English 304 Course Calendar and Due Dates
The assignments are listed week-by-week.
Just use the links, or scroll down the page.
TIP: Log the deadlines into your Scheduler Book.
Scan the schedule several weeks
ahead so that you can plan your work.
The week between Weeks 9 and 10 is Spring Recess.
Week 1
Action
Items
1.
Send me an eMail message saying that you'll be taking this
course. Include your name in the body of
the message. My eMail address is: drmileswvu@hotmail.com
-- Dr. Miles . Put –
Business/Professional Writing – in the “Subject:” line. I’ll reply within 48 hours, with a return confirmation that includes
key course information. Due Wednesday at
2. Do a self-tutorial or self-refresher on eMail and a Web browser (Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer). You must be familiar with eMail and the World Wide Web in order to begin the second week of the semester.
3. Read the Course Guidelines on our course homepage.
4. Spend at least four hours this week
familiarizing yourself with Resources for Research and
Writing. This page, filled with links, will be the launching area for
all your Web research. Familiarize yourself especially with the material on
search engines and searching the Web. Be sure to click on all the areas during
your play-exploration. Follow your curiosity.
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. Consider buying a recommended (but not required) text, if you
want information on using the Web for research:
Harnack, Andrew and Eugene
Kleppinger. 2000. Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources.
3. Begin to explore the “culture of business.” You should begin to read, every day, the Business Section of The New York Times on the Web. When you first access the site, sign up as a subscriber – it’s free. Thereafter, login is automatic. You can also access the daily “Dilbert” cartoon at this site. You can use material you read here to enrich and refine the writing you do in this course.
4. Understand the critical
course Guideline: You must hand
your work in on time.
· If you miss an eMail deadline for the draft of any
of the major assignments, you won't be able to hand in the final assignment,
and you'll lose 100% of the credit for it.
· If you hand in any of the major assignments late,
one-half a grade will be deducted for each day it's late.
· If you hand in an exercise late, I won't accept
it. Three points will automatically be
deducted from your final grade for each exercise either not received or
received late.
·
It
is essential – in a course given through eMail and the World Wide Web – that
you meet all the deadlines and keep up with the weekly schedule.
Week 2
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. Be sure you have your own web-based e-mail account. This account could be at MIX, Yahoo, Hotmail, or AOL.
3. If you create an e-mail account for this course, be sure to use a professional sounding name for your account name. To do this correctly, follow the advice for your new account name found in: Personal Business Diary: The E-Mail Résumé, Addressed for Success .
4. Remember two other things about using eMail: (1) use Options to create a Signature that is appended to every message. The Signature should include your name, your e-mail address, and your homepage address. It’s okay to “personalize” your Signature with a quotation or some other identifying mark; just remember that your Signature is a public statement. Signatures are usually not longer than 10 lines. (2) always use “Check Spelling” before sending your e-mail message.
5. After
you’re sure you have an e-mail account, create a homepage. You can use web space on a server you may
have access to or Page Wizard at Yahoo (http://geocities.yahoo.com
-- http:/us.geocities.com . If you use Yahoo, choose the “Techie”
template.
You only need to create the simplest
of homepages for now – all you need to include on your homepage is (1) your
name and (2) an active Web link to a Web site that you like. Give your homepage a professional
look! Don’t trivialize your homepage
by using generic clip art icons, balloons, mindless banners, or other “cutsy”
stuff. Think of your homepage as a place
where a prospective employer will review your job application and other
materials.
All of the material you read on the Web is on Web pages formatted in a language called HTML. HTML means "HyperText Markup Language." "Hypertext" refers to the ability to click on a highlighted item and go directly to that Web site through a link. Any material you want to put on the Web must be launched in HTML format. Newer word-processing software, like WordPerfect 8.0 and Word 2000, has an Internet Publisher feature so that you can type text in word-processing mode and the software automatically converts it to HTML format fit for the Web. It's pretty cool.
