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ENGL 3053: Technical and Report Writing – [section number] Term: [semester and year]
About the Syllabus: [Here you can write something about the document’s function as a contract, how you expect the syllabus to be used, your right to make changes, etc. Something like this, but in your own words and according to your own course design: “This syllabus document serves as a contract between me and you as we participate in the course. I will abide by the policies here and I expect you to do so as well. It also serves as a roadmap to the semester in this course, so please read through it in the first week, and refer to it often as we proceed. Many questions you have about the course will be answered here. I reserve the right to make alterations to the syllabus or course schedule at my discretion, especially to enhance your learning. I will especially try to be adaptive with our activities and discussions as need arises. Changes regarding due dates will always be made in your favor.”]
Table of Contents: [Add page numbers and/or internal links once your own material is in place]
Instructor Information
About your instructor Teaching philosophy Communication philosophy
Course Information
Course purpose Course goals Procedure Required texts Centering Diverse Perspectives Assignments and grade distribution Technology responsibilities for online courses
Section [xxx] policies
Grading Conduct and online etiquette Participation and collaboration
Assignment policies
Types of assignments Submission procedures Assignment formatting Feedback Plagiarism
University policies
Academic integrity U of A policy for excused absences Accommodations for Students with Disabilities CEA Reporting Discrimination and Sexual Harassment
Your Well Being
Links to University Resources Full Circle Food Pantry Counseling and Psychiatric Services CAPS Class+ Writing Center Inclement weather
Instructor information
Instructor: [XXXXXXXXXX] Office Hours: [ALL INSTRUCTORS MUST LIST THREE REGULAR HOURS PER WEEK] [Include virtual office location – Collaborate Ultra, Zoom, etc] Phone: [XXXXXX] E-mail: [XXXXXXX]
About your instructor: [Your credentials, your interests, your background—whatever you choose to help students get to know you and establish a connection, as well as respect for your capability as their instructor.]
Teaching philosophy: [This is optional, but you can briefly describe your methods and approach to teaching and learning, if it will help students know what to expect and how to succeed in your class.]
Communication policy: [Make clear how your prefer the students to contact you and when, and how quickly they can expect a response. It’s a good practice to respond within 24 hours during the week, but you can have other timeframes for emails received over the weekends or breaks.]
ENGL 3053 Course Information
Purpose: The overall goal of English 3053 is to hone students’ reading, thinking, and writing skills taught in English 1013 and 1023 or 1033 and apply them to relevant writing tasks in career-focused fields. Students will be evaluated on their ability to draft and revise documents for focus, development, and organization, as well as edit those documents to ensure proper syntax and correctness.
Specific Goals: English 3053 is designed to familiarize students with the process of planning, drafting, and revising basic technical documents. Assignments and group work will be oriented towards refining communication skills in professional discourses.
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to perform the following tasks:
1. Apply concepts and strategies of technical communication.
2. Analyze audiences and purposes for various technical documents.
3. Conduct effective research, and integrate and cite evidence from sources.
4. Plan, draft, and revise documents such as descriptions, memos, business letters, proposals, and formal reports.
5. Determine document organization, design, and style that meets genre conventions and audience expectations and needs.
Procedure: Discussion; workshop and collaboration; lecture; and the writing of papers and exercises. Adherence to expectations, completions of major and weekly assignments, and the quality of writing will determine the final grade.
Required texts: • Practical Strategies for Technical Communication, 3rd ed,. By M. Markel and S. A. Selber. (Bedford/St. Martin's) • Handbook of Technical Writing, 12th ed., by G. J. Alred, C. T. Brusaw, and W. E. Oliu. (Bedford/St. Martin's)
Assignments and Grade Distribution: [The Major Assignment grade distributions cannot be changed. However you can determine how the remaining 30% is accounted for.]
Major Writing Assignments: Other Assignments: Rhetorical Analysis 15% Memos and Letters 15% [Discussion Board and Blogs 20%] Formal Proposal 20% [Collaboration 10%] Recommendation Report 20% (peer review & conferences)
TOTAL 100%
Course Grade Scale: A: 90-100; B: 80-89; C: 70-79; D: 60-69; F: 0-59
Centering Diverse Perspectives In this course, we’re going to open ourselves up to new ways of seeing the world and its people. Each unit will open up with a reading that we will use as an example for the skill that we will practice (analyzing, corresponding, synthesizing, and proposing/reporting). We want to encourage you to think outside of your normal approach to problems, issues, and culture, and to help us all understand the value that diversity and diverse perspectives bring to our work and lives.
