TTH 1320  Academic

Writing and Research

Dr. John Vanderslice

Office: Thompson 338

Office phone: 450-3653

Office hours: Tuesday/Thursday: 9:30-10:30, 12:30-2:30; Friday: 9-1

E-mail: johnv@mail.uca.edu

Materials: Current Issues and Enduring Questions (CIEQ),

                                ed. Sylvan Barnet and     Hugo Bedau

                   Easy Writer (EW) by Lunsford and Connors

                   Good, college-level, portable dictionary (e.g., Webster's)

                   Spiral notebook

UCA Policy on Disablities: It is the policy of UCA to accommodate students with disabilities, pursuant to federal and state law. Any student with a disability is encouraged to contact the Disabled Student Services office which is located in the Student Center basement. The phone number is 501-450-3135.

UCA Policy on Sexual Harassment: Sexual harassment by any faculty member, staff member, or student is a violation of both law and university policy and will not be tolerated at the University of Central Arkansas. Students who believe they have been subjected to sexual harassment should report the incident promptly to their academic dean or to a departmental supervisor or directly to the university’s Affirmative Action officer, legal counsel or assistant vice president for human resources.

Description: This course is designed to enhance your academic prose style as well as increase your knowledge of and facility at using various research mechanisms. It’s all about sources. To accomplish our ends, you will read and critique a number ofacademic pieces and write your own academic prose using the techniques of summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, synthesizing, and analyzing. You will also conduct outside research. You will learn to synthesize that research into your own writing as well as to document the sources you use.

Reading Assignments (or How to Use a Syllabus): You are required to readall the selections from CIEQ listed on the semester schedule. You should come to class each day having already read the reading assigned for that day.

E-mail: Throughout the semester I will be sending messages and reminders to the whole class via e-mail. Such messages are as binding as anything explained in class or written on this syllabus. Therefore, you are required to be signed up for some e-mail service, whether it be a (free) UCA cub account or some other account, and you will be expected to check your e-mail regularly. I suggest that you check it every day.

Major papers: You will write three major papers and one revision. All the papers for this class must be typed or word processed, double-spaced with a reasonable margin (about one inch) on all sides. You should indent five spaces to indicate the beginning of a new paragraph and there should be no blank spaces between paragraphs. I prefer that you use one of the following fonts: Times, Times New Roman, Courier, or Bookman. Your font size should never be larger than12 point. Also, each paper should come with a cover page which lists your name, the course name, the title of the paper, and the date it was handed in. Finally, all papers must be stapled together when turned in. As the writer, it is your responsibility--and I would hope your desire--to make your papers seem as neatly put together as possible. This can only help your grade.

To Pass: All three major papers and the final revision must be turned in to receive a passing grade for the course.

Peer review: For as long as there have been writers, they have exchanged their work and responded to each other's work. It is a healthy, constructive habit, one which we will foster in this class. Not only is peer review a standard practice of working, professional writers--who, after all, students ought to emulate--but it's simply a fact of life that students learn as much from reading each other's work, and responding to that work, as they do from a textbook or a teacher. When a draft of a paper is due, you will exchange papers with other students and write a response to those papers based on questions I provide. At the end of the semester I will give each student a grade for their peer review effort. If you miss even one peer review session it will be impossible for you to get an A for your semester peer review grade; if you miss more than one peer review session it will be impossible for you to get higher than a D for your peer review grade.

Peer editing: The grades you receive on your papers are the grades I feel they would deserve if these papers had no spelling or grammatical errors. Earning those grades, therefore, is contingent upon you fixing all the noted errors. On the days I hand back graded final drafts you will break into pre-established groups. In those groups, you will help each other correct the grammatical or spelling errors I have pointed out. Make sure to bring a portable, college-level dictionary and the handbook Easy Writer to these sessions. After finishing those corrections, each group will show me their corrected papers so I can make note in my grade book. If a student has not corrected a paper by the end of the semester, the grade for that paper you be reduced by one full letter grade.

