NEW YORK CITY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY

ENG 3771, S.E280

ADVANCED CAREER WRITING

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You can also send me your questions via email. If a response is necessary, you can expect it within 24 hours.

THIS 3771 COURSE IS IN HYBRID FORMAT. This means that our course meets in person, but also involves significant online work. 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  English 3771, Advanced Career Writing, will provide you with the opportunity to improve your ability to write business documents through applied study and critique. You will develop the knowledge, skills, and processes necessary to compose documents under constraints typically found in the workplace. You will be evaluated throughout the process of researching, organizing, writing, revising, and presenting your documents.

This course stresses:

• Document content and format.
• Audience analysis.
• Problem-solving.
• Awareness of ethical issues in professional writing.
• Global impact of business communications.

Credits: 3

This course requires the skills and access to the technology listed below:

• The ability to work independently and responsibly under the pressure of continuous deadlines.
• Willingness and ability to produce a high volume of written Standard Business English.
• A PC or Mac with MS Word or Open Office (MS Works or Google Docs will not be sufficient).
• Cloud drive storage (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.), or a USB flash drive (1GB or larger).
• A stable high-speed Internet connection with the ability to hear sound and view video.
• High ability using a computer keyboard and mouse.
• Moderate experience with using the Internet and conducting online research.
• Moderate experience using the Blackboard and CUNY OpenLab OLS (online learning system).
• Access to a printer to print course materials and assignment drafts.

Text for the Course:

Primary:

“Professional and Technical Writing.” Wikibooks, The Free Textbook Project. 28 Jun 2012, 01:16 UTC. <http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Professional_and_Technical_Writing/Cover_Page&oldid=2369727>.

In addition, we’ll be using a variety of additional open access resources to be distributed online and via in-class handouts.

COURSE STRUCTURE: Because this course is a “hybrid,” a large part of our class time will be spent in the online classroom. You will complete course activities online throughout the week. Your discussion activities are crucial to the intellectual quality of our class, your learning, and your preparation as a professional in the field.

Discussion is a key element of the learning process. Because we won’t always be sitting face-to-face in this class, our written words do our “talking” for us. Think of our online activities as analogous to us sitting in a seminar room, sharing ideas, debating those ideas, and coming up with new ideas. 

Online vs. Classroom Activities

1. Each week, we will be meeting twice in person; typically, one weekly class session will be devoited to discussion and focusing on business communication concepts and best practices. The other class session will be devoted to practicing those concepts, both individually and in groups.

2. Substantively completing your online coursework is one of the most important things you can do in this class, both for your learning and your grade. If you do not participate online, it is the same thing as being absent in the course.

Routines: Every class will begin with 10-15 minutes of quiet writing/reading time. As you enter our classroom, please make a habit of looking at the instructions I have projected/posted, and get to work quietly. Thanks!

OpenLab: This is the central hub for all classroom activity. I will be posting our syllabus and readings here, along with other announcements. I will be sending you an invite to our open lab site after our first day of class.

Our OpenLab URL is:  https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/groups/eng3771-sec-e280-advanced-career-writing-spring-2015/

Class participation: Students who participate in the intellectual life of a course tend to learn more, earn better grades, and be more prepared to enter the professional workforce.

Attendance: No more than four absences permitted. More than four and I have to give you a WU (unintentional withdrawal) for the course. That is no fun. Oh, try not to be late—but if you are, come in quietly and sit right down and figure out what we’re doing and join in as you start to get the picture.

Class Cancellation & Notifications: While official closures will be announced on local public radio stations and the City Tech website, occasionally I, your instructor, will need to delay a class or reach you on short notice. For these occasions, I am using a service called Remind, which allows me, your instructor, to send you group text messages in case of sudden schedule changes or just to remind you of assignments. I will e-invite you to use this service after our first class; please check your emails for sign-up instructions.

If you are unable to attend class, please notify me via your City Tech email.

New York City College of Technology Policy on Academic Integrity: Students and all others who work with information, ideas, texts, images, music, inventions, and other intellectual property owe their audience and sources accuracy and honesty in using, crediting, and citing sources. As a community of intellectual and professional workers, the College recognizes its responsibility for providing instruction in information literacy and academic integrity, offering models of good practice, and responding vigilantly and appropriately to infractions of academic integrity. Accordingly, academic dishonesty is prohibited in The City University of New York and at New York City College of Technology and is punishable by penalties, including failing grades, suspension, and expulsion.

New York City College of Technology, like all academic institutions, encourages and thrives on the open exchange of ideas. At City Tech, we expect everyone to conduct their intellectual work with honesty and integrity. With this goal in mind, and in response to the Report of the CUNY Committee on Academic Integrity (http://web.cuny.edu/ academics/info-central/policies/academic-integrity-report.pdf), the NYCCT College Council approved a new academic integrity policy in May 2007. City Tech’s academic integrity policy aims to deter academic dishonesty by students, and allow the college to process cases of academic dishonesty more effectively. This policy has been in effect as of August 27, 2008.

Submitting Work: All work must be uploaded or postd via our OpenLab site, either as a blog post or as an uploaded assignment. If uploading a gile, please name your file with the assignment name, and your last name. For example, Research Paper 1_Smith.

For the sake of sanity (primarily mine), I do not accept coursework that is submitted by email.

Document Format: In this course, we will be stressing the importance of a professional appearance for all of your documents. The following standards apply to every document in addition to the formatting requirements specified on the assignment sheet.

• All assignments must be composed on full-sized (8 . by 11-inch) paper with a white background. You will need access to a computer in order to complete the required assignments for this course.
• Use MS Word or Open Office to prepare all documents (unless directed otherwise).
• Use appropriate margins (1-inch) for your documents. Use a standard font of professional appearance.
• All writing projects, even informal assignments and drafts, should have your name, date, page numbers, and a descriptive title (on a separate page if necessary). Generic (and not very informative) titles like “Research Report” or “Assignment 5,” are not acceptable.

City Tech Email is the only email service used in this course. I will contact you by email only via your City Tech student email account. If you contact me by email, please do so only from your City Tech email account. If you send an email from your personal email address, it may go directly to my spam folder. Student e-mail can be accessed at: http://cis.citytech.cuny.edu/Student/it_student_email.aspx.

Grading Methods: As your professor, I use a variety of evaluation methods for your work, including holistic rubrics, analytical rubrics, non-rubric responses, and credit for completion. Graded evaluations in this course are on a points system. You will receive points for each assignment that is graded. The value of the total points you earn in this course will be divided by 1000 to determine your final letter grade for the course.

Late Work: This course is intensive and moves very quickly through material. Late work dramatically disrupts your ability to learn. Students who get behind often fail the course. Here is our late policy:

• Assignments must be uploaded by 11:59 p.m. on the date specified on the assignment sheet.
• Late assignments may or may not be accepted for credit. Let me know if you cannot meet assignment deadlines. I will often give you an extension if you ask ahead of time.

Assignments: This is what you will be doing for this course

• Read one or two articles and/or content guides each week.
• Contribute regularly and substantively to our class activities and discussions.
• Complete regular informal writing assignments related to content areas (often completed in class).
• Design and write approximately 3,000 words of revised career-related documents.
• For formal assignments, you will receive detailed assignment sheets at least one week in advance. At that time, you will be told how each assignment will be evaluated and by what criteria.