Student Responsibility/Technical Difficulties Policy: This course is an online course, and you are responsible for ensuring that you can access all course material on a regular basis from a reliable Internet connection and a standard personal computer or laptop.
Note that certain technologies are not fully supported for the completion of coursework through Blackboard and online courses. Chromebooks, ChromeOS, smart phones, and tablets might not be sufficient to complete your coursework. While you can interact with some content, you will likely not be able to complete all assignments. You should have additional access to a Windows or Apple laptop or desktop.
Additionally, certain technical abilities will be required, such as:
installing necessary plug-ins installing certain software clearing your browser's cookies and cache saving files in a common/requested format browsing your computer and uploading files
Note: If you have a problem with a personal computer or interrupted network connection, know that you are still responsible for submitting your work on time.
If there is a problem with the Blackboard system, notify your instructor and IT Services (either call 479-575-2905 or report an issue at help.uark.edu)
If you have questions specific to Blackboard, you can either,
call (479) 575-2905 email bbhelp@uark.edu, or create a request help ticket at help.uark.edu Additional Blackboard support can be found at bbhelp.uark.edu and tips.uark.edu. If you need general computer help, IT Services' website has searchable Tech Articles.
Help Desk Hours Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to midnight Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday from 3 p.m. to midnight
Limited support and troubleshooting are available after hours at (479) 575-2904.
Section [number] policies [You can adapt these sections according to your own expectations and policies. You may not need all of these categories and are not required to fill in information for every subheading. These categories are suggested as areas that students may need explained. You can delete categories that are explained elsewhere or that do not apply to your course.]
Grading: [Explain any grading policies students should be aware. If you will use a grading contract, explain it here. That is an option, though we do not require it or provide one.]
Conduct and online etiquette: [Give your expectations of conduct and how students should communicate and treat each other, and you, in the online classroom. What are your policies and expectations, and what will consequences be if not met?]
Participation and collaboration: [All instructors must stipulate an attendance policy. Even though Global Campus students do not attend class sessions, they are responsible to participate in the course and submit assignments on time. Illness or family emergency or some other interference may keep them from these responsibilities. Specify your policy for these occurrences, aligning with the university policy for excused absences, and giving your specific expectations and how interruptions to course participation will affect the grade for the course. Collaboration is required in this course in various ways. You can outline your processes for these activities and assignments, and how you will assess and grade group assignments and participation on group discussion boards or blogs.]
The University of Arkansas policy for excused absences: “Student absences resulting from illness, family crisis, University-sponsored activities involving scholarship or leadership/participation responsibilities, jury duty or subpoena for court appearance, military duty, and religious observances are excusable according to university rules. The instructor has the right to require that the student provide appropriate documentation for any absence for which the student wishes to be excused. Moreover, during the first week of the semester, students must give to the instructor a list of the religious observances that will affect their attendance.” — Academic Regulations University of Arkansas Catalog of Studies
Types of Assignments: [Adjust this according to your own plan for weekly or minor assignments. The major assignments must stay in place with the grade distributions provided. Major Assignments make up 65% of your final grade and include four papers. They are: 1. Rhetorical Analysis of three pieces of writing from your field 2. Professional Correspondence including a memo and a business letter 3. Proposal completed as a group project 4. Recommendation Report
The four units of the course align with the writing of these major assignments, and include research, drafting, feedback from reviews and conferences, and revision, along with the lessons and readings related to each type of writing. The final version of the paper is submitted at the conclusion of the unit.
Weekly writing assignments will make up 20% of your grade, and will include submissions to your group Discussion Board and to the course Blog. These will be due weekly on the dates given in the Weekly Lesson folder. If you ignore these weekly writings, you grade will be affected. Keep up with these.
Submission Procedures: [ALL INSTRUCTORS MUST STIPULATE AN ASSIGNMENT-SUBMISSION POLICY THAT INCLUDES A POLICY AND PROTOCOL STATEMENT REGARDING THE LATE SUBMISSION OF ASSIGNMENTS. You may screen for plagiarism by requiring that students submit all major writing assignments via SafeAssign.]
Assignment Formatting: Drafts must be typed with black ink in Roman-based 11 or 12-point font. Lines should be single-spaced for most technical documents. Documentation style (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.) and formatting will vary depending on your discipline and the assignment. Pay careful attention to each assignment prompt for documentation and formatting instructions.
