English 4182/5182-090
Information Design & Digital Publishing
Fall 2011

Course Description and Purpose

The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the principles, vocabulary, and theories of computer-aided document design. You will be expected to use the computer to solve a variety of writing problems, including planning, drafting, editing, and publishing. All students will plan, design, and complete print and electronic documents that will be evaluated in a course portfolio. The course meets in a computer classroom with various Adobe and Microsoft software applications students will use for assignments. This course, however, is not a course on InDesign, Photoshop, and even Dreamweaver. Not only is it inappropriate to consider giving students credit for a 4000/5000-level course based on software instruction, a once-a-week 3-hour class is an ineffective situation for software instruction. Any software/technology skills students come away with are secondary to the goal of exploring the theoretical, cultural, and rhetorical frameworks implicit and explicit concerning information design. (Satisfies writing requirement).

Text and Materials

Expectations

I expect students to be prepared to participate in class—activities, workshops, discussions, etc. Therefore, students should finish all reading before the class meets and expect to be in class for the entire time. Unless otherwise stated, hand in all work to me. Again, unless otherwise stated, hand in all work to me. Do not e-mail me any attachments—I will not accept attachments. Please do not beg for an exception. You are solely responsible for backing up your work and getting hardcopies to me. The potential for computers crashing and Internet connections failing calls for backing up your work and avoiding procrastination. If last minute “issues” come up, you may upload your assignment to a webpage—this does not mean e-mailing an attachment—but you must also bring a hardcopy to me on the next class meeting. Do not expect me to provide printing resources. Also, the computer lab printer doesn’t always work, so, if you plan to use it, get here early and plan for alternative means of printing. Do not print out material during class discussions. Alternative assignments and extensions are given at my discretion. If you are unwilling to fulfill these expectations, please reconsider your enrollment in this course.

Prerequisites

Students must have completed ENGL 2116 Introduction to Technical Communication or have had equivalent workplace experience before enrolling into this class. All exceptions are based on the instructor’s permission.

Work Requirements

Students in this course are expected to be able to complete unified, coherent documents nearly free of mechanical, logical, or structural errors. The ability to read advanced college-level texts critically is also a requirement. Students will complete documents, maintain a website, do reading quizzes, take a midterm and final exam, and do presentations aimed at lay audiences individually and in groups. Most documents will be portfolio assessments and are listed below along with other assignments:

• Document #1: Business Card & Letterhead (Due 9/13)
• Document #2: Flyer or Advertisement (Due 10/04)
• Document #3: Tutorial (Due 10/25)
• Document #4: Brochure (Due 11/08)
• Web Site Ongoing
• Portfolios (Due 11/29)
• Presentation on the rhetoric strategies/elements of your final portfolio documents (12/06)

ENGL 5182 Students
In addition to the requirements above, students enrolled in ENGL 5182 must do the following:

• 5182 Projects: Bibliographic Essay (10-15 pages) or Rhetoric Project (hmm...) (Due 11/15)
  • Cultural Analyses of New Media
  • General Rhetorical Analysis
  • Copyright law and electronic media
  • Typography & History
  • Hypertext/Hypermedia Authoring
  • Contemporary Printing Methods
  • Page Description Languages
  • Multimodal Composition
  • Document Design (many possibilities)
  • Visual Rhetoric (many possibilities)
  • Other: _____________________________________ (see me)
• Leading Class Discussion (a class after the midterm (9/27)
• Presentation on 5182 Projects (5-6 min) (Due 11/29)

The above documents (1-4) must be accompanied by a project assessment memo designed to provide me with information about the context for and the design of the document, as well as a rationale for and evaluation of the use of each application employed. Specific criteria for evaluation and discussion will be assigned with each project. Without this memo, the assignment is incomplete, so your grade will be lowered for each day the memo is late.

All students should expect a reading quiz for every reading asigned. Although I will not give out reading quizzes for every reading, students should be prepared for them. The final exam will cover our readings and class activities/discussions and will be on our final exam day: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 from 6:30-9:15 pm. Please let me know ASAP if there are any other exam conflicts with your schedules.

All of these assignments must be completed to receive a passing grade in the course. Just because the assignments have percentage values associated with them does not mean you will pass the course if your missing assignments do not drop you below 60%.

