Subject to Changes and Additions ENG 323: Writing and Editing for Publication Course Syllabus Winter 2015 Professor Welsh Contact Information Jwelsh@cwu.edu Office: L&L 408B Phone: 509-963-1549 There is another Josh Welsh on campus. Typing my name in to Outlook sometimes gets you his email address. Check to make sure you are emailing jwelsh@cwu.edu! Email is the best way to get ahold of me, but I generally don t check email in the evenings (after about 5pm) or over the weekend. You can also use Canvas to send me messages. Office Hours My regular office hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 4 pm. Email or message me to set up a time to meet if those meeting times don't work for you. Feel free to call my office line any time, and leave a detailed voicemail with contact information if I don't pick up. I encourage you to bring early drafts of your writing along with specific questions. I am happy to try to answer any questions you may have. Books and Materials Einsohn, Amy. The Copyeditor s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, with Exercises and Answer Keys. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Saller, Carol. The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself). Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. You will need a fine-point red pen for your editing work throughout the quarter. Bring this to the midterm and the final! Policies and Expectations How to get an A in this class Do all of the assigned reading. Read it again if you need to. Participate in class discussions. Read the assignment sheets. Contact me by phone, email, or Canvas with specific questions about your writing projects.
Grading I will provide rubrics with each assignment sheet. You should read those rubrics and ask me questions ahead of the deadline if anything is unclear. At the end of the quarter I round up according to standard rounding conventions. This means that if you have a 93.4% at the end of the quarter, you will get an A-. If you have a 93.5%, you will get an A. Page and Word Counts Each assignment prompt indicates a required page a word count for your work. If a page count is indicated, your papers should be spaced according to the assignment prompt and use a 12-point font. Times New Roman or Calibri are preferred fonts. Your paper must have 1-inch margins. If you start tinkering with font sizes and margins to achieve the required page count, your paper will be marked down drastically. The same goes for unnecessary use of the Return key. To be considered a full page, the entire page must be covered with writing. Papers that come in short of the page or work count will be marked down dramatically. File Formats For work that is turned in online, you must provide a.docx,.doc, or.pdf file, and I must be able to open the file. If I can t open the file, I ll ask you to resend and the assignment will be counted as late, according the policy described below. (Note that OpenOffice allows you to save your file as.doc, however you should let me know you wrote it in OpenOffice, so that I can check if anything seems to be missing. Late Work Late work will be marked down 1 letter grade for every day that it is late. After 3 days, I will not accept the paper. It is your responsibility to turn your work in on time. I will not provide reminders if you have assignments that are missing. Revisions If you earn an F or a D on the first two assignments, you will have the option to revise the assignment, for an improvement of one letter grade. I will contact you with a new date if this applies to you.
Attendance Attendance is very important to this class. However, I do understand that things come up in life. Below is the attendance policy for this class: There are no excused absences for this class. All absences are treated as follows: o You must be here when I take roll to be counted present for the day. o You must stay until the end of class to be counted present for the day. o You may miss 3 days of class for any reason, no questions asked. You do not need to provide an excuse or documentation for why you missed class. (In other words, no doctors notes.) o After the 3rd absence, your final grade will be lowered 1 letter grade per day for each day that you are absent. This will occur regardless of the reason for your absence. So if you missed three days early in the quarter to go on a trip, and then get sick and miss a day during the last week of class, your grade will be lowered a full letter grade. Excessive tardiness can be regarded as missing class. You may not make up in-class activities or quizzes given on days you were absent. Scholastic Integrity It is ridiculously easy to tell when a student has plagiarized in this class. Many assignments are processed by TurnItIn (a plagiarism detection service) by default. For other assignments, if I suspect that you have plagiarized, I will run your assignment through TurnItIn. If it appears that you have indeed plagiarized, we will have an uncomfortable talk. If it appears that you intentionally presented the ideas of someone else as your own, I will report that behavior to the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities and the process outlined in the CWU Academic Dishonesty policy will be followed. If it is determined that you did plagiarize, you will receive an F for the class. The Academic Dishonesty Policy can be found here:http://www.cwu.edu/resources-reports/cwup-5-90- 0104-academic-dishonesty (Links to an external site.) If you have any questions about how to properly cite your work, see me before the paper is due. It s not plagiarism until you turn it in for credit. After you turn it in for credit, it doesn t matter whether you meant to do it or just didn t understand how to cite properly! Finally, it should go without saying that you must do your own work for this class. Except for assignments that are specifically directed towards your writing group, all of your writing must be 100% your own.