Feedback: [Describe how students will receive feedback from you and what you expect them to do with it. How can they expect to benefit from your input and critique of their writing, as well as feedback from their peers?]
Plagiarism: [The university policy on plagiarism is below, but here you can explain how you expect to identify plagiarism and what your action will be. We are required to report any incident of academic dishonesty. If there is evidence of plagiarism, or you have informed suspicion that the work is not the student’s own, you must report it to the Academic Integrity Monitor, honesty.uark.edu, and they make a determination after reading your report and hearing from the student. That is what you do every time, and this eliminates any prejudicial treatment. You can explain that here, as your policy on plagiarism, along with any other factors the student needs to know.]
University Policies
Academic Integrity: “As a core part of its mission, the University of Arkansas provides students with the opportunity to further their educational goals through programs of study and research in an environment that promotes freedom of inquiry and academic responsibility. Accomplishing this mission is possible only when intellectual honesty and individual integrity prevail. Each University of Arkansas student is required to be familiar with, and abide by, the University’s ‘Academic Integrity Policy,’ which may be found at «http://honesty.uark.edu/index.php» Students with questions about how these policies apply to a particular course or assignment should immediately contact their instructor.” — Office of the Provost and Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs
NOTE: The University defines plagiarism as “offering as one’s own work, the words, ideas, or arguments of another person or using the work of another without appropriate attribution by quotation, reference, or footnote.” In addition, submitting work you have turned in to fulfill requirements for another course may still constitute plagiarism. Please obtain your instructor’s permission before turning in previously submitted work. Refer to the sanction rubric «http://honesty.uark.edu/sanction-rubric/» for a list of specific violations covered by the University’s Academic Integrity Policy.
Statement Regarding Note Selling and Distributing: There are companies that will try to lure you into selling the notes you take in this class. Don't let these companies take advantage of you. Selling my notes to any commercial service I will consider a violation of my intellectual property rights and/or copyright law as well as a violation of the U of A's academic integrity policy. Continued enrollment in this class signifies intent to abide by the policy. Any violation will be reported to the Office of Academic Initiatives and Integrity.”
–University of Arkansas Office of Academic Initiatives and Integrity
U of A policy for excused absences: “Student absences resulting from illness, family crisis, University-sponsored activities involving scholarship or leadership/participation responsibilities, jury duty or subpoena for court appearance, military duty, and religious observances are excusable according to university rules. The instructor has the right to require that the student provide appropriate documentation for any absence for which the student wishes to be excused. Moreover, during the first week of the semester, students must give to the instructor a list of the religious observances that will affect their attendance.” — Academic Regulations University of Arkansas Catalog of Studies
Disabilities: If you have a disability that might affect your success in this class or at the university, make an appointment with the Center for Educational Access (CEA). Contact 479–575–3104 or visit http://cea.uark.edu for more information on registration procedures. If you qualify with the required medical documentation, they will set up accommodations for you and supply certain resources you need. If you are registered with the CEA and request it at the start of each semester, they will notify all your professors of the accommodations you need. But also contact me privately at the beginning of the semester to make arrangements for necessary adjustments in this particular course and for the online environment.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal anti-discrimination statute that provides comprehensive civil rights protection for persons with disabilities. Among other things, this legislation requires that all students with disabilities be guaranteed a learning environment that provides for reasonable accommodation of their disabilities. Moreover, the University of Arkansas Academic Policy Series 1520.10 requires that students with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations to ensure their equal access to course content.
Discrimination and Sexual Harassment: Anyone experiencing discrimination and/or sexual harassment while at the university may report it to a complaint officer appointed by the Chancellor. The complaint officer will discuss any situation or event that the complainant considers discriminatory or constitutive of sexual harassment. Reports may be made by the person experiencing the harassment or by a third party, such as a witness to the harassment or someone who is told of the harassment. For more information and to report allegations of discrimination and/or sexual harassment, contact the Office of Equal Opportunity and Compliance, 346 N. West Avenue (West Avenue Annex), 479-575-4019 (voice) or 479-575-3646 (tdd).
Inclement Weather or Technical Problems: In case of inclement weather or technological problems that prevent the University from providing access to course materials you may contact the instructor by phone via the numbers given above in the Instructor section or send the instructor an email inquiry. In addition, the instructor will notify students as soon as possible in such instances and provide instructions on how the course will proceed.
