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English 202A: Analyzing Your Identity in the Social Sciences Instructor: Jan Babcock
Email: jra125@psu.edu CLASS ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADE PERCENTAGES
Day to Day Syllabus for Summer 2005 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS ENGL 202 is a required three-credit course that Penn State undergraduates are eligible to take after attaining fourth-semester standing. As compared to ENGL 015, ENGL 202 is an advanced writing course to which students are expected to bring some disciplinary expertise from coursework in their majors. The goals of ENGL 202 are (1) to introduce students to typical kinds of writing in their disciplines (and typical ways discipline members go about writing), and (2) to advance their skills as critical readers and effective writers, not only for use in college, but also in their professional, civic, and private lives. COURSE POLICIES ENGL 202 Course Objectives
COURSE OBJECTIVES ENGL 202A is designed for students who fit into the broad category of the study of the social sciences--education, administration of justice, psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, political science, or other related majors--and who will become researchers, scholars, and practitioners of the social sciences, such as teachers, counselors, police officers, lawyers, government workers, nurses, and social workers. These students will be focusing on issues in their fields and/or expanding on basic research topics and techniques they are pursuing in their "major" classes. In the process of conducting research, attention is given to the ethical consideration of the study of human behavior. Typically, the social sciences share qualities with the sciences, the humanities, and business. As a result, the course design attempts to accommodate that overlap by addressing a range of assignments that include job application materials, proposals written to the instructor, translation of specialized terms, literature reviews, rhetorical analyses and position papers.
With these goals in mind, the course seeks to have students:
SO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? English 202A is, let’s face it, a course you just simply have to take in order to graduate. Many of you will be very close to graduation when you take the course. But the objective in designing the course was not to torment you. Instead, as a 202A instructor I hope to provide you with a valuable, pragmatic, and lasting skill, one that you will use to gain employment, keep employment, get promoted, be understood, and find understanding. I refer, of course, to the skill of good, clear, concise, purposeful writing, and of doing the necessary thinking and researching that will provide you with something useful and eloquent to contribute to your field (and to any situation that requires successful communication). Although you may not appreciate the skills taught and learned in this course now, you will understand the importance of good communication and writing skills in the future.
ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION POLICYContrary to popular believe, YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO SHOW UP CONSISTENTLY TO PASS THIS COURSE. English 202A is a writing workshop. There are very few lectures or tests. Even if you read every word of every assignment I write for this packet (and you should), you will not have a complete understanding of the project you will be graded on, because the course is designed as a hands-on, in class workshop; the only way to be sure of the material covered is to be there. Every week we work in small groups, peer edit projects, and discuss readings in terms of their relevance to the particular assignment you are working on (reflect back on your experiences in English 15).On the other hand, I realize problems arise regarding class attendance (illness, other commitments, etc.) Your best bet is to address your attendance concerns immediately and privately with me. I will do my best to accommodate your situation. Keep in mind that you are allowed 3 un excused absences during the semester so use them wisely. Such un excused absences may include job interviews, canning for Dance Marathon, family or professional commitments, etc. Treat me with respect as you professor and I will treat you with the same respect. Those who don’t will feel it reflected negatively in their attendance and participation grade.