Disruptive Behavior Behavior that is disruptive of class or disrespectful of other students will affect your performance and ultimately your grade. Please treat others in this class with respect and follow the guidelines of the student conduct code. Documented Disabilities Disability related educational accommodations are available. Contact CWU s ADA compliance officer at 2171, and let me know what I can do to assure your success in this class. Assignments The following table summarizes the assignments for this course. Assignment Points Due Date Project Selection Memo (Addressed to Me) 50 Jan 15 Proposal and Editing Plan (Addressed to Client) 150 Jan 29 Midterm Exam 100 Feb 5 Draft Editing Sample 150 Feb 26 Final Edited Documents, Style Sheet, and Cover March 12 Letter (Addressed to Client) 150 Quizzes 200 Given often during class. Final Exam 100 Finals Week Reading Notebooks 100 Collected Periodically Throughout the Quarter Total 1000 Assignments in bold will be submitted online through Canvas and are part of the major project for the class: a client-based editing portfolio. This project will be described in detail in a separate handout. Exams and Quizzes will be taken in class. You may not make up quizzes or exams if you do not make it to class that day. Reading Notebooks will be collected periodically throughout the quarter. These will be described in detail in a separate handout.
Reading Calendar Week 1 (Jan 6-9) Einsohn, Ch 1 (What Copyeditors Do) Saller Intro, and Ch 1 (The Subversive Copyeditor) Week 2 (Jan 12-16) Einsohn Ch 2 (Basic Procedures) Saller Ch 2 (The Good Launch) Einsohn Ch 3 (Reference Books and Resources) Saller Ch 3 (Working for the reader, through the Writer: Carefulness, Transparency, Flexibility) Submit by 11:59 pm on Thursday, February 15: Project Selection Memo (Addressed to Me) Week 3 (Jan 19-23) Einsohn, Ch 4 (Punctuation) Scan MLA Handbook section 3.2 (Punctuation) Einsohn, Ch 5 (Spelling and Hyphenation) Saller, Ch 4 (When Things Get Tough: The Difficult Author) Week 4 (Jan 26-30) Einsohn Ch 6 (Capitalization)
Saller Ch. 5 (Dear Writers: A Chapter of your own) Einsohn Ch 7 (Numbers and Numerals) MLA Handbook, sections 3.5 (Numbers) and 3.6 (Titles of Works in a Research Paper) Submit by 11:59 pm on Jan 29: Proposal and Editing Plan (Addressed to Client) Week 5 (Feb 2-6) Einsohn Ch 8 (Quotations) Einsohn Ch 9 (Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Symbols) MLA section 3.7 (Quotations) Thursday: Midterm Exam No assigned reading. Bring a fine point red pen to class! Week 6 (Feb 9-13) Einsohn Ch 11 (References) Saller Ch 6 (When Things Get Tough (the Sequel): The Dangerous Manuscript MLA Handbook Ch 6 (Documentation: Citing Sources in Text) MLA Handbook, scan Ch 5 (Documentation: Preparing the List of Works Cited) Einsohn Ch 12 (Front and Back Matter) Saller Ch 7 (Know they Word Processor) Week 7 (Feb 16-20) Einsohn Ch 13 (Typecoding) Saller Ch 8 (The living Deadline)
Einsohn Part 3 Intro Einsohn Ch 14 (Grammar: Principles and Pitfalls) Saller Ch 9 (That Damned Village: Managing Work Relationships)
Week 8 (Feb 23-27) Einsohn Ch 15 (Beyond Grammar) Saller Ch 10 (The Freelancer s Quandaries) Submit by 11:59 pm on Thursday, February 26: Draft Editing Sample Week 9 (March 2-6) Einsohn Ch 10 (Tables, Graphs, and Art) To be determined. Week 10 (March 9-13) Saller Ch 11 (The Zen of Copyediting) Saller Appendix (You Still Want to Be a Copy Editor? Breaking In) Submit by 11:59 pm on Thursday, March 12: Final Edited Documents, Style Sheet, and Cover Letter (Addressed to Client) Finals Week The registrar will schedule your final exam. Check safari for place and time. Bring a fine-point red pen to the exam.