You can see any Web page in its HTML format by selecting View-Source or View-Document Source. Try this right now as you're reading this page. You'll see that every formatting feature is programmed in with a special code embedded between these signs: < > . The " < " begins a code; text follows; then a " > " sign ends that piece of code. Each code gives some kind of instruction as to how the text should appear on the page. Scan at least 3 of the sites in HTML and Web Page Design.
People all over the world are creating their own
Web homepage. They use it to display their special interests and to offer an
electronic "meeting place for friends of like mind." You can do this
too !!
6. Two eMails:
First eMail
Using
your web-based e-mail, send me an eMail confirmation that you have (1) created
a personal e-mail account and (2) logged in to the MIX Message Board. Due Tuesday at
Second eMail
Send me
the link to your homepage in the body of an eMail message.
In your
eMail, the link to your homepage must be “active”: that is, when I click on it, I should be able
to go directly to your homepage. You
MUST send yourself the eMail first to see if the link works. Due Thursday at 5 p.m.
7. Read completely the course homepage, with especial attention to the material on course guidelines and the Calendar.
8. Spend at least four hours this week familiarizing yourself with Resources for Research and Writing. This page, filled with links, will be the launching area for all your Web research. Familiarize yourself especially with the material on search engines and searching the Web. Be sure to click on all the areas during your play-exploration. Follow your curiosity.
9. Read one of the classic books on effective writing: William Strunk's "The Elements of Style." Its precision and simplicity make it a joy to read. Pay attention, especially, to #13: Omit Needless Words. I will be using the guidelines proposed in this book for grading your work this semester. The hyperlink enables you to read this book online, and then refer to it often. It should become your prose-Bible for this course.
10. Check out the HELP site at Online! Figure out how this Help site could "help" you as you take this course.
11.
Understand how the eMail exercises
work. EXPLANATION: There
will be eMail exercises throughout the semester. You'll find them in the
assignments for each week. Each eMail
exercise can earn 3 points -- you earn 3 for acceptable, and 0 for
unacceptable/late/not submitted at all.
I will NOT "hound you" about getting these in, nor will I
remind you if you haven't submitted them. It's YOUR responsibility to keep
track. The goal of the eMails is to build up your competencies in doing Web
research and improving your writing skills; they will vary in difficulty. Most
will give you a foundation for working on the current assignment. You send in
these eMail exercises via eMail, of course.
12. Understand how the course
works. In addition to the
eMails, you'll also have preparatory work to submit via eMail for each of the
major assignments. I will respond to these submissions, thus setting up a
dialogue with you. If you don't submit this work on time, I will not accept the
assignment to which it's related. The eMails and preparatory work will form a sequence-of-concentration
building toward the completion of each assignment. I encourage you
to contact me as often as possible while you're working on each assignment.
13. Continue to explore the
“culture of business.” You should begin to read, every day, the
Business Section of The New York Times on
the Web. When you first access
the site, sign up as a subscriber – it’s free.
Thereafter, login is automatic.
You can also access the daily “Dilbert” cartoon at this site. You can use material you read here to enrich
and refine the writing you do in this course.
Week 3
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. eMail:
Send me an introductory note by Tuesday at noon. The note should include the following information:
· name
· major
· intended professional field
and hope for first job after graduating
· special skills
· interesting Web site in your
field derived from a Google search
o
list the site’s name and annotate it (describe its basic content and
use)
o
make the name of the site into an active Web link
· default “signature” – Note: A “signature” is some text that appears, by
default, at the end of each of your eMail messages. You create a “signature” by going to the
Options menu, creating the text, and selecting the box for including your signature
at the end of every eMail message. Your
signature can be “personalized”:
include, at the least, your name and where you can most easily be
contacted. Many people also add a short
saying or proverb (for instance, as you’ve probably already noticed, I
use: “Everything’s perfect, but there’s
a lot of room for improvement”.)
· cc: for yourself
Be sure NOT to send this as an attachment. Just include it right in the eMail message.
Follow the Style Guidelines for eMail messages,
just below.
Send this message to yourself to check its formatting
and content before you send it to me.
Also, be sure your Web link works.
