To be offered by the English Department via the World Wide Web:

Want to see if you have the right student profile for taking an online course?  Click here to take a short survey entitled Is Electronic Learning Right for Your Lifestyle and Study Habits?
Registration Information

If you are not a already enrolled at Louisiana Tech University, you will need to enroll, either by coming to campus or else by enrolling electronically. 

  • If you will be an on-campus student who will enroll at the Tech campus in Ruston or at the Tech Barksdale campus in Shreveport, you can find the needed information at the Enrollment Services WebSite.  To go to that site, click here.
  • You may also register electronically as a student at Louisiana Tech University in one of the following classifications:
    • Undergraduate Student
    • International Undergraduate Student
    • Graduate Student
To go to the Tech WebSite with information about electronically enrolling in these student categories, click here.



Email Information

Note to all English 303 Internet Students:  By the first class day, email Dr. Minor so that he will have your e-mail address.  If that address changes, email the new address.  Any communication that is about your grades must be sent either to your University email address or if to another email address, by a password-protected email attachment.  Such attachments can be sent in either Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect.

Check your email at least once per day.  If you will be traveling, consider getting an email service that you can access from anywhere, such as Microsoft Hotmail or Netscape Webmail or email from Excite or Yahoo

To go to a lengthy alphabetical list of free web-based email services, click here.

Dr. Minor's E-mail Address:  dminor@latech.edu
 



COURSE DESCRIPTION AND GOALS

2004-2005 Catalog Description of English 303:

ENGL 303:  Technical Writing. 0-3-3. Preq. English 102. Development of technical writing skills and styles; various technical writing assignments, including a technical report.

Necessary Skills:

Basic writing skills, including knowledge of sentence structure, grammar, and organization; basic knowledge of a scientific or technical field.

Topics to be Covered:



Important information about taking English 303 as an on-line course:

English 303 over Internet has several benefits for the student:
  • There are no attendance requirements beyond having to write the first paper and take the final examination either on the Tech campus or in a monitored remote setting;
  • It allows you to work on your assignments according to your own schedule;
  • All of the class material in available to you on the Web site, in a form which you can print out rather than having to take notes;
  • The Web site has its own search engine and contains several search engines to search the Internet;
  • The Web site contains discussion of all the required papers and examples of all the parts of the Long Report, the major paper to be written; and
  • Communication between the teacher and student can be done by email, telephone, FAX, or by personal conferences or a combination of all of these methods.  But it is not necessary for the student and teacher to be in the same place at the same time for the course information to be conveyed to the student.

But, this on-line course may present some difficulties for you, the student:

  • You cannot be passive when taking this course; you must be actively involved in accessing the Web site, keeping up with the assignments given in the Syllabus, and must make a point of asking questions by email or some other means.  There will be no lectures or question/answer sessions as there are in classroom classes when information is conveyed to all students without active effort on the student's part.  As a consequence of all the material being on the Web and there being no class meeting, it will take as much or more of your time to take this class,as opposed to a class that meets on the Tech campus, because you will have to get all of your information off the Web site rather than getting it through class meetings.
  • Because there are no attendance requirements, there is no specific time when the student must work on English 303.  You must decide on the times to work on the course; you may use as much time or as little time as you decide.  Your grade will be dictated by the quality of your work.  However, there is usually a direct correlation between the time spent on the work and the grade the work receives:  it takes longer to do a high-quality job than it takes to do a low-quality job.
  • You must be able to view the explanations and examples on the English 303 site and then use that information to format and write your own paper. The instructions for writing various papers for English are given on the 303 web site.  When the textbook and the web material give two different ways of doing an assignment, the Web examples should be followed. Papers will be graded as to how well each student follows the web site instructions.  If in doubt, check with the teacher.

COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS

Students must have access to the Internet and the WorldWide Web, with a Windows-based, Macintosh, or comparable computer system and Web-browsing software, such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Also, students must have access to Email; some of the assignments will be sent as Email attachments, and it is possible that some of the assignmented papers may be submitted via Email.

