English 2010: Effective Writing Course by Dr. Ace G. Pilkington - Prof. Ace G. Pilkington, Papers of English Language

Download English 2010: Effective Writing Course by Dr. Ace G. Pilkington - Prof. Ace G. Pilkington and more Papers English Language in PDF only on Docsity! ENGLISH 2010 Fall 2006 TR 1:00-2:15 p.m. / 3 credit hours / MC 207 Professor: Dr. Ace G. Pilkington Office: MC 207 Phone: 652-7809 E-mail: pilkingt@dixie.edu Office Hours: MWF 2:00-3:00 p.m., TR noon-1:00 p.m., and by appointment TEXT: English 2010: The Text, Ace G. Pilkington (required) GOALS: English 2010 is meant to help you learn to write clear, logical prose that gets your message across quickly and easily. It should also help you to think, organize, and speak more effectively. In addition, English 2010 should increase your awareness of the uses and abuses of language and help you to develop your personal writing style. Students are expected to master material which includes punctuation and mechanics, logic fallacies, expository and persuasive prose strategies, and research materials. DEPARTMENTAL COURSE OBJECTIVES: Students completing ENGL 2010 will be able to: 1. Understand the importance of correctly assessing the relationship of you to your audience and purpose. 2. Understand the value of undertaking the writing process in early and in stages, including planning, brainstorming, organizing, rough draft writing, revising, and proofreading. 3. Recognize the importance of carefully choosing and restricting the subject and creating a precise thesis statement that will control the selection, arrangement, and presentation of material. 4. Use strategies for creating effective overall structure, including the use of repeated key words, pronouns, synonyms, topic sentences, transitions, and parallel structure. 5. Know and use organizational and developmental strategies necessary to write individual paragraphs and the paper as a whole. 6. Write unified, coherent, and developed paragraphs that effectively use topic sentences, repeated key terms, synonyms, pronouns, and transitions. 7. Compose introductory paragraphs that get the reader's attention, state the thesis, suggest a plan of development, make positive first impressions, and set the tone. 8. Compose concluding paragraphs that give a sense of closing. 9. Recognize and avoid fragments, run-ons, faulty modifiers, subject/verb and pronoun agreement problems. 10. Demonstrate mastery of conventional punctuation; and mechanics used in standard written English. 11. Demonstrate a reasonable awareness of style, emphasis, and sentence variety. 12. Recognize and avoid logical fallacies, emotional arguments, and misleading ambiguities. 13. Synthesize research, in a balanced manner, with students' own ideas and writing. 14. Correctly paraphrase, summarize, quote, and cite source material. 15. Recognize and avoid forms of plagiarism. 16. Effectively argue in writing (i.e., persuade readers by using effective rhetorical strategies, such as sound reasoning and the respectful acknowledgement of opposing viewpoints). GRADES are based on the following: GRADED PAPERS—the research paper will be 1000 to 1500 words; all other papers will be approximately 500 words. Papers more than 50 words under or 100 words over the length limits are unacceptable. All papers must be persuasive essays based on films currently available on video cassette. All papers must be typed on white paper (double spaced) and stapled in the upper left-hand corner. I strongly recommend that you learn to use a word processor and produce your papers in that fashion ♦ printing them out, of course, on a letter-quality printer and separating the sheets). Students should be extremely careful to identify all sources used in papers since plagiarism means an automatic failure in the course (See Dixie College Handbook 5-05.4). Note that any direct quote or paraphrase (other than from a video) must be accompanied by a photocopy or printout of the original. ♦ RESEARCH PAPERS—This is your primary assignment for the semester, and it is worth (for the final draft of the research paper itself) 300 points. It should be between 1000 and 1500 words, not including your works cited. Again, be sure you turn in photocopies or printouts for all material you either quoted or paraphrased. You should also write an account of your research process, including how you came up with your thesis, the avenues of research you pursued, and what you learned along the way. This journal should be approximately 1500 words. It will be worth 100 points, and will be graded on content and word count. DUE DATES FOR PAPERS: 1. You may rewrite this paper and take the higher grade. Due 14 September. (100 points) 2. Rewritten version of your first paper is due 28 September. 3. Due 12 October. (100 points) 4. Research paper journal. Due 9 November. (100 points) 5. Research paper. Due 5 December. (300 points) MIDTERM DATE: 7 November (approximately) NOTE: Papers may be turned in up to two class sessions (days) late with no penalty (the following Friday, for example, if the paper was due Monday). Papers turned in three or four class sessions late will be penalized 10%. Papers will not be accepted five or more class sessions after they are due. ♦ EXAMS: Midterm—this will be partly objective (punctuation, mechanics, logic, etc.) and partly in-class writing. This exam counts as 200 points and will come at a time which we agree on as a class. In-class writing—this will serve as a final exam and will count 100 points. Our final exam is scheduled for Tuesday, 12 Dec. from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. ♦ ATTENDANCE: While I don't grade on attendance as such, missing more than half the class sessions also means missing a passing grade. NUMERICAL-LETTER GRADE EQUIVALENTS 95-100 = A 90-94 = A- 86-89 = B+