When you send this eMail, pay attention to how you
format your message. In this course, you
will not be writing documents in any kind of “essay” form. Instead, you’ll be writing in a more
professional style, in which you write shorter paragraphs and break up the
sections of your document with headings (a few words announcing what’s to
come). This paragraph, itself, begins
with such a bold-face heading. These
headings are a “road map” for the reader to know what to expect next, and they
serve as a natural way to organize your material. So, for this first eMail message, use, as
headings, the six categories listed above and then follow the heading with the
relevant material. Bold face and
bullets usually won’t come through in e-mail; don’t worry about this.
When sending me eMail, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Personal
Account -- Have your own PC-based eMail account. Don’t share an account with another person or
group. With joint accounts, messages get
lost.
Same
Address for “Send” and “Reply” -- Send your eMail messages from the same
account where you expect to receive the Reply.
That is, don’t ask for a “Reply” to another account, since doing so requires
the typing in of another address in the “To:” line, which is inconvenient and
annoying.
The
“Subject” Line -- Include a descriptive statement in the “Subject:” line so
that the receiver can know the topic of the message before reading it.
Sign
Your EMail Message -- Type your first and last name at the end of your
message. Your identity can not always be
inferred from your eMail address.
Screen
Appearance and Text Format -- Use a plain, white screen background (the
default), not a fancy or multi-colored background. Many backgrounds, especially red and green,
make the text hard to read. Use Arial or
Times New Roman as a font and traditional 12- or 14-point type size.
Spell
Check -- Spell Check your message and proofread it.
Web
Links -- If you’re sending a Web link in your message, send the message to
yourself first in order to check that the link clicks through to its intended
site. It’s frustrating to click on an
inactive Web link.
Web
EMail – Use your free Web-based eMail account.
EMail
Etiquette
December 6, 1999
The New York Times
E-Etiquette
By LETITIA BALDRIDGE
WASHINGTON -- When it comes to communication, the difference
between today and 10 years ago is like the difference between the first century
and the 18th century. A laptop or a gadget that sits in the palm of the hand
makes our investments, orders our groceries, pays our bills and hooks us up
with a merchant in Hong Kong or an Alpine guide on Mont Blanc. Forget the
gentle manners that were taught before the advent of the cyberage. Gone.
Finito.
But even if the traditional forms of civility have evaporated, we
still need to greet one another, comfort one another and entertain and learn
from one another. In the next century, innovations could allow us to embrace via
computer (I wonder what a computerized hug feels like? A robot's kiss?). But in
the meantime, let's draw up a set of rules that make the electronic age
function more efficiently, predictably, considerately and kindly.
1. Please don't send eMails that make angry demands on me. How
off-putting when you scream: "I must have an answer by 2 p.m. tomorrow.
Repeat, by 2 p.m. tomorrow." You don't know what's happening in my life,
and if you did, you might just change your threatening language.
2. Please don't waste my time with the latest "jokes du
jour," sent to hundreds of eMail addresses, including mine. I don't have time for the jokes, and I am not
going to be impressed that you know 200 people to send them to. I start to regard the other names with
suspicion. Do they have so little work to do that they can read jokes all day,
or am I the only one working under inhuman pressure?
3. Please don't order me to visit your Web page. Ask me nicely,
and maybe I will. Most important, don't
ask me what I think of your Web page. I don't have time to write a thoughtful
response, and besides, you might not want to hear what I think.
4. When I eMail you a thoughtful note, please don't treat it as if
it never existed. At some point, you should send me a short acknowledgment:
"Thanks for the important info about the oil company merger. Needed to
know that. Best wishes, John." It's frustrating not to know whether or not
you received my communication.
5. In my eMails, I will be careful with my grammar, spelling,
sentence structure and punctuation. I realize that if I send a carelessly
written missive, I am only diminishing myself in the eyes of everyone who reads
it.
6. I will keep my eMails, those of my staff and those of my
children free of foul language.
7. I will not send messages with insulting comments about others.
Nor will I spread rumors on line. I realize that what I write in cyberspace,
intended for only one other pair of eyes, can be spread to millions of pairs of
eyes in a split second.
