instructor kevin eric de pew
office heavilon 302
phone 765.494.3742
e.mail pepepew@purdue.edu
web.page web.ics.purdue.edu/~pepepew/homeweb
office.hours m 930-1100

The primary course objective for English 203 is to learn and understand the rhetorical nature of conducting and reporting research in professional contexts. Many audiences often see only the final document that reports one's research findings. However, in this course, we will examine and generate the multiple texts that contribute to the development of a final professional document. Therefore, in English 203 you will learn...

• how to plan projects, conduct research, and report findings that effectively respond to specific professional situations
• how to recognize and access the various audiences involved in the research collection process
• strategies for finding textual sources (i.e. print and web-based)
• strategies for conducting field research with human participants, such as interviews, observations, questionnaires, and usability testing
• how to use usability testing as a heuristic to develop your products and how to use usability to test the products that you have developed
• how to analyze your data to determine its reliability and relevance
• the principles for archiving research and developing sustainability
• the ethical implications for each step of the research process, especially writing up the data
• strategies for writing and researching individually and collaboratively
• the recursive nature of the writing process in terms of researching, drafting, editing, and revising
• how to determine the most appropriate media for reporting results
• how to develop professional documents that can be used to persuade and inform audiences
• how to use rhetorical principles to articulate the decisions that you have made throughout the research process.

English 203: Introduction to Professional Writing Research by K.E. De Pew. Purchased at CopyMat (located in the Chauncey Hill Mall | 135 South Chauncey | 743.5995)

Professional Writing Research Guide by Spring 2003 English 203 Class. Available as a PDF file after week eight of the semester.

principles

During the first half of the course, you will learn the principles of doing research in a professional context. This will include strategies for conducting textual research (i.e., print and web-based), doing field research (i.e., interviews, observations, questionnaires, and usability testing), how to archive data and/or create sustainability. For this section of the class you will develop an individual portfolio of research exercises and responses to the readings. You will also be expected to work with a team to develop a portion of the Professional Writing Research Guide.

application

During the second half of the course, the entire class will be doing research work for a client, Media Instructional Development Center (MIDC). Our client has hired us to conduct research and produce a professional document that they can use for the Digital Learning Collabratory. As an individual you will develop a research plan that will be used to design the overall plan that the class uses. After the class has an overall plan, you will work in a team that contributes to the collection of data and reporting of results. The overall class will be responsible for the final product produced for the client.

Each assignment will be worth 250 points with the overall grade being divided between the individual, group, and class evaluations, accordingly. In addition, each student will be evaluated upon her/his participation in the course (100 points). Overall, half of the overall grade will be individually based, and the other half will be based upon group/class work. This evaluation structure reflects the workplace context in which 30-50% of one's work is done collaboratively.

portfolio.grading

For each assignment you will be submitting individual and group portfolios. These portfolios will consist of research exercises, response papers, rough drafts, and final drafts that you compose during that section of the course. The instructor, upon receiving these deliverables, will only make comments on each text and return it to the students. For the portfolio, you will submit all of these deliverables as hard copies in a manila folder. With these evaluated assignments you will include a revised final project and/or a summary statement that addresses peers' and the instructors' comments.

These research exercises, response papers, and rough drafts-- done as classwork or homework--will be marked and factored into your participation grade. You will be expected to intelligently engage in this work, rather than just fulfill the assignment; evidence of this intellectual engagement will be rewarded.

Also, you will not receive credit for late or missing miscellaneous assignments or exercises that are no longer relevant. Some assignments are specific to a certain assignment, activity or time; therefore doing the work late does not benefit you. In such a case, the work will not be accepted late. Late work will only be accepted if you consult with the instructor prior to the class period in which the work is due.

Your individual and group work will be marked with a , +, –, or 0.

= You did the work well, and on time. You are encouraged to engage with the ideas more before turning in the final portfolio

+ = You demonstrated an understanding of the selected material and/or demonstrated mastery of the specific rhetorical situation. It will need very little intellectual revision before the portfolio submission

– = Your work demonstrates a misunderstanding of the assignment, minimal effort, shows that you did not do the assigned reading, or was not turned in on-time. Significant intellectual revision will be needed before the portfolio submission.

0 = No submission. The instructor will let you know when a assignment will no longer be accepted for credit.

This style of grading allows the instructor to evaluate the process of your work––how each student's work develops throughout the project––instead of only grading each deliverable as a separate entity. The portfolio grades are final and there will be no revisions; therefore take into consideration the significant point total assigned to each portfolio assignment.

participation.grade

Your participation grade will be approximately 17% of your overall grade (100 points). All students will start with 85% of the possible participation points (85 points); this point total will be adjusted positively and negatively based upon homework, classwork and attendance using the plus, check, minus system described above.

grade.scale

Each portfolio and your final grade will be graded on a point scale*:

A = 90-100%
B = 80-89 %
C = 70-79 %
D = 60-69 %
F = 0-59 %

* = The instructor reserves the right to adjust this scale based on the students' performance throughout the semester. Any adjustments will never deny a student the grade that she/he earns based upon this posted scale.

grading.criteria

Each submission will be evaluated according to its rhetorical effectiveness. This means that the instructor will be looking at...

• how well the writer considers her/his audiences' concerns (i.e., meet the audiences' needs, improving relations between people, providing relevant, useful, and accurate information)
• how well the writer considers the ethical implications of the overall research project
• how well the writer maintains a focus on the audiences' needs
• how well the writer articulates the development of an idea or argument
• how the writer makes research accessible to a specific audience (i.e., appropriate use of design, formatting, visuals, media and evidence of invention, drafting, editing, and proofreading)

Because rhetorical effectiveness is contextually based, it will be important that you develop a vocabulary for talking about the decisions that you made while designing a research plan, conducting the research, and reporting the data.