Assignments/Grade Distribution

Grading Policy

Your final grade is supposed to reflect your entire work for the semester and will be based on the percentages below:

Definition of A, B, C, D, and F Grades

Remember, your final grade is a combination of the four areas above in the assignment percentage table. An 'A' means your work was excellent—not mediocre, average, or just good. A 'B' means your work was good—not quite excellent but definitely above average and thoughtful. A 'C' means your work was barely adequate enough to satisfy the assignment—showing a lack of effort or thought for the assignment guidelines. A 'D' or 'F' usually means assignments were late, missing, or incomplete—often this work does not demonstrate appropriate college-level work for a 4000/5000-level course.

Late Work

An assignment is due at the beginning of the class for which it was assigned. Honestly, there is no excuse for assignments being late in a 4000/5000-level class, but I have a policy anyway: All late work will reduce the assignment by 10% for each class period it is late. Therefore, an assignment worth 100 points that is one class meeting late will not be able to have a grade higher than 90. If a portfolio assignment is late, your overall grade will be 5% less. Therefore, if you turn in a portfolio assignment a day late, your final grade begins at 95%. If you will not or cannot be in class on the day an assignment is due, you should make arrangements to get the paper to me via another student, put it in my mailbox, or upload the paper online and e-mail the link to me. Of course, you must still bring in a hardcopy (if required) of the assignment on the next class meeting. Again, you must still bring in a hardcopy (if required) of the assignment on the next class meeting. Remember, I will not accept assignments attached to e-mails. Please discuss any problems you may have regarding attendance or late work before class if at all possible. Remember, you are responsible for making up all work missed. Something I've learned from past semesters is that if you don't turn things in on time early in the semester, you end up not turning other things in on time (or at all). Do your best to get all your work in to me on time. If you are absent, get the information from another student. Do not expect me to e-mail the class notes to you. Of course, never e-mail me and ask, "so...like, Dr. Toscano, man...did we...like...you know...do anything the other day in class?"

Participation

Although this course is more of a hands-on or applied course, there are several days where we’ll do more discussion. Because separating one’s theories and practices is artificial (if not impossible), we will discuss theories behind the rhetorical strategies of writing user documents. However, unlike a course dominated by theory, we will not have class-wide discussions for the entire class time. Instead, students should expect discussions at the beginning of class and more practical endeavors in the second half of class. Participation is expected, and you must participate thoughtfully during class discussions. Merely showing up will not get you participation credit—you must speak. If you’re not in class, you can’t receive credit, so your participation grade will be affected. I will note your participation (or lack thereof) daily. Thoughtful participation means that you engage critically in our discussions or ask engaging questions about the subject. Simply making jokes or telling the class an irrelevant story about some garbage reality program does not warrant thoughtful participation.Doing work for another class or distracting other students will lower your participation grade—even to the point of falling below 15% (meaning, you can have a negative participation grade).

Please see me ASAP if you’re concerned about your participation grade because you’re shy or if you don’t understand these requirements. Telling me at the end of November that you didn’t participate because you’re the quiet type or because you didn’t understand what “thoughtful” meant will be too late. Even worse, e-mailing me after the semester is over to complain that participation isn’t a “valid” class assignment is too late. The purpose of discussions is for students to have control over their own learning and to reinforce critical thinking generally and “critical technological awareness” specifically. I am willing to provide a quasi-alternative to supplement a student’s participation grade, but please note that discussion, which allows speakers to exchange ideas, is an extremely important component of critical thinking. One alternative is to do class reflections you post online. Please discuss this alternative with me early in the semester...like today!

Attendance

I will take attendance every day. It is very important that you attend every class in order to keep up with the work and reading. Your grade will be lowered after missing 2 classes. Your final grade will be lowered by a full letter grade for each day missed beyond 2 absences. After 4 absences you will receive a failing grade for the course. Please make an effort to come to every class on time. Don't just skip class because you feel you have two "free" days. Save your absences for emergencies. There are no such things as excused absences. Only students participating in UNCC sponsored activities (with the proper documentation) will not be penalized for missing class. I will ask you to request a meeting with the Dean of Students if you have situations that you feel should allow you an exception to missing more than 2 classes. Cars break down, parking is limited, students get sick, and traffic is brutal, but class still happens. Your participation may also be lowered for excessive tardiness.

Important Dates and Administrative Information

The syllabus schedule below has important dates marked.  Students are responsible for not only knowing course deadlines but also knowing UNCC deadlines (drop/add, billing, vacation, etc.). Please visit the following link for the registrar's calendar: http://registrar.uncc.edu/calendars/Spring_2011_Calendar.pdf.