8. I will send messages of congratulation to those who achieve,
messages of consolation to those who are having bad luck and messages of
encouragement to those who need jump starts in their lives. In addition, I may
write a long, beautiful letter on good stationery.
9. In my e-letters, I will use a salutation and a closing, and
state the purpose of the communication up front. I will also add a personal
touch: "It was great seeing you at the Convention Hall yesterday" or,
"I hope your husband has recovered from his flu by now."
To me, the great promise of cyberspace is speed. Along with the
grinding efficiency of it all, just a few thoughtful words can change the
entire nature of the communication. Good manners mean a quiet touch of warmth
in the cold new techno world.
Letitia Baldridge is the author of "The New Complete Guide to
Executive Manners."
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
END
_________________________________________________________
Week 4
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. Read the assignment for the
eMail memo, complete with the (fictional) scenario. Begin working on the draft, due next week.
3. Complete the following eMail
exercise:
EMail Exercise:
If you commit plagiarism, you can be expelled from the university. Plagiarism means that you steal material from someone else and represent it as your own work. It's SIMPLE to plagiarize from the Web. Just use the select all-copy-paste feature to copy something from a Web site and paste it into a document you're writing in word-processing mode. I want to be sure that you know that I know that you know how to do this. Use www.google.com to find a short section on a Web page in your major field and use the select all-copy-paste feature to copy it into an eMail message and send it to me. Be sure to put the material in quotation marks, as is traditional. Include the URL for the site, so we can check it out if we want to. Of course, if you were to do this and NOT cite the source, it WOULD be plagiarism. But, by doing this exercise, you now know how to take material from a Web site, put it in your document, and cite it properly. That is, you can use material from a Web site right in your own work, as long as you give it the credit it's due. Due Tuesday at 5 p.m.
Tech Note:
· to highlight text -- hold down the Shift key and use the right arrow key
· to select all of the text you’ve just highlighted – Ctrl-A
· to copy the text – Ctrl-C
· to paste the text in – Ctrl-V
Note:
This assignment requires you to copy some text from one application
(piece of software, like Internet Explorer or Microsoft Word) to another. There is a “cool” way to do this -- it’s
called MULTI-TASKING. That is, you have
2 or 3 or 4 different pieces of software open at the same time and work between
or among them. Here’s how you do it:
· open one application, like your Web browser
· open another application, like your eMail software
· open a third application, like Microsoft Word
· now, hold down the Alt key with your thumb and hit Tab with your index or middle finger. When you hit Tab once, a small screen pops up which shows all the applications you have open. Continue to hit Tab until you’ve selected the application you want to use. Release Alt-Tab and work in the new application.
· by using this technique, you can open your web browser and then your eMail software. You can then use select-all/copy/ (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C) to copy a section of text in your web browser. Then you could use Alt-Tab to go to your eMail software, compose a message, and then use Ctrl-V (paste) to paste the material right into your eMail message.
· It’s quite amazing.
Week 5
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. Read the assignment for the
eMail memo, complete with the (fictional) scenario.
3. Due Monday noon: a draft of your eMail memo – 250 words max. Send this to me via eMail. Do not send your draft as an attachment. Just include your memo right in your eMail
message to me.
4. Email Exercise:
Use the principles of style that are described at the three following Web sites to revise the following sentence so that it follows the stylistic principles of simplicity, precision, and clarity.
· www.as.wvu.edu/~tmiles/punctuation.html
SENTENCE TO REVISE:
Following upon a protocol run by our
Overtime-Scheduling software bundle, it has been determined that it is required
that some currently employed personnel (you may be among them if you have the
ability to access this correspondence) work 3.5 hours of mandatory overtime at
the close of regular business hours today, management hopes that this is not an
inconvenience for any personnel.
HINT:
There are five types of errors here:
1. subject
not in agreement with the implied subject of a initial clause or phrase.