This class is programmatically capped at twenty students. I cannot add anybody during the first week and I will not add anybody after the second week .

Purdue University's policy requires that students attend every class. (There is no such thing as an official "excused absence" -- except an absence allowed by the instructor. See Purdue University policy for further information.) If a student does miss a class, for whatever reason, the student is responsible for making up any missed work.

You are required to "show up" for the course every class period, therefore pay attention to the calendar. Regular attendance is required in English 203. In a writing class, you do a lot of the work in the classroom. Additionally, group work makes up 50% of the coursework, thus it is difficult to make up missed work.

You are allowed four absences, excused or unexcused. More than four absences will result in failing the course. Plant trips, other extracurricular activities, and illness are not excused absences. Also being late to class will be marked as a tardy and being excessively late (twenty minutes or more) will be counted as an absence.

Although group meetings outside of class will not be regulated like class attendance, show up for these meetings that you and your peers set up. Not only is this respectful, your grade will be affected based upon your peers' evaluation of your performance. Use the technology, such as e-mail, to coordinate and conduct group work.

word.processing

You should use MS Word (6.0/95 or higher) to compose or save your documents that you will send as an attachment. When you save your to-be-attached assignments you will want to name the assignment to clearly distinguish the person who sent the file and what work you are sending. To do this, please follow the following template for submitting files

[First Three Letters of Last Name]-[Assignment Acronym].[File Type]

ex. DEP-SUM.doc

• Remember this is the attached file name, not just the subject line.
  
• The Assignment Acronym will be available on the calendar as the assignment is posted.
  
• The ".doc" or ".ppt" is often needed to transfer files successfully, especially across
  platforms).
  
• Files that do not comply with this template will be returned unevaluated.

You are expected to produce high-quality professional documents. A part of that quality is the appearance of your work. Neatness, visual appeal, and mechanical and grammatical correctness do matter - though they do not by themselves guarantee that a document is well written. If turning in a hard copy text, laser printing (typically, 600 dpi) is now the standard for business writing documents, and it is the requirement for English 203. Your documents should have appropriate margins, spacing, pagination, and formatting. Also electronic documents submitted to your instructor as an email attachment must also adhere to professional standards of neatness, visual clarity, readability, and correctness.

protecting.your.work

Backup your files frequently; use disks or your Career Account. Also keep your files on your home machine. And perhaps, too, keep your files on a floppy. The excuse "that was my only copy" is not a valid one. Also, save all English 203 work until the course is over. Maintain copies of drafts and work-in-progress for group work. Keep copies of your e-mail messages related to the course as a record of your work. For all messages that you send to the instructor, you should either have the message sent to your "Sent" Folder in your email account or cc: yourself the message so that you have a copy for verification.

email.accounts

Having an e-mail account is required; a lot of information for this class will be exchanged through email––including submissions of assignments, class updates, and working with your peers. You will want to establish a consistent email account that you will use throughout the entire semester. Because of the listserv, you will need to have your a Purdue account (@purdue.edu) You may have your email forwarded to other alternative accounts (e.g., ecn.purdue.edu, hotmail, yahoo), but note that these account have been known to cause file transfer problems. You are responsible for making sure that files and messages are successfully received by the instructor and your peers. Also these alternative email accounts do not support the professional persona you are developing in this course.

emailing.protocals

When e-mailing the instructor or the the class listserv make sure that you include a subject line that includes the nature of the e-mail. A subject line, such as "homework" is vague. Instead be specific and state whether it is a "homework submission," "homework clarification," or "homework problem." Also use the priority setting rhetorically; in other words, make your email message stand out when you really want to draw a person's attention to your message. Finally, address the insturctor and your peers professionally and respectfully. Use this course to practice establishing your professional persona.

listserv

A listserv has been set up to make announcements, exchange information, and discuss issues raised in the class. Also, post questions about homework and assignments to the listserv because in most cases, all students will have the same question. Your official enrollment in this class will automatically subscribe you to the listserv.

printing

Do not print while the instructor is lecturing. You should print of documents before you come to class.

To conserve paper when printing from a web page, reduce the print size to 75% or 80% (under File–>Page Setup).

keeping.up

To keep up with the course, you will need to...

• Check your e-mail daily to keep up with announcements.
• Check the calendar every Sunday evening for new updates for the next two weeks.
• If you are going to miss class, inform the instructor ahead of the missed class to find out what will occur on that day.

electronic.ethics.and.respect

Electronic media allows us some freedoms that print media does not allow. Consequently, it is also subject to abuse. Please be respectful of your peers throughout the semester by not displaying, viewing, or posting web pages, files, or emails that may make others uncomfortable. Violations of this respect can be considered harassment according to university policy and will be handled as such.

You, individually and collaboratively, must do your own original work in English 203 and appropriately identify that portion of your work which is borrowed from others, or which is your own work from other contexts. When working collaboratively, you need to identify your contribution to the document. Whenever you borrow graphics, quote passages, or use ideas from others, you are legally and/or ethically obliged to acknowledge that use, following appropriate conventions for documenting sources.

Among your electronic and print course materials will be some samples of the kinds of documents you will be writing in English 203. Read these documents critically to determine the generic expectations for the specific document and to determine what the writer(s) did well and what you should improve upon. Use these techniques or principles that we discuss to inform how you draft your documents. Do not forget these sample documents are written for other contexts; therefore, they are never directly transferable.

available at http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~pepepew/203/