Therefore, Attendance and Participation are mandatory. This is neither a
lecture course nor a distance/continuing education course; you are expected to
contribute to all class discussions, participate in all class activities, arrive
on time for class, and remain in class for the entire allotted class time. Not
adhering to this policy will negatively affect your final grade. Examples
OTHER ISSUES Ø Always email me if you have any questions about assignments Ø Cell Phone Policy- Please turn off your cell phone during class. Too many calls will negatively effect your attendance/participation grade Ø If I need to cancel class I will try to let you know ahead of time either with an announcement in class, an email, or a note on the door. Ø All unexcused absences (beyond your allotted 3) will lower your final grade down to and including in F. In addition, being late to class too many times will negatively effect your final grade at my discretion Ø All assignments must be submitted on time. If you need an extension, please speak to me in advance of the due date and submit your request in writing. Ø All papers must be submitted in the proper format outlined in your syllabus and stapled. Please include your name, date, section number, and my name on everything you hand into me. All final work must be typed. Ø Please save all paperwork from this course until the semester is finished Ø Your syllabus is the rulebook. I am obligated to follow all University guidelines and policies stated in the syllabus. If you have a problem with class or personal issues, please speak to me privately and we will resolve the problem or issues to the best of my ability. Ø Address all issues with the course or your grade as soon as possible. DO NOT expect me to address any problems if you wait until the last week of class to question your grade
Using ANGELAbout ANGELANGEL is the course management system (CMS) available for use by instructors, students, and staff at Penn State. It can be accessed through the link http://cms.psu.edu or through http://webmail.psu.edu. You must log in with your PSU access account. For those of you who do not
know how to use this tool, please read through the Overview and Help sections on
the ANGEL website. How will English 202A use ANGEL?Notes and handouts will be available on ANGEL through out the semester. ANGEL should not replace attendance and participation in class. Although notes will be available online, any details and relevant information pertaining to assignments will only be discussed in the classroom.
CLASS ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADE PERCENTAGES:
Assignment #1: 20%
Assignment #2: 15%
Assignment #3: 20%
Assignment #4: 15%
Assignment #5: 15%
Attendance/Participation: 15%_____________________________________________________________
DEADLINES AND PAPER EXTENSIONSIn the real world, deadlines are real; it’s good practice to meet them. In English 202A you are required to hand in papers ON TIME unless you have made arrangements well in advance (at least 24 hours before the final due date) with me for an extension. All extensions should be placed in writing or email. There are no extensions for Rough Draft work. To participate in the Rough Draft Workshops you must have a working rough draft.
FORMAT FOR PAPERS AND GRADE DEDUCTIONS All final drafts of papers must be typed. Double space unless the rhetorical situation dictates otherwise (I will tell you if this is the case). Print on only one side of the paper (not doing so will result in a grade deduction on the final grade of that assignment). Use either 10- or 12-point font. Make top and bottom margins one inch, side margins one to one and one-quarter inch. Please use a staple to hold your work together. Submit each paper in a folder along with rough drafts, peer review comments and any other relevant material including articles, analyzed models, and in-class and homework assignments. Please proofread your work carefully. I do not intend to make this a style class, but I will comment on mechanical problems you may have made. Late Work: Any paper or work for the assignment handed in late will receive a full letter grade deduction for each late day off the final assignment grade (i.e. If you would have received a B for the assignment, handing in your paper/work a day late would drop that grade to a C and so on). In addition, you cannot just skip an assignment because you don’t want to do it and will just take the F. You must hand in ALL the assignments or you will automatically receive an F for the course. This is the official English Department Policy. Missing Work in your Folder: In addition, two typed memos will accompany all folders to me about the writing process from your perspective. The first memo is your topic proposal memo and must be submitted, for my approval, before you begin writing. In the second memo, referred to as the concluding memo, you will talk to me about the challenges and successes you experienced in researching and writing the assignment, and specifically about how you improved your writing with revisions and what you learned from the project. Not including a topic proposal memo (approved by me), a concluding memo, a rough draft, and any other required work will result in a ½ a letter grade deduction (i.e. B to a B-) on your final grade for that assignment for each missing piece from your folder. You will be given a day to day syllabus for the course. On this syllabus will list due dates for topic proposal memos, rough drafts, and final drafts. You are responsible for submitting work on that due date or your work will be considered late and deducted as stated above. If you will miss class for planned or unplanned reasons you are still obligated to submit the work to me on the date. Contact me asap for more information upon missing class. Topic Proposal memos may be submitting via email; final work will only be accepted via a hard copy, in a folder. No exceptions.
DRAFT WORKSHOPS Please make sure you have a complete rough draft for the peer review. In order to receive a grade on your assignments, you must participate in a peer review session on the scheduled date. If you do not participate in the peer review, your final paper may be docked up to one letter grade and will count as two absences for the class.