Academic Integrity

All UNC Charlotte students have the responsibility to be familiar with and to observe the requirements of The UNC Charlotte Code of Student Academic Integrity. This Code forbids cheating, fabrication, or falsification of information, multiple submission of academic work, plagiarism, abuse of academic materials (such as Library books on reserve), and complicity in academic dishonesty (helping others to violate the Code). Any further specific requirements or permission regarding academic integrity in this course will be stated by the instructor, and are also binding on the students in this course. Students who violate the Code can be punished to the extent of being permanently expelled from UNC Charlotte and having this fact recorded on their official transcripts. The normal penalty is zero credit on the work involving dishonesty and further substantial reduction of the course grade. In almost all cases, the course grade is reduced to "F." If you do not have a copy of the Code, you can view it on UNC Charlotte's Academic Integrity Web site at http://integrity.uncc.edu/. Standards of academic integrity will be enforced in this course. Students are expected to report cases of academic dishonesty they become aware of to the course instructor who is responsible for dealing with them.

If you try to pass off any work in full or part as your own without proper credit being given to the original source, you will receive an 'F' in this course.

In addition to the above identification of Academic Dishonesty, students should be aware of technology-mediated concerns related to Academic Integrity. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "integrity" as "The condition of having no part or element taken away or wanting; undivided or unbroken state; material wholeness, completeness, entirety." A second definition states that integrity means "The condition of not being marred or violated; unimpaired or uncorrupted condition; original perfect state; soundness." Therefore, anything that draws students' attention away from course activities and goals is a violation of academic integrity because it corrupts the soundness and condition of learning. For instance, engaging in critical thinking/awareness is a sound, perfect state activity for this course; on the other hand, devoting attention to facebook, instant messaging, non-class-related Web surfing or e-mailing, etc. violates or corrupts the learning goals of this course. Although we may point to the Internet in general and social media sites specifically in our discussions of 21st-Century communication, engrossing oneself in them during class to "catch up with friends" divides your attention and may be distracting to members of this class. This violation is as serious as plagiarism and will result in an 'F' in participation the first time and an 'F' in this course for a subsequent violation. This syllabus section is your warning.

You may also receive an 'F' in the course for other academic integrity violations specified on the UNCC Integrity Web site. Do not expect another warning--this is it. Please see me if you need further clarification regarding cheating, fabrication or falsification of information, multiple submission of academic work, plagiarism, complicity in academic dishonesty, or other violations of academic integrity. Again, so there's no confusion, you will most likely fail the course if you violate any part of the academic integrity code.

A Note to Students from UNC Charlotte's English Department, Statement on Diversity (April 2009)

The English Department strives to create an academic climate that respects people of varied cultural backgrounds and life experiences. As a community of scholars and teachers who study language, literature, and writing, we are committed to nurturing intellectual and aesthetic diversity. In all our activities, we invite participation by diverse groups, including, but not limited to, those who define themselves in the following terms: race and ethnicity; gender; political orientation; sexual orientation; special health needs; age; religion; country of origin; and socio-economic status. Finally, by fostering multiple perspectives in our coursework, we can help our students prepare to participate in our increasingly diverse society, as well as in the global community.

Disabilities Modification Statement

Students who have a condition that may impair their ability to complete assignments or otherwise satisfy course criteria are encouraged to meet with me to identify, discuss, and document any feasible instructional modifications or accommodations. Please inform me about circumstances no later than the second week of the semester or as soon as possible after a disability or condition is diagnosed, whichever occurs earliest. For information and assistance, contact the Disabilities Resource Center.

Statement of Academic Freedom

I strongly encourage students to use class as a place for free inquiry and intellectual growth. Although we as a class will not always agree or be comfortable with the views of others, every student has the right to his or her own tastes and convictions. I promise to be fair and always support your right to look at the world from your own position, but I encourage all students to branch out and consider multiple perspectives. I will not tolerate any harassment or abuse (emotional or physical) or any instance where others adversely affect students' learning.

Fretwell has an A/C problem. Occasionally this building gets closed and classes are canceled because it is too brutally hot to remain inside. If the A/C 'issue' (or other climate related control system) cancels class, continue to keep up with the class webpage, readings, and assignments. The library has lots of space and many computers. Also, Barnard 105 is a 24/7 computer lab you may use. We'll pick up where we left off on the syllabus when we return to class. This also goes for inclement weather. It's possible the one "snow day" of the year could fall on a day when we have class, so just continue with the readings and we'll catch up when we return to class.

Right to Make Changes

I reserve the right to make changes to the syllabus when necessary to meet learning objectives, to compensate for missed classes, or to make our lives easier.

Schedule for Readings and Assignments
(have readings and assignments done before class)

October 10-11 Fall Break
Midterm Grades Submitted by October 13th

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