment criteria, effective argument techniques
and support, evidence of careful proofreading, correct grammar and effective
sentence structure, among other criteria specific to each assignment.
I will calculate your final grade as follows:
Topic memo: 5%
Annotated bibliography and source critique: 10%
Proposal and audience analysis: 20%
Process or procedure write-up: 5%
Draft of final report: 10%
Abstract and letter of transmittal: 5% (submitted
with final report)
Final recommendation report: 30%
Portfolio: 5%
Oral presentation, participation, and peer reviews:
10%
I will also calculate your final grade based on
the following University
of Minnesota criteria:
| A |
100-95 |
Represents achievement that is
outstanding relative to the level necessary to meet course requirements. |
| A- |
94-90 |
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| B+ |
89-88 |
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| B |
87-85 |
Represents achievement that is
significantly above the level necessary to meet course requirements |
| B- |
84-80 |
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| C+ |
79-78 |
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| C |
77-75 |
Represents achievement that meets
the course requirements in every respect. |
| C- |
74-70 |
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| D+ |
69-68 |
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| D |
67-60 |
Represents achievement that is
worthy of credit even though it fails to meet fully the course requirements. |
| F |
59- |
Represents failure and signifies
that the work was either (1) completed but at a level of achievement
that is not worthy of credit or (2) was not completed and there
was no agreement between the instructor and the student that the
student would be awarded an I |
See also this .pdf document titled "Grading
Descriptors" for a general idea of what constitutes "A"
work, "B" work, and so on, for this course.
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Plagiarism
I encourage you to bounce ideas off each other, offer each other suggestions,
and seek other opinions about your work. When you use the citable work
of someone else, though, document your source. If you use someone else's
words or ideas without acknowledging the source, if you do not properly
quote someone else's words or images, or if you misleadingly submit work
you have completed in another context, then you have committed plagiarism,
a serious breach of academic and professional conduct.
If you are
caught plagiarizing, whether it be at the beginning, middle, or end of
the semester, you will automatically fail the course, and you will be
reported to the Office
for Student Academic Integrity. If you have questions about plagiarism
as you complete your assignments, ask me. We will also cover this in class.
See also: The Center for Interdisciplinary
Studies of Writing: Definitions
of Scholastic Dishonesty and Plagiarism and Plagiarism
Information for Students.
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Policy
for electronic source use
1. Students must provide printouts for any electronic sources they use.
2. Students must use proper citation format (in-text
and end list of references) for electronic sources, according to the citation
system appropriate for their discipline.
3. Students should be able to justify the validity
of the sources they use, by one or more of the following methods:
Corroboration from other traditional print sources
(journal articles, reports, etc.) of the ideas presented in the electronic
source.
Ability to offer full information about where the
source originated. Is it, for example, an on-line version of a print source?
Is it a partially finished draft of someone's work in progress? Is it
an e-mail? Is it an individual just looking for others who share his or
her ideas? This justification should include a description of how the
source's origin affects its validity.
Careful analysis of the reliability of the sources
cited within the text.
Verification of the author's reputation or affiliation,
or other publications by the author. If there is any doubt as to the reliability
of particular electronic source, the student should confer with the teacher
who will make the final decision about the source's acceptability.
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Student contract
Please print this contract,
sign it, and return it to me at the next class meeting.
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Library Resources
UMN Library System
Julie Kelly: Librarian and Rhetoric
Department Liaison
Office Hours at the Rhetoric Department: 43COB, Thursday: 10:00am-12:00pm
Office Phone at 83 Magrath Library: 612.624.4781
Magrath Reference Desk: 612.624.1212
Other Resources
at UMN
Online Writing Center (OWC)
Student Writing Center
Office of Disability Services
Office for Student Academic
Integrity
The Center for Interdisciplinary Studies
of Writing
Academic and Distributed Computing
Services
Rhetoric Department
Career
Services
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