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CO150: College Composition |
Professor: Mike Palmquist Office: 312 Eddy Hall Phone: 491-7253 Email Address: Mike.Palmquist@ColoState.edu Office hours: Tuesdays, 1:30 - 3:30, and by appointment |
Course Readings
Course Description
This course is designed to introduce you to and prepare you for the types of writing you may be asked to produce in college. As an introductory course, your writing will be evaluated on how well it meets the standards of college writing. In this course, the type of writing we will focus on will include personal essays, summaries of and responses to texts, syntheses of texts written by several authors, analyses of the rhetorical conventions of texts, and original arguments.
In evaluating your work, I will focus on how well your writing conforms to the conventions of each type of writing. I will also focus on your ability to write clearly and to conform to the norms of standard written English.
All class sessions will be held in the Eddy Hall, Room 2 computer classroom. A large part of those sessions will involve writing on the computer. As a result, this class will tend to be much more like a workshop than a traditional lecture class.
Notes
This is a limited add/drop course. If you are planning to drop this course, you must do so by Thursday, August 27th. I realize that we will have met only once prior to that time. If you have questions or concerns about the course that may lead you to consider dropping it, please speak with me as soon as you can.
Our Auditors: During the semester, other instructors may observe this class. This arrangement is part of our instructor training program. If you have any concerns about this arrangement, please speak with me about them.
Grading
Your course grade will be based on the quality of your written work, on the quality of your class participation (including attendance), and on your performance on the various class exercises and out-of-class assignments you are asked to complete during the semester. The course grade will be calculated as follows:
Unit One: Examining the Functions of Language
Unit Two: Analyzing the Language of Texts in an Academic Discipline
Unit Three: Formulating a Written Argument
Plus/Minus Grading: This class uses plus/minus grading.
Attendance Policy: Because of the small size of this class and the extent to which we will use collaborative activities during class sessions, regular attendance by members of the class is important. To encourage your attendance, I will record attendance. If you accumulate more than three absences during Unit I, I will reduce your grade for the Inquiry Essay by one letter grade per each additional absence. If you accumulate more than three absences during Units II and III, I will reduce your grade for the Arguing Essay by one letter grade per each additional absence.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the dishonest use of someone else’s thoughts or words. It’s cheating. Plagiarism can vary from submitting someone else’s paper as your own, to "borrowing" a nice sounding phrase, to using a source without citing it correctly, to "padding" a bibliography by making up sources or including sources you didn’t use in your research. Whenever you use a general concept or idea, quotation, statistic, fact, illustration, or phrase that was not your own without giving proper credit to the author, you are plagiarizing.
Plagiarism constitutes academic dishonesty and will be treated as such. If you fail to do your own work in this class, you have failed to meet the requirements of the course. Depending on the degree of plagiarism, the penalties range from failure of an individual paper to failure of the course to expulsion from the University.
Policies and Requirements
Course Resources
The Writing Center: I encourage all students to use the Writing Center, located in Eddy Hall Room 6. The tutors in the Writing Center are available to help you with your writing, to provide feedback on your work as it progresses, or simply to talk with you about ideas you have for a paper. Although the Writing Center tutors do not proofread papers, they are quite happy to work with you to improve your proofreading and editing skills. If you bring one of our assignments to the Writing Center, be prepared to talk about the assignment (you'll find the assignment sheets on the Web and I'll also hand them out in class) and the thinking you've done so far about the paper. The Writing Center is a superb resource -- you'll certainly benefit as a writer and as a student if you make regular use of its services.
The Writing Center: Located at http://www.colostate.edu on the Web, the Writing Center is an internationally known (and used) site for writing and speaking instruction. The Writing Center offers a wealth of resources that can help you improve as a writer, including the course page for this class. Be sure to check it out, not just this semester, but in other semesters during your time at the University.