2.
inappropriate use of the passive voice
3. wordiness
4. overly
formal, or artificially bureaucratic, choice of words, including the incorrect
use of "it"
5. comma splice
Revise the sentence to correct all five errors. Your revision does not necessarily have to be
ONE sentence long -- it could be two.
Send me a revision by eMail. Due
Wednesday noon.
5. Personal Experience Essay – One of the hallmarks of “being human” is
being curious about how the world works.
Begin this assignment by reading several of the entries at Marshall
Brain’s great web site: HowStuffWorks. Get a feel for how he structures each
entry by using sections delineated by bold face headers and by including,
occasionally, some short and compact step-by-step instructions. For background, also read: Fidgeting to Know How Stuff
Works. Then, from your own
personal experience and without relying on any outside sources (including the
Web), write a short document in which you show how something works. The “something” you describe should be
relevant to your major as it plays out in a business or professional
environment. For instance, if you’re
majoring in fashion and economics, you might reveal how models are trained to
“walk down the runway” at fashion shows.
Pick a topic where you can reveal information that most people might not
know, information that you have learned from your own personal, hands-on
experience. Do not choose a topic
that Brain’s web site already covers.
The length should be two, double-spaced typed pages of text, 500 words
max. For the due date, see next week.
________________________________________________________________
Week 6
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. Mail your Personal
Experience Essay so that it reaches me by the Wednesday mail.
Mail your assignment to me by regular United
States Post Office first-class mail. To
mail your assignment, use a 9 x 12 mailer so that your paper is flat (not
folded up). Include (1) your paper and
(2) a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) so that I can mail your graded
work back to you. The self-addressed
stamped envelope should also be a 9 x 12 white mailer, and it must be
the kind with tape that pulls off so you can seal it – for health reasons, I
don’t want to have to lick the envelope to seal it. This SASE should, of course, be addressed
to you, with two, first-class stamps already affixed for postage. For both envelopes, use a plain white mailer;
do not use a mailer that has air pockets (often called bubble-wrap) because
they’re too bulky. When your assignment is graded, I will mail it back to
you. Your assignment will not be read
unless the SASE is included.
Do NOT send your envelope under any
configuration that requires a signature for it to be left at my home.
My mailing
address is:
Thomas Miles
RR 6 Box
248 VF 159
Fairmont, WV 26554-9120
Note:
This is NOT a post-office box.
It’s a rural mail box.
3.
Read Graphics
and Page Layout. Apply the
material here to your revision of your eMail memo.
4.
I will be
reading and editing your eMail memo this week.
You should spend your course-time this week beginning your work on the
next assignment: the Job Application Cover
Letter and Résumé. You should complete most of the work on this
assignment during this week! Compose
this work in Word or WordPerfect. Specifically, you should create a résumé
by working from scratch or by using one of the templates available in most word
processing software. Whether you create
your résumé from scratch or use an existing one, you should organize and format
it to respond to the specific requirements of the job ad – that is, don’t use a
“generic” résumé. Also, shape the cover
letter so that it, too, targets the job ad.
Use the GRACE
principles outlined in your textbook to guide your work – keep the reader of
your work in mind! Specifically, the
reader will be someone in the Human Resources or Personnel section of the
company you’re applying to.
**************************************
Note on Mid-Semester Grades: The end of next week, Week 7, is Mid-Semester. WVU asks us to give only D’s and F’s at mid-semester, as a warning about unacceptable performance up to that point in the semester. Because this course is based on a sequence of exercises and a sequence of revising drafts, we will base your mid-semester grade on the promptness and quality of your exercises so far. I don’t expect anyone to earn less than a “C” in this course, but I will give warning grades of “D” and “F” at mid-semester if you’re not keeping up to the course standards. Thanks for understanding this policy. Please eMail me – Dr. Miles – if you have any questions about this.
Week 7
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2.
Work on revising your draft. Your
draft will be returned by Tuesday at 5 p.m.