CONSULTATIONS Consider office hours as an extension of the classroom. Please try to meet with me at least once (optional but highly recommended) during office hours after you have received the first or second papers back and have a feel for how you are doing in the class. We can then discuss your progress. Also feel free to contact me outside of class via email. STYLE PRESENTATIONS You enter 202A with varying levels of awareness when it comes to the elements of (writing) style—for example: grammar, organization, punctuation, tone, coherence, emphasis, and research skills. While the focus of this class is NOT merely mechanics, these little items can make or break your writing! Either your writing style can seem to flow and engage your reader's interest, or your language can seem hasty and improperly used, only frustrating and boring your audience. No matter whom your audience is—a professional or a client or layperson—they'll have these kinds of questions: "What is your point? Do you know what you are talking about? Can I trust your professional advice?" OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
Students with Disabilities:
Classroom Climate: GRADING STANDARDS Papers and assignments: There will be six major units in this course which require you to turn in a paper or project at the end of each unit and complete a number of homework and in-class writing assignments each week. Paper descriptions will be handed out on the day each paper is assigned. All paper assignment and due dates are on the course schedule.
Grades: I will be using the grading standards set forth by the English Department for grading all five major papers. Please consult them beforehand to understand the criteria for each paper grade. While I will make a mathematical calculation for your final grade based on the letter grades you receive on each of your papers, your final course grade may also reflect your overall performance including active participation in peer review workshops. I reserve the right to either raise or lower your grade by one half step (e.g. an A- to a B+) if you show either dramatic improvement or dramatic decline over the course of the semester. These grading standards establish four major criteria for evaluation at each grade level: purpose, reasoning and content, organization, and expression. Obviously, every essay will not fit neatly into one grade category; some essays may, for instance, have some characteristics of B and some of C. The final grade the essay receives depends on the weight the instructor gives each criterion and whether the essay and accompanying work was received on time and the folder included all relevant and required material. The A Essay The B Essay The C Essay The D Essay
The F Essay
University and English Department Plagiarism Policy The Department of English insists on strict standards of academic honesty in all courses. Therefore, plagiarism, the act of passing off someone else's words or ideas as your own, will be penalized severely. The following discussion is offered so that you won’t commit plagiarism. Sometimes plagiarism is simple dishonesty. If you buy, borrow, or steal an essay to turn in as your own work, you are plagiarizing. If you copy word-for-word or change a word here and there while copying without enclosing the copied passage in quotation marks and identifying the author, you are also plagiarizing. But plagiarism can be more complicated in act and intent. Paraphrasing, stating someone else's ideas in your own words, can lead you to unintentional plagiarism. Jotting down notes and ideas from sources and then using them without proper attributions to the authors or titles in introductory phrases may result in a paper that is only a blend of your words combined with the words of others that appear to be yours. Another way to plagiarize is to allow other students or friends to give you too much rhetorical help or do too much editing and proofreading of your work. If you think you have received substantial help in any way from people whose names will not appear as authors of the paper, you should acknowledge that help in a short sentence at the end of the paper or in your list of Works Cited. If you are not sure how much help is too much, talk with your instructor, so the two of you can decide what kind of outside help (and how much) is acceptable, and how to give credit where credit is due. As you go through the writing process, you should keep careful track of when you use ideas and/or exact words from sources. As a conscientious writer, you have to make an honest effort to distinguish between your own ideas, those of others, and what might be considered common knowledge. Try to identify which part of your work comes from an identifiable source and then document the use of that source using the proper format, such as a parenthetical citation and a Works Cited list. If you are unsure about what needs documenting, talk with your instructor. When thinking about plagiarism, it is hard to avoid talking about ideas as if they were objects like tables and chairs. Obviously, that’s not the case. You should not feel that you are under pressure to invent completely new ideas. Instead, original writing consists of thinking through ideas and expressing them in your own way. The result may not be entirely new, but, if honestly done, it may be interesting and worthwhile reading. Print or electronic sources, as well as other people, may add useful ideas to your own thoughts. When they do so in identifiable and specific ways, give them the credit they deserve. The following examples should clarify the difference between dishonest and proper uses of sources:
The SourceThe US has only lost approximately 30 percent of its original forest area, most of this in the nineteenth century. The loss has not been higher mainly because population pressure has never been as great there as in Europe. The doubling of US farmland from 1880 to 1920 happened almost without affecting the total forest area as most was converted from grasslands. From Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist
Word-for-Word Plagiarizing In the following example, the
writer tacks on a new opening part of the first sentence in the hope that the
reader won't notice that the rest of the paragraph is simply copied from the
source. The plagiarized words are italicized. Despite the outcry from environmentalist groups like Earth First! and the Sierra Club, it is important to note that the US has only lost approximately 30 percent of its original forest area, most of this in the nineteenth century. The loss has not been higher mainly because population pressure has never been as great here as in Europe. The doubling of US farmland from 1880 to 1920 happened almost without affecting the total forest area as most was converted from grasslands.