Revisions: After a peer review cycle has finished you will make any changes you feel are necessary and appropriate for your final draft. Before that final draft is due there will be one period in which the class will not meet in order to provide conference time for students who wish to speak with me directly about their drafts. You will have the opportunity, therefore, to receive feedback from both your peers and myself before your final draft is due. I strongly advise you to take advantage of the chance to conference with me before you turn in the final draft. It’s the best way to anticipate what I will be looking for from you on that final draft.

Important: When you turn in your final draft, attach to that draft (preferably with a large paper clip) 1) a one page typed explanation for what changes you made as a result of your peer review sessions, 2) the draft you showed your group during peer review, and 3) the comments you received from your peer readers. I won't grade the paper without these items.

Late papers: All papers and drafts are due at the beginning of class on the date due. Any of the papers not received in class on the date due will be considered late and automatically downgraded one letter grade. For each successive class period in which the paper is not turned in, the grade will be reduced another letter grade. Also, on days in which we are doing peer review, the student must arrive by the time the peer review begins. If the student does not arrive in time for the start of peer review, the student will not be allowed to participate in peer review and, moreover, the draft is considered late. This means that the grade for the final draft will be lowered by one letter grade. Also, no student will be allowed to participate in peer review if he or she arrives on time but without a draft. That student will not be allowed to remain in the classroom and will not receive any peer review credit for the session.

Summary papers: Whenever there is a reading assignment, a summary paper will be due. These papers—which must be turned in at the beginning of the class period—should be typed, about two pages long. They are simply intended to prove to me that you read the assignment. Therefore, what you should not do in them is editorialize about the assignment but simply summarize the reading assignment, highlighting its most important points. If what you read were essays, summarize each of them briefly. We have seven reading assignments listed on the semester schedule, but I am allowing you to skip a summary paper for one of those assignments, leaving a total of six summary papers due in total. Each summary paper is worth 40 points. You will receive a grade of FC (full credit—40 points), HC (half-credit—20 points), or NC (no credit). If you miss a class when a summary paper is due, you must turn the paper in the next time you are in class. It will, however, be downgraded. No summary paper will be accepted more than one class period late.

Absences: Regular attendance is necessary for you to learn and grow as awriter; it is also, quite simply, a requirement of the class. No student should miss more than 5 classes. Except for extraordinary circumstances, a student who misses more than that number will be dropped from the course. Also, frequent, excessive lateness to class is decidedly frowned upon. Finally, no student should leave a class early without prior permission. Doing so will count as an absence.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a serious academic offense. Generally, it comes in two forms: 1) not crediting outside sources for information or phrasings garnered from those sources, and 2) handing in work written mostly or entirely by someone else. If a student does not properly credit outside sources in a paper, that paper will receive an F. If a student submits an essay written mostly or entirely by someone else, that student will automatically receive a F for the course.

Grades: Possible semester grades for this course are A, B, C, D and F.A=900-1000 points, B= 800-899 points, C= 700-799 points, D=600-699, F=below 600.

Points: Interview paper 100 points

            Three sources paper 100 points

             Brief explanation of research 60 points

             Research paper 200 points

             Final revision 100 points

             Summary papers 240 points

             Peer review 200 points

A+ (99) A (95) A- (92)

B+ (88) B (85) B- (82)

C+ (78) C (75) C- (72)

D+ (68) D (65) D- (62)

F (40)

(If an assignment is worth more than 100 points, multiply the number above

as appropriate. For instance, if the assignment is worth 200 points and

you received a C, multiply 76 X 2 to find out how many points you earned on

that paper.)

1/14 Introduction to class.

1/16 Critical Thinking. CIEQ 3-14.

1/21 Critical reading. CIEQ 73-80 (stop at "Thinking About Statistical Evidence").

        Also read 46-53 (articles on freedom of expression on college campuses).

1/23 Paraphrasing/Summarizing/Direct quoting. CIEQ 32-36, 236-237.

