ACAD 1601 WI001
Academic Writing
January – April 2020
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General course information

Required Texts

Additional Readings

Course Expectations or Outputs

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  1. recognize and formulate scholarly questions.
  2. use critical reading, thinking, and writing for sustained inquiry and communication.
  3. analyze and engage with the arguments of experts in writing assignments and essays.
  4. approach a writing assignment as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources.
  5. critique effectively their own and others’ writing for premise, purpose, structure, and style.
  6. cite research in an established documentation style.

Course Outcomes

Students who successfully complete this course will demonstrate:

  1. an ability to identify and attend to their audience, purpose, argument, and possible biases.
  2. an ability to adhere to the conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation.
  3. an ability to write effective, coherent, and unified paragraphs.
  4. an understanding of writing as a process of inquiry, revision, rethinking, and rewriting.

Participation and Attendance

You are expected to participate in class in an informed manner. At the very least, you are expected to come to class regularly, having read all assigned reading. You are expected to participate in class discussions and workshops. Keep in mind that participating in class is usually a highly rewarding experience, greatly enhancing your ability to understand the course material and helping ensure your success in the course. Everyone is expected to be courteous and professional at all times in class. The course will occasionally involve in-class exercises: not participating in these exercises (for whatever reason) will have an effect on your participation grade. In addition, failure to participate fully in one of the in-class writing workshops will result in a 20% penalty to the participation grade (doubled if both workshops are missed). Being discourteous or unprofessional in class will probably result in a very low participation grade. When absenteeism exceeds 60% of class meetings, a student will be excluded from the final exam.

Assignment Submission

  1. All assignments must be submitted on paper and through SafeAssign on Blackboard.
  2. Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the date indicated by the assignment.
  3. Assignments should be submitted to Blackboard prior to handing in the paper copy.
  4. An assignment is counted as submitted once the instructor has the paper copy or the assignment has been successfully uploaded to Blackboard.
  5. Assignments submitted on Blackboard only will be graded without feedback.
  6. The instructor will wait, unless otherwise advised, for no more than one week for a paper copy of the assignment after it has been uploaded to Blackboard.
  7. Paper copies must be submitted directly to the instructor or under the instructor’s office door.
  8. After submitting a paper copy under the office door, send an email to the instructor as soon as possible.
  9. Keep a (digital) copy of your assignment until at least after it has been graded and returned.
  10. You are always welcome to submit an assignment early.

Lateness

Assignments are due in class, on the date indicated by the assignment. There will be no lateness penalty prior to the end of the day the assignment is due. A 2-point penalty will be applied to the graded assignment for every day the assignment is late. This will include weekend days and public holidays. Extensions may be granted for exceptional circumstances, especially for serious medical reasons: in such cases, you should talk to the instructor as soon as possible and be prepared to submit medical documentation about the problem (that should include a statement about the beginning and duration of the issue). No assignments will be accepted after the start of the final exam.

Plagiarism

The Department of English Studies and Nipissing University maintain a strict policy on all forms of academic dishonesty. Each assignment must be original work produced by the student only for this course. All referencing and documentation must be complete and accurate for both direct and indirect quotations. Ignorance of what constitutes plagiarism will not be accepted as an excuse: if you are uncertain about plagiarism, see your instructor immediately. All essays and tests are subject to an additional oral and/or written test at the instructor’s discretion. All suspected plagiarism will be reported to the chair of the English department, the dean of the faculty, and the registrar of the university.



Marc R. Plamondon, Ph.D. Department of English Studies Nipissing University