3. Email Exercise: For your Job Application Cover Letter and Résumé, you need to get " résumé " in the correct form. To do this, check out the sources at HTML and Web Page Design. Find out why it's so hard to put the correct accents in " résumé " -- there are two, one over each "e." They are from the French, called aigu accents, or l'accent aigu. They often do not appear in Web documents because they require a special keying code in HTML. Even without the accents, the word keeps its traditional pronunciation: re-ze-may. (In French, the word is pronounced: ray-zoo-may.) Find out how to put in the correct key strokes for the accent. You can often copy/paste the word from another source right into your work Put the word "résumé" in a document that is linked to our your Yahoo homepage. To do this, you will upload a Word file containing the word to your homepage site and then put a link on your homepage to this document. Your homepage link might look like this: http://us.geocities.com/yourownwebname/resume.doc . Send me an eMail by Wednesday at 5 p.m. with a link to your homepage where you have the link to the document that includes the word “résumé” correctly spelled and highlighted.
Mid-Semester
____________________________________________________________
Week 8
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. Mail your eMail memo assignment
so that it reaches me by the Wednesday mail.
Mail your assignment to me by regular United
States Post Office first-class mail. To
mail your assignment, use a 9 x 12 mailer so that your paper is flat (not
folded up). Include (1) your paper and
(2) a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) so that I can mail your graded
work back to you. The self-addressed
stamped envelope should also be a 9 x 12 white mailer, and it must be
the kind with tape that pulls off so you can seal it – for health reasons, I
don’t want to have to lick the envelope to seal it. This SASE should, of course, be addressed
to you, with two, first-class stamps already affixed for postage. For both envelopes, use a plain white mailer;
do not use a mailer that has air pockets (often called bubble-wrap) because
they’re too bulky. When your assignment is graded, I will mail it back to
you. Your assignment will not be read
unless the SASE is included.
Do NOT send your envelope under any
configuration that requires a signature for it to be left at my home.
My mailing
address is:
Thomas Miles
RR 6 Box
248 VF 159
Fairmont, WV 26554-9120
Note:
This is NOT a post-office box.
It’s a rural mail box.
3. Continue to work on your Job Application Cover Letter
and Résumé. You should create a résumé by
working from scratch or by using one of the templates available in most word
processing software. Whether you create
your résumé from scratch or use an existing one, you should organize and format
it to respond to the specific requirements of the job ad – that is, don’t use a
“generic” résumé. Also, shape the cover
letter so that it, too, targets the job ad.
Use the GRACE principles
outlined in your textbook to guide your work – keep the reader of your work in
mind! Specifically, the reader will be
someone in the Human Resources or Personnel section of the company you’re
applying to.
Week 9
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. Open week, during which you eMail me questions you have as you’re writing your job application letter and résumé.
Week 10
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. Job Application Letter and Résumé due to me in the Thursday mail. Also, combine your job application letter and your résumé into one file and upload it to your homepage. Then put a link on your homepage to this one document and send me an eMail message that includes an active link to your homepage. Due Thursday at 5 p.m.
Mail your assignment to me by regular United
States Post Office first-class mail. To
mail your assignment, use a 9 x 12 mailer so that your paper is flat (not
folded up). Include (1) your paper and
(2) a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) so that I can mail your graded
work back to you. The self-addressed
stamped envelope should also be a 9 x 12 white mailer, and it must be
the kind with tape that pulls off so you can seal it – for health reasons, I
don’t want to have to lick the envelope to seal it. This SASE should, of course, be addressed
to you, with two, first-class stamps already affixed for postage. For both envelopes, use a plain white mailer;
do not use a mailer that has air pockets (often called bubble-wrap) because
they’re too bulky. When your assignment is graded, I will mail it back to
you. Your assignment will not be read
unless the SASE is included.
Do NOT send your envelope under any
configuration that requires a signature for it to be left at my home.
My mailing
address is:
Thomas Miles
RR 6 Box
248 VF 159
Fairmont, WV 26554-9120
Note: This is NOT a post-office box. It’s a rural mail box.
3. Read the assignment on the Outreach Corporate Factsheet.
4.
Complete the following exercise.