Blackboard occasionally schedules “down time”; users will be notified in advance through a system-wide announcement so schedule your online work accordingly. If you are experiencing difficulties with the operation or navigation of Blackboard you can visit the UA Blackboard Help web site. Please note that personal technical issues (i.e. computer crashes or lack of knowledge of Blackboard) are considered to be the responsibility of the student and will not excuse the student from assignments or other course responsibilities. While we will do our best to provide technical assistance, it is highly recommended that the student develop a local back-up plan to assist in the event that technical difficulties are experienced during the course.
Your Well Being
I respect the fullness of your lives and responsibilities outside of this class. If you experience something that impedes your ability to learn in this class, I invite you to discuss this with me. You absolutely do not have to disclose the details of your circumstances, but you are welcome to approach me so we might locate resources or other guidance for you.
Here is a list of campus resources that you might find useful in your time here:
Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry 324 Stadium Drive | WAHR C204 | Bud Walton Hall M 11am-3pm, W 3pm-5pm, Th 10am-2pm | 479-575-7693 Student-led food assistance program. They serve anyone with a U of A or a UAMS ID and their household, providing a three-day supply of groceries and personal care items, up to 2x/week. https://service.uark.edu/services/pantry/index.php
Center for Educational Access 209 ARKU, University of Arkansas 479-575-3104 https://cea.uark.edu/
RESPECT (Rape Education by Peers Encouraging Conscious Thought) Pat Walker Health Center, University of Arkansas (479) 575-7252 https://respect.uark.edu/resources/
STAR Central Web Location: Pat Walker Health Center | Second Floor - Room 2129 | M-F 8am-5pm 479-575-7252 The office of STAR Central offers Support, Training, Advocacy, & Resources on Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence. STAR Central serves the university community through education programs, professional consultations and victim advocacy services. STAR Central is located on the second floor of the new addition of the health center in room 2129. All contacts and survivor services are confidential. Center for Multicultural and Diversity Education ARKU 404 479-575-8405 https://multicultural.uark.edu/about-us/index.php
Veterans Resource and Information Center GACS Suites 115-116 | 640 N. Garland Avenue | M-F 8am-5pm 479-575-8742 https://veteranscenter.uark.edu
Women’s Clinic (serving patients of all genders) Pat Walker Health Center 525 N. Garland Ave. 479-575-4478 https://health.uark.edu/medical-health/womensclinic.php
Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) Pat Walker Health Center 525 N. Garland Ave. 479-575-5276 https://health.uark.edu/mental-health/index.php
CAPS also offers drop-in, informal consultations. For updated hours see: https://health.uark.edu/mental-health/letstalk.php
Full Circle Food Pantry: The University of Arkansas food pantry serves anyone suffering from food insecurity (if you’ve ever had to skip a meal or gone without enough food or without nutritious food, that’s food insecurity) and their families. They “provide a three-day supply of groceries and personal care items, up to two times per week, for the entire household.” The Full Circle food pantry is located in “Bud Walton Hall, the beige brick dorm building between the stadium and the Union Parking Garage. The entrance to Full Circle is on the east side of the building directly across from the base of the Union Parking Garage.”
Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS): College can be a very exciting time, but it can also be very lonely, isolating, and a time of upheaval for many people. In 2017, the United States Census Bureau reported that 75% of college students reported feeling overwhelming anxiety and 30% reported feeling it in the last two weeks. The University of Arkansas has a wonderful, low-cost counseling center at your disposal, and since I am a big advocate of taking care of our mental and emotional health, you should definitely take advantage of it.
CAPS is located on the second floor of the health center, and is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays. All non-emergency CAPS services require an appointment. Students can schedule an appointment with CAPS by calling 479-575-5276.
Class+ Writing Center: The Class+ Writing Center helps students at every stage of the writing process (so they can even help you get started on an assignment). Note that they do not *edit* your work, although they will happily work with you to discover what kind of grammar or organizational issues might be present and will give you advice on how to improve your paper.
You can schedule an appointment, drop-in for an appointment (if they have tutors available), meet with a tutor online, or even meet with a tutor through online chat (esp. if you just have a quick question). Appointments tend to last for 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how much help you want/need. See https://class.uark.edu/writing-support.php or the link on our Blackboard for more information, including location, hours, etc.
Tip: Take the writing assignment directions with you to your appointment.
