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Science Writing English 383 Fall 2005 Web: www.research.umbc.edu/~carpente Appropriate for students of all majors interested in strengthening their writing skills, online, English 383 will examine samples of science writing as student writers design proposals, reports, journal articles, abstracts and literature reviews within this discipline. Students will collect, analyze, and report data on topics ranging from climactic changes, pollution, and deforestation to disease control, genetic research, scientific ethics, and medicine. Science Writing, English 383, will be offered with an Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum focus. The course will emphasize these units: · a textual analysis-sociolinguistic approach to analyzing creation of scientific text--we will work to define scientific authenticity and science writing as a discipline · a study of science as literature, as humanistic, as data; the differences and influences of objective and subjective treatments of data · the assembling and presenting of scientific data, both oral and written data, including a presentations skills assignment using PowerPoint · collaboration techniques- of data collection and research, publication, presentation, and online collaboration · graphics-construction, integration and labeling of graphically presented data · acquiring technological and visual literacy The written documents will include: proposals, field notebooks, essays, journal articles, abstracts, and reviews of scientific literature. Assignments: Reading Robin Marantz Henig, The Monk in the Garden, publisher: Mariner Books/Houghton
Mifflin; paperback; ISBN 0618127410 Writing Journals: Weekly electronic journals will be posted each Tuesday. The journals will continue our discussion of the week?s course material and are another way of synthesizing the material. Each journal response should be a minimum of one page of text. The journal prompts (questions) will be sent to you each Tuesday; for each journal prompt, write a response to the classlist; response due to list no later than midnight Friday. Students will then read their classmates? journal entries and choose ONE to write back to, again responding on the list, no later than noon Sunday. Presentations: Students will prepare one collaborative evaluative presentation on print and online journals. Collaborative groups will present six minute evaluations comparing print to online science journals. Observation Journal: students will keep an observation journal of notes, reflections, and sketches of a ?place? they select. Modeling Williams? detailed, scientific accuracy, they will record a minimum of [8] one hour observations in a field notebook. Formal Papers: We will write two proposals, an annotated bibliography, two essays, and one final *science article with a third grade adaptation. *The final culminating 20 page paper will be a scientific article and a 3-5 adaptation of that article for a 3rd grade reader, both constructed for online publication. Class work and discussion Discussion will include literature reviews and abstracts. Class participation and discussion are key to success in our course. Attendance is mandatory. The material will engender lively discussion, thoughtful reactions, and detailed, critical analyses of our place within the worlds of science and technology.
Assignments Fall 2005
Policies: Attendance in class and at conference is mandatory, as this is a participatory rather than passive learning experience. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. When you write or speak, present your own work and not the effort of another writer. Plagiarism is easily avoided by using quotation marks when you quote directly, by citing the author whose ideas you are using when you paraphrase, and by never taking credit for writing or for ideas which are not your own. Students who plagiarize will automatically fail the course. Please see www.umbc.edu/integrity for a full understanding of the values and conduct expected of our students. Students are required to complete all assignments.
Papers are due on assigned dates. Late papers will not be accepted. All papers must be word-processed and must demonstrate a mastery of page design and audience awareness. All papers will be submitted in a labeled folder with all prewriting, an outline, a rough draft and a final, camera ready draft. For all papers use APA citation form. Revisions will be accepted no later than one week following the return of the initial graded paper. When revisions are exceptional, the grade may be raised by as much as one letter grade.
Everyone needs an email account right away; everyone needs to see me during the first class to discuss your computer-assisted writing background. This upper level undergraduate/ graduate seminar is a decentralized, student-centered class meeting only one time each week; it is designed to be highly participative, intense, and great fun.
Plan to attend all classes; come prepared for class. We will write each week, both in and out of class. My grading system follows: A=4, A-=3.8, B+=3.5, B=3, B-=2.8, C+=2.5, C=2, C-=1.8, D+=1.5, D=1, D-=.8 Remember: revision grades are averaged with all prior grades per paper to determine that paper's final grade. |