          Also read 118-120 ("It’s Hard Enough Being Me.")

1/28 Begin discussion on interviewing.

1/30 Continue with interviewing.

2/4 Draft of Interview paper due. Peer review..

2/6 No class. Time for voluntary conferences.

2/11 Final draft of Interview paper due.

Also: Analyzing arguments. CIEQ 133-141.

2/13 Subject discussion: Sexual Harassment. CIEQ 703-714. (Essays by Ellen

        Goodman, Ellen Franken Paul, Sarah J. McCarthy.)

2/18 No class. Visiting writer on campus.

2/20 Introduction to Three Sources paper.

2/25 Presentation by reference librarian. Meet at Torreyson library.

2/27 Interview paper returned. Peer editing.

          Continue discussion of Three Sources paper.

3/4 Discussion of plagiarism and documentation. Important!

3/6 Documentation test.

Week 9

3/10 Draft of Three Sources paper due. Peer review..

3/13 No class. Voluntary conferences.

3/18 Final draft of Three Sources paper due.

         Discuss aspects of research paper. .

3/20 Subject discussion: Gay Marriages CIEQ 491-497.

Week 11

3/24-3/28 SPRING BREAK.

4/1 Subject discussion: Video violence CIEQ 716-724 (Essays by Leonard Eron,

       Ernest F. Hollings, Floyd Abrams, and Richard Rhodes.)

4/3 Three sources paper returned. Peer editing.

       Turn in brief explanation of research project.

4/8 No class. Research time.

4/10 Discussing writing research papers.

4/15 Continue discussion of writing research.

4/17 Mandatory conferences for research paper.

4/22 Mandatory conferences for research paper.

4/24 Final draft of research paper due.

FINAL REVISION DUE AT FINAL EXAM PERIOD.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAJOR PAPERS

Interview: For this paper you will interview two members of your family. The subject of the interview will be a curious family event, one which both people lived through and can recall. The more controversial the event, the better. You should ask both people to recount the event as they remember it; also ask them to explain it, offer opinions about it—e.g., why did it happen, did it really have to happen, who’s at fault (if anyone is), what does it say about the family. In your paper, you should relate what your learned through the interviews, but you should also think critically about your sources (the people you interviewed). What do their differing takes on the event say about them? What assumptions or biases can you see in their recollections? How true do their accounts seem to you? 3-4 pages.

Three Sources: For this paper you will use the web and some of the research mechanisms which the Torreyson library reference librarian shows us in the presentation. Specifically, I want you to find three different articles on the same subject. These articles must be: 1) an electronic version of a newspaper or general interest magazine article which is appearing concurrently in print, 2) an electronic version of an article appearing in a scholarly journal, and 3) an article appearing on a web site. For articles 1 and 2 you must use one of the research databases available to UCA students through Torreyson Library. One especially helpful database is ProQuest. For article 3 you can access any web site you choose, provided it gives you an article or entry that is relevant to the subject at hand. For your paper you will examine these three different articles, summarizing their contents but, more important, commenting on the differences in that content or in their presentation. What do you notice is fundamentally different about how a general interest magazine discusses a phenomenon compared to a scholarly journal? And what is different about the web article? You might, for instance, notice differences in language, tone, audience, depth of information, quality of information, and the degree of argumentativeness. How do you explain these differences? How would a student use these different sources in different ways and for different reasons? 3-4 pages.

The paper must successfully exhibit MLA style citation and documentation, unless you are heading into a major which favors the APA documentation style. In this case, the paper should exhibit proper APA citation and documentation.

Important note: When you turn in the final draft of your paper you must turn in copies of the three articles.

Explanation of research: This is a brief (one page, typed) statement about your intentions for the research paper. You should tell me what subject you want to research and why. Furthermore, what aspect of that subject are you researching? It is crucial to know this, in order to focus your research efforts. You can always adjust your research and change your plans, but it’s important to begin with some clear notion. Also, you should tell me what kinds of sources you are hoping to find. You should tell me where you have looked so far for sources and what further sources you need. Where will you find these additional sources? This explanation will be graded with two considerations in mind: how fluently written it is, and how far along in your research you show yourself to be.