Quotation marks around all the copied text, followed by a parenthetical citation, would avoid plagiarism in this case. But even if that were done, a reader might wonder why so much was quoted from Lomborg in the first place. Beyond that, a reader might wonder why you chose to use a quote here instead of paraphrase this passage, which as a whole is not very quotable, especially with the odd reference to Europe. Using exact quotes should be reserved for situations where the original author has stated the idea in a better way than any paraphrase you might come up with. In the above case, the information could be summed up and simply paraphrased, with a proper citation, because the idea, even in your words, belongs to someone else. Furthermore, a paper consisting largely of quoted passages and little original writing would be relatively worthless.
Plagiarizing by Paraphrase In the following case, the exact ideas in the source are followed very closely—too closely—simply by substituting your own words and sentences for those of the original.
Plagiarism can be avoided easily here by introducing the paraphrased section with an attribution to Lomborg and then following up with a parenthetical citation. Such an introduction is underlined here:
Bjorn Lomborg points out that despite environmentalists’ outcries. . . . (page number).
Properly used, paraphrase is a valuable rhetorical technique. You should use it to simplify or summarize so that others’ ideas or information, properly attributed in the introduction and documented in a parenthetical citation, may be woven into the pattern of your own ideas. You should not use paraphrase simply to avoid quotation; you should use it to express another's important ideas in your own words when those ideas are not expressed in a way that is useful to quote directly.
Mosaic Plagiarism This is a more sophisticated kind of plagiarism wherein phrases and terms are lifted from the source and sprinkled in among your own prose. Words and phrases lifted verbatim or with only slight changes are italicized:
Environmentalist groups have long bemoaned the loss of US forests, particularly in this age of population growth and urbanization. Yet, the US has only lost approximately 30 percent of its original forest area, and most of this in the nineteenth century. There are a few main reasons for this. First, population pressure has never been as great in this country as in Europe. Second, the explosion of US farmland, when it doubled from 1880 to 1920, happened almost without affecting the total forest area as most was converted from grasslands.
Mosaic plagiarism may be caused by sloppy note taking, but it always looks thoroughly dishonest and intentional and will be judged as such. In the above example, just adding an introduction and a parenthetical citation will not solve the plagiarism problem since no quotation marks are used where required. But adding them would raise the question of why those short phrases and basic statements of fact and opinion are worth quoting word for word. The best solution is to paraphrase everything: rewrite the plagiarized parts in your own words, introduce the passage properly, and add a parenthetical citation.
Summary Using quotation marks around someone else’s words avoids the charge of plagiarism, but when overdone, makes for a patchwork paper with little flow to it. When most of what you want to say comes from a single source, either quote directly or paraphrase. In both cases, introduce your borrowed words or ideas by attributing them to the author and then follow them with a parenthetical citation.
The secret of using sources productively is to make them work for you to support and amplify your ideas. If you find, as you work at paraphrasing, quoting, and citing, that you are only pasting sources together with a few of your own words and ideas thrown in—that too much of your paper comes from your sources and not enough from your own mind—then go back and start over. Try rewriting the paper without looking at your sources, just using your own ideas; after you have completed a draft entirely of your own, add the specific words and ideas from your sources to support what you want to say.
If you have any doubts about the way you are using sources, talk to your instructor as soon as you can.
http://www.la.psu.edu/assocdea/academicinteg.htm
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