Course Syllabus

English 1304
Thinking, Writing, and Research
Spring 2012
Kathleen McGinty-Johnston

Tel: 254 710 6893
Email: Kathleen_McGinty@baylor.edu
CS 406
Office hours: TR 12:00-1:30 and by appointment

Required Texts

Read, Reason, Write

Materials for Course

• Textbooks
• Spiral notebook or other paper for note taking, notebook paper for in-class assignments
• Two-pocket folder for writing assignments
• Flash drive for backing up work (please try to keep at least two electronic copies of all assignments in the event that one becomes corrupted). Do also make use of your Bearspace or DropBox when writing your papers.
• Blog

Course Goals
English 1304 is designed to help students develop the writing skills and techniques presumably acquired during 1302, which are necessary for your future professional success. It doesn’t matter what your major is, there will be no situation in your professional careers in which the ability to write clearly and read critically will NOT be useful. Critical thinking and writing skills are applicable not only to the written word, but to all aspects of intellectual development. Each required element of this course will serve as a building block for later elements, so your presence in class is essential to your understanding and mastery of the materials. Therefore, I now introduce you to the related issue of class attendance:.

Attendance Policy
The Arts & Sciences’ attendance policy states that students must attend 75% of the classes per course, thus missing more than 25% of this class will result in a failing grade. Note, too, that these absences include both excused and unexcused, so if you know that you will need to be absent for university-sponsored activities, please take those absences into account. Other excused absences include illness (for which a note from the Health Center or one’s CL is required) and family emergencies that require an absence from campus, which will also require proper documentation. You should keep track of your own attendance, but you can also check my records on Blackboard. Additionally, 3 tardies equal 1 absence.

N.B.: Attendance has a close correlation to one’s final grade. Thus, it is my policy that it is nearly impossible to make an A in a TR class when you have missed more than 5 classes. That means that although you will not automatically fail the course until you have 8 absences, it is highly unlikely that you can earn an A with 6 absences.

Make-up Policy
Students may submit late work, without penalty, within a week of the student’s return ONLY for excused absences.  Upon returning, YOU, the student, are responsible for contacting me regarding assignments and due dates; this includes both in-class work and outside assignments. If any assignments were due on the day(s) missed, they must be turned in upon return to class. If you know that you are going to be absent because you are deathly ill, it will make me tremendously happy if you get your assignment in before class.

Any assignments missed due to unexcused absences will be penalized. In-class assignments (quizzes, writing projects, group assignments) will be registered as a zero. Outside assignments which are submitted late will be penalized by one letter grade for each day that they are late (weekends count). If an assignment is turned in on the proper date, but after class, it will be penalized half a letter grade.  I know that printers jam, run out of ink, and run out paper; therefore, do make sure that you do not plan to print your paper five minutes before class. I also know that computers often eat word documents, that laptops get stolen, that hard drives crash, and that flash drives get lost. Therefore, you would do well to e-mail copies of your paper to yourself. The above excuses are terribly sad, it is true, and while I will sympathize with you, they do not constitute exceptions to the rule. So be prepared.

Requirements
The course requirements include three major papers, seven source analyses, a final exam, and various in-class group and writing assignments.

Source Analyses   10%
(100 points)

Unit I                   10%
(150 points)

Unit II                  15%
(100 points)

Unit III                 50%
(500 points)

Participation        10%
(100 points)

Final Exam            5%
(50 points)

(1000 points)      100%

The daily work (class participation and any homework, quizzes, or in-class assignments) will be included as part of your overall unit grade, so do keep this in mind if you are planning an unexcused absence.

Additionally, you are responsible for maintaining a blog for this course. It will reflect your thoughts on the writing and research process and should allow you to get and offer assistance to your classmates via blog comments. I will also be monitoring your blog and can offer assistance with whatever problems you might have. You may feel free to vent on your blog. The blog counts towards your class participation grade. Extra credit is available for interesting blog construction and multiple weekly posts.

I will provide a specific syllabus for each unit – there will be varying degrees of specificity regarding assignments based upon the demands of each unit.

Keep in mind that this blog presents you to the electronic universe as a student of Baylor University; please be honest about your responses, opinions, beliefs, and positions, but use language that is appropriate for the tasks and that would not embarrass you should a future employer stumble upon your work.

Course Description
Source Analyses are 7 1.5-page analyses of sources that you will be using in your research (ideally in your final product). Using summary and analysis skills that you will learn (or re-learn, as the case may be), you will summarize each source and analyze its strongest points.

Unit I (Exploratory Essay) will introduce the course and further define and employ research and research methods. You will also choose and develop your research topic. It will be a question, problem, or issue that is relevant to your area of study or future career choice. You will explore multiple sides of the issue, presenting all perspectives in an unbiased way. By looking at all aspects of the argument, you will be able to decide not only which side you wish to argue, but you will also be familiar with the major arguments for the opposition side. This paper will be 4-5 pages long.

Unit II (Prospectus) will consist of an essay that will present an overall trajectory for the larger research paper. It will include much of the work you have done in your source analyses, and should serve as an outline in essay form for the final research project. This essay will also be 4-5 pages long.

Unit III culminates the semester’s work. As preparation for the completion of the research paper, you will submit stages of the long paper to be graded, including your thesis statement, an annotated bibliography, and your rough draft. Note that Unit IV most affects the overall grade for the class (50%) and thus accounts for the greatest portion of the time allotted for a unit.  The research paper will be 10-12 pages long. YOU MUST PASS THIS PAPER TO PASS THE COURSE.

ALL ESSAYS (and typed assignments) must be completed using the MLA format. Graded papers must be kept on file in my office for a semester following the course. Certain essay assignments will, in addition, be submitted by the student to Turnitin.com via Blackboard. Turnitin.com is an online service which detects plagiarism through the use of an electronic database of previously-submitted papers and published articles.

If you are unfamiliar with Baylor’s policy concerning plagiarism, I suggest you consult the Student Handbook under the heading “Honor Code,” which defines it in the following manner:

Plagiarism is intellectual theft existing in several forms: (1) the word-for-word copying of a passage without quotation marks and a note indicating that the phrasing and ideas are another author’s; (2) the partial quotation and paraphrase of a passage without quotation marks and a note indicating that the phrasing and ideas are another author’s; (3) the complete paraphrase of a passage without a note indicating that the ideas are another author’s.

Accidental plagiarism (in which the student does not intend to deceive or to pass another’s work as his or her own) will result in a failing grade on the assignment. Intentional plagiarism can result in a failing grade for the course; plagiarism is cheating, and is a serious violation of the university’s policies. It is also an insult to my intelligence. Any significant incident of intentional plagiarism will be reported to Baylor’s Office of Academic Integrity.