Research paper: The subject for your research paper must be related to one of the essays in our textbook (CIEQ), either an essay we read for class or one we didn’t. You should locate as many valid sources as you can about your subject, but you will be required to use and cite at least 8 sources for the paper. You have some freedom in choosing what those sources will be; however, your sources must include the following: one newspaper or magazine article (it can be either the paper version or an electronic version found on a database such as Proquest), one book (at least one chapter of which you are expected to know well), one essay from CIEQ, and one non-written source. This last source could be, for instance, a documentary film, an educational video, a CD-ROM, a television show, a talk radio program, or a music CD (provided it’s relevant to your subject).

Or—and here I think is the best idea—you might want to interview someone with personal knowledge of the issue at hand. For instance, if you are researching juvenile crime you could interview a policeman, or a social worker, or someone who is now or was in the past involved in such crime. You could interview someone who works for the Faulkner County Detention Center, or a sociology professor at UCA, or the parent of a teenager who has gotten into trouble. You could interview a prison chaplain or some other local person who regularly visits jails to minister to people in trouble. These are just some possibilities. If you think hard about your subject, you can probably come up with quite a long list of potential interviewees.

Your paper should be successfully formatted according to MLA or APA style.

It should be 6-8 pages long, not counting the Works Cited page. When you turn in your final draft you must turn in complete copies of any articles you cite, copies of pages you cite from books, and notes from any interviews you cite in the paper. Without these, the paper will receive a zero grade.

What am I looking for in this research paper? I want to see you smoothly and ably coordinate the information you garner from your sources. This means you have to understand your sources and be able to synthesize information from them. There ought to be a coherent structure to your paragraphs and a logical progression to the topics you raise in the paper. Perhaps most important, you should have a thesis to prove and your overall organization should clearly work to advance and prove that thesis. You should not structure your paper on a source-by-source basis (tell everything about one source and then go on to the next) but on a topic-by-topic basis (using your sources in a coordinated way to explain the topic of any given paragraph). You’re out to prove something with this paper and the topics you raise ought to help you do that. We will talk at length about how to do this in class.

Important: Recognizing the more complicated nature of the research paper, I am requiring that each of you conference with me in my office (Thompson 338) before you turn in a final draft of that paper in class. You must bring a first draft of the paper to your conference. I want to look over your draft and give you feedback on what you are doing well and could be doing better. I want to be able to answer specifically and concretely any questions you may have about the writing process, about citations, about theses, about which sources to use and how well you are using them. Most importantly, I want to answer these questions before it is too late to incorporate changes into your final draft. When the times comes, I will pass around a sign-up sheet for conferences. Sign up and make sure you bring a first draft of the research paper to your conference. If you do not come for your conference, or if you come without a first draft, I will lower your final research paper grade by a full letter grade.

Final revision: This is due at the time of our final exam period. Choose one of the first two papers you wrote for me and revise it as thoroughly and conscientiously as you can. Look carefully at my comments and work not only editorial matters of spelling and grammar and documentation but on larger, structural issues with the paper. What needs to be there that isn’t? What ought to be cut or moved around? What isn’t clear or proven that should be? On your revised version you should indicate any added phrases, sentences, or paragraphs by putting these in bold or in another color or by underlining them. If you removed a passage or paragraph, or moved it to another part of the paper indicate this with a note written in the margin.

Important: Make sure you turn in the earlier draft that I looked at and graded along with your revised version.

Please be aware: the whole point of this assignment is to prove to me that you can revise your own work honestly and thoroughly. Therefore, I will be determining grades for this assignment solely on how well and thoroughly you revise. That’s it. If you don’t revise you don’t get a passing grade. Obviously, then, you should choose the paper that most needs revision, not the one that needs it least.