It is assumed that students will have access to a word processing program and printer that will allow them to handle the formatting of technical documents. Commonly-used word processors are WordPerfect and Microsoft Word.  If you do not have a wordprocessing program compatible with Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect, you may download a freeware program called AbiWord that is compatible with Microsoft Word (it will read files created in Microsoft Word and will create .doc files that can be read by Microsoft Word).  To get that program, click HERE for a Zip version or HERE for an .exe version.  You will have to save the program to your hard drive and then install it by clicking on the program name and following the installation instructions.

There are two computer labs open to students in Wyly Tower. Also, the computer lab in Madison Hall Room 165 is open to all Tech students. There are many other computer labs used in the individual academic units of Louisiana Tech University.


TEXTBOOKS

Primary Textbooks:
 
Markel, Mike. Technical Communication: Situations and Strategies. 7th Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. (Available at the Tech bookstore)

The Bedford/St. Martin's web site has a section on this textbook; whick included information about the chapters, self-study quizzes, and additional projects, exercises, and study cases.   Click here to go to this web site.

 .


The Technical Writing Course Packet is now required for all English 303 classes at Louisiana Tech.  It is available at the Louisiana Tech Bookstore (see Book store link below the textbooks). 

The Course packet gives information about many aspects of technical writing, and includes information about using Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, and Microsoft PowerPoint.

Inside the packet is a sheet entitled "Plagiarism Statement," which must be read and signed and returned to Dr. Minor either in person or by mail. 



 
Supplemental Textbook:   This supplemental textbook is optional; it gives good advice about technical writing, from types of papers to points of grammar and punctuation.  There will be no specific assignments about this book.  If you will do a lot of writing on your job, this book or a similar handbook are valuable reference tools.

Brusaw, Alred, and Oliu. Handbook of Technical Writing, (6th Edition). New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. (Available at the Tech bookstore)


Link to Louisiana Tech Book Store -- to order books online

Link to some representative online book stores:



ASSIGNMENTS

A syllabus is available from the English 303 Web site. In general, reading assignments will be made from the appropriate sections of the textbook to prepare the student for the upcoming assignment. The specific assignments will be sent to each student via E-mail. The assignments will be submitted either by hard copy or by a completely-formatted word processing file by the date due. Because much of this course discusses organization and page layout/design for technical papers, papers sent in via e-mail or as a paper copy will need to be fully formatted by the student to ensure that all text formatting instructions were followed.

 I have both Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect; both of these word processors will convert from other word processing programs. However, I will not re-format papers submitted as computer files because I will not be able to evaluate each student's formatting ability if it is necessary for me to help format a paper. We will use the ungraded homework assignments to check our e-mail and word processing compatibilities.
 

Probable Assignments:

Assignment:               Value:

Comparison  . . . . . . . . . 1X
Proposal    . . . . . . . . . 2X
Instructions  . . . . . . . . 2X
Sentence Outline  . . . . . . 2X
Long Report   . . . . . . . . 4X
Letter of Application 
     and Resume. . . . . . . .1X
Final Exam    . . . . . . . . 3X

Grading Equivalents:

F . . . 0-55 (depending on errors)
D-. . . 62
D . . . 65
D+. . . 68 
C-. . . 72
C . . . 75
C+. . . 78
B-. . . 82
B . . . 85
B+. . . 88
A-. . . 92
A . . . 95

Final Grading Scale:

0-59   =   F
60-69  =   D
70-79  =   C
80-89  =   B
90-100 =   A



For More Information, Contact

Dr. Dennis Minor
College of Liberal Arts
Department of English
George T. Madison Hall 104 (Office)
Louisiana Tech University
Ruston, LA 71272
Phone: (318) 257-2660
FAX:   (318) 257-3935
E-mail: dminor@latech.edu


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