Exercise:
There are full-text databases now available at the Wise Library Reference Room. These are databases that allow you to read the entire text of an article so that you don't have to try to find the journal in the library. Once you find an article, you can save it to disk, print it out, or eMail it to yourself. It's awesome, and it's the wave of the future in online retrieval of information. One of the best full-text databases available at Wise is EBSCOhost. If off-campus, use the link to the WVU Libraries on our homepage, under “Libraries.”
Find an article in your general field in EBSCOhost
and eMail me its author, title, and place and date of publication. Also include a 50-word summary. Once you learn to use online databases,
you'll probably never go back to "searching" for journals in the
stacks, except for highly specialized assignments. Due Thursday at 5 p.m.
Week 11
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. For the assignment on the Outreach Corporate
Factsheet, send in 2 possible topics by Tuesday noon. For each topic, give a 50-word summary of how
you might develop it.
Week 12
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2.
Receive your Guide Question. Topics for the Outreach Corporate Factsheet will be
returned by Wednesday at 5 p.m. I will
have selected the one that seems the best one to develop. A Guide Question will also be included – this
is the MAIN QUESTION that you need to follow up on during your research and
writing. That is, answering it will give
your assignment a fresh and innovative approach. This guide question could involve learning
more about such things as: a technical
aspect of the subject at hand; a historical perspective on the topic; a review
of solutions proposed in the past; a consideration of unexpected consequences;
an effort to look at the socio-economic aspects of the topic; etc. The possibilities are open-ended. You must re-adjust your topic in order to
deal with this Guide Question.
3. Start working on the 4
sources for next week and your draft.
________________________________________________
Week 13
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. Complete the following exercise. Exercise: Use Google and the "Federal" search engines listed on the page for searching the Web to find four good sources for your Outreach Corporate Factsheet. Describe what you find valuable in each site. Use at least one “government” site. Due Monday at 5 p.m.
3. Send a draft of the first two pages of your Outreach Corporate Factsheet to me by Tuesday at 5 p.m.
Week 14
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. I’ll be editing your draft.
Week 15
Action
Items
1. Check the MIX Message Board
2. Drafts returned by Monday at
5 p.m.
3. Complete the following exercise. Suppose you wrote the following sentence and received it back from your professor with a note indicating that you needed to correct the error having to do with the verbal ("Looking") and the subject ("they"):
"Looking at several search engines, they seem
to be complicated to use."
Find a site on the Web that would clarify the comment and explain to you what
the error is. Send me via e-mail: the name of the site and the URL, a
description of the error, and a revision of the sentence. This exercise will
help you learn how to access sites on the Web having to do punctuation,
grammar, and usage. You might want to start from the relevant section on the
course-homepage -- HINT: Go to Resources,
and then look for a link on punctuation/grammar. Due Thursday at 5 p.m.
4. Mail your revision of the
Outreach Corporate Factsheet so that it comes to me by the Friday mail of Week
15.
Mail your assignment to me by regular United
States Post Office first-class mail. To
mail your assignment, use a 9 x 12 mailer so that your paper is flat (not
folded up). Include (1) your paper and
(2) a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) so that I can mail your graded
work back to you. The self-addressed
stamped envelope should also be a 9 x 12 white mailer, and it must be
the kind with tape that pulls off so you can seal it – for health reasons, I
don’t want to have to lick the envelope to seal it. This SASE should, of course, be addressed
to you, with two, first-class stamps already affixed for postage. For both envelopes, use a plain white mailer;
do not use a mailer that has air pockets (often called bubble-wrap) because
they’re too bulky. When your assignment is graded, I will mail it back to
you. Your assignment will not be read
unless the SASE is included.
Do NOT send your envelope under any
configuration that requires a signature for it to be left at my home.
My mailing
address is:
Thomas Miles
RR 6 Box
248 VF 159
Fairmont, WV 26554-9120
Note:
This is NOT a post-office box.
It’s a rural mail box.
CONGRATULATIONS !
You've finished all the required work for this course.
There's no final exam.
I hope you enjoyed this distance-learning experience!
-- Dr. Miles