Course Goals     Materials    Class Behaviors     Grading Policy    Assignments     Others   

              Course Policy

              Preliminary requirements:

                   To take this course you need to complete English 1310 and English 1320 and understand how

                   to use Word and browse the Internet.

                   You must be psychologically prepared for intensive writing.

                   The goal of the course:

                   In this course, you will

                    ●  understand how to target your audience and communicate your writing purpose.

                    ●  learn different organizational methods to organize your information.

                    ●  command the skills to do research to collect the data you need for your writing.

                    ●  design a professional document that has a professional appearance and easy accessibility

                        and helps  readers understand the information.

                    ●  learn business communication principles and ways to write positive/negative business

                        correspondences. 

                    ●  learn how to organize collaborative writing and cooperate with your peers.  

                    ●  command the skills to write different genres of workplace writings such as informal reports

                       (memos, letters and emails), job application materials, proposals, formal reports,

                       Web articles,  instructions, and  presentation.

                    ●  develop a professional writing style.

                   Materials you need for this course:

                       Textbook:    Walter E. Oliu and Charles T. Brusaw, Writing That Works:

                                          Communicating Effectively on the Job.9th ed.       

                       Email:         Texas State University's email account and access to the Internet

                       Web sites:   www.zhupinfan.com; www.bedfordstmartins.com/writinigthatworks

                       Others         Two Floppy disks or a flash drive.

                   How to succeed in this course:

                       ●  Keep a good attendance record and bring your textbook each time you come to class.

                   ● Read assigned chapter before each class meeting so as to participate in class discussions

                         actively and answer the questions effectively.

                   ● Don't talk irrelevant things or read newspapers or look at irrelevant websites while the

                         lecture is going on.

                   ● Behave courteously and respectfully toward me and your fellow students.

                   ● Don't miss any quiz or assignment and do it well.

                   ● Don't have 5 absences.

                   ● Submit your assignments in the your online folder on time. Any missing assignment

                         in the fold will be your fault.

                   ● Refer to the class schedule from time to time and read assignment instructions carefully.  

                   ● Don't plagiarize others' work.

                  Grading Policy  

                     Your work will be graded according to how well you have responded to my writing instructions

                     and how well you are able to apply the theory, skills and knowledge  you have learned

                     to your work.

                     Normally speaking, your work needs to demonstrate your good audience awareness and

                     your writing  purpose. The work also has a significant topic, is well focused, uses the right

                     organizational method, follows the conventional format,  shows sufficient evidence, well 

                    argued points, and a professional style (has less than three errors for long papers such as

                    proposal, reports and web articles.) and has the necessary depth while meeting the word

                    count required and is turned in on time. You will get an 'A' for the work in this case.

                     If your work does not show a professional look (does not apply document design skills) , lacks

                     the necessary supporting details in one or two places, or is digressive in one or two places, has

                     more than three errors, and is a little bit under the word count, but meets all other requirement

                     mentioned above, you will get a 'B' for this work.

                     If your work does not show a clear awareness of audience needs, focus well on the topic, have

                     the important supporting details, is not well organized in some places, is 15% less than the 

                     required count, and lacks one or two  necessary components of the document, you will get a 'C'

                     for the work.

                     If your work does not respond to the writing instruction well, and is not on the right track

                     because it misses two important parts of the document, shows a poor audience awareness

                     and does not follow the conventional pattern, lacks of supporting evidence, is sloppily

                     edited, has more than 8 errors, and is 30% less than the required word count, you will get

                     a 'D ' for the work.

                     If your work does not respond to the writing instructions, and is not on the right track in terms

                     of its audience and purpose, has numerous errors, a poor organization, is severely under word

                     count,you simply fail the assignment. You will get an 'F' for the assignment.

                     I have specific grading criteria for each assignment in the assignment section. You need

                         to refer to it before starting writing.

                      Assignments

                       Major assignments and their grade distributions are shown in the following table:

             Others

                              Plagiarism

                        Plagiarism is offering the work of another as one's own without proper acknowledgement; therefore, any

                        student who fails to give credit for quotations or essentially identical expressions of material taken from

                        books, encyclopedias, magazines, internet sources, and other reference works, or from the themes, 

                        reports, or other writings of a fellow student, is guilty of plagiarism.

                 It is very easy to use the work of others in your reports and documents without citing the source. 

                 All web pages, web  images, interviews, articles, newspaper clippings, ads, product brochures, job

                 announcements,manuals, emails, and just about any document you can think of needs to be cited as

                 a source.  I will try to remind you about this during the semester so that you can avoid making this 

                 costly mistake.  If you do make the mistake you will receive an F on the document, and if  the

                 offense is egregious ( very bad) then you can fail the course. 

                         knowledge-making activities of your field.  So make the most of your research and build your informative

                         ethos by citing all the work of others. 

                        Special Arrangements

                         Let me know about special arrangements. Any student who, because of a disability, may require some

                         special arrangements in order to meet course requirements should contact me as soon as possible to

                         make necessary accommodations.