January 26, 2009 Archives

M    12:45 PM  -  1:35 PM 	A405

Class meets Tuesdays. Online responses to assigned readings are due 1pm Mondays.

See daily course outline.

Dennis G. Jerz (jerz.setonhill.edu)
403 St. Joseph, Box 461

E-mail: My last name, at the setonhill.edu domain.

I check my e-mail throughout the work day, and usually once more at around 11pm. I am always happy to help with quick answers.

For routine e-mails, feel free to use txt spk if u want; I'll toss off a reply as soon as I can.  ;)

For more serious e-mails (maybe you're asking for an appointment, or a make-up assignment, or you're asking me to do some serious thinking), the quality of your writing should reflect the sincerity of your request.

Office Phone: 724-830-1909 (but you will usually get a faster response if you e-mail)

Office Hours: Spring 2010 (in St. Joseph 403)

• MWF 11:15-noon
• Th 1-2pm
  
• and also by appointment.

Office Visits:

• I usually leave my office door open. If you should happen to drop by outside of my office hours, and my door is closed, please come back later or send me an e-mail.
• If I'm with someone when you arrive for a scheduled appointment, go ahead and knock so I know you are waiting.

From the Catalog

Course through which students may earn credit on The Setonian (student newspaper) and its online counterpart. Meets for one hour per week, with an additional production lab for each issue (4 or 5 times per semester). Repeatable for credit.

Our theme for this semester is editorial wrting. We will focus on core writing skills in the context of essays that inform, persuade, and entertain. 

Production Labs

You are responsible for scheduling your own "production labs" in keeping with the needs of producing the print and online issues of the Setonian. Your production lab may involve selling advertisements, editing articles, laying out pages, delivering papers, sorting through archives, fact-checking, or doing almost anything related to getting the news published.

To schedule your production lab, contact the editor-in-chief, Maddie Gillespie, at setonian@setonhill.edu, and ask to be put on the mailing list (so you'll know when the office will be open and what jobs will need to be done).

Please be assertive about finding out when you are most needed.

Because writers and photographers get their names attached to their work, and thus already get credit for their work, the production lab is designed so that more people share the other kinds of very important -- but far less glamorous -- work that goes into producing a paper.

Therefore, taking a picture or writing a story ordinarily does not count towards the EL200 production lab requirement.

If you are assigned to write a "breaking news" story or photo for the Setonian Online, outside of our regular print production schedule, I would consider counting such work for part of your production lab -- but please talk to me about it beforehand.

Developing and maintaining a good working relationship with your peers is part of the learning process in this course. 

If you cannot carry out a task an editor has entrusted to you, please tell your editor before the deadline passes. Don't leave your peers hanging -- it's a matter of professionalism and simple good manners.

The student editors and managers who work on the Setonian are just as busy as you are. If you wait until the last minute to ask them to give you a job, or if you are only available from 2:17 to 2:43 on alternate Tuesdays when it is raining, I don't expect the student editors to drop everything and find a way to squeeze you in. (If you can't make it to any of the scheduled meetings, you can arrange to proofread articles by e-mail, or help with the Setonian Online at any time; with a little planning, we can all contribute to each issue.)

The course is designed to give those students who are interested in working on The Setonian additional skills and leadership training.

This course is intended to meet New Media Journalism learning objectives 4, 5, 7, and 8.

1. Examine a wide range of genres, styles and cultural literatures.
2. Examine the traditional canon and innovative nontraditional writers and writing.
3. Demonstrate analytical skills of reading literature.
4. Demonstrate a high level of research and writing skills.
   
5. Write and speak in a wide range of formats appropriate to major emphasis... 
6. Speak and write about issues in the discipline and how they interact with the culture at large.
7. Articulate the ongoing relation between personal habits of reading and writing and the evolving study of English.
8. Produce a professional portfolio that demonstrates an awareness of and engagement with vital issues in an appropriate professional field relating to new media journalism.
   

Because a small core of dedicated students can burn out if others in the organization do not share the load, the course asks you to participate in the group effort to publish the voice of the student body, building up your resume while at the same serving the entire Seton Hill community.

Students holding positions of responsibility on the Setonian (or the Setonian Online) may be eligible for work-study funding. If the work you get paid to do also helps meet your EL 200 requirements, that's fine with me.

I will often send out bulk e-mails to the address on file for you in the GriffinGate system. If you check a different address more regularly, please use SHU's e-mail forwarding service so that you don't miss important updates.

Submit your lab reports and exercises to Turnitin.com. 

All students will also have a SHU weblog, where they will post responses to assigned readings. Since journalism is rapidly moving away from print and into the 21st century, unless a homework assignment specifically mentions a printout, you may assume that I do not want a hard copy.

Students are expected to attend every class, and they are expected to take the initiative to make and support requests for excused absences (see Seton Hill University Catalog, p. 24, "Academic Engagement and Class Attendance"). 

Requesting Excused Absences

To request an excused absence, print out and complete a copy of my "Absence Form" (available at http://jerz.setonhill.edu/teaching/Absence.doc) and hand it to me (or complete it electronically and e-mail it, if you are unable to make it to campus).

I am happy to excuse students who have legitimate reasons, but no matter the reason:

• Students are responsible for all material covered during their absence (arrange to get notes from a classmate).
  
• An excused absence does not automatically grant an extension for any work collected or assigned that day.
  

For some classroom activities, such as listening to peer oral presentations, there may be no appropriate make-up assignment. (See 5.2 Participation.)

5.1.1. Emergency Excused Absences
Those who miss class due to an unplanned emergency should submit an "Absence Form," with appropriate documentation, as soon as the immediate crisis has passed. This simple one-page form is designed to give me the information I need in order to help you stay on track. (A note from a doctor or a photocopy of a court summons only gives me part of the information I need.)

If you miss class, I request that you resist the impulse to ask me to e-mail you a summary of what happened. I welcome the chance to help you get caught up, but please consult the syllabus and a classmate's notes first, and then bring any specific questions to me.

5.1.2. Scheduled Excused Absences
I expect that students who miss class due to a scheduled activity (a game, performance, medical appointment, etc.) will complete all make-up assignments before the missed class. Submit a complete, acceptable "Absence Form" (see above) at least a week before the missed class.

• If there is insufficient time to plan an acceptable make-up assignment, or if an approved make-up assignment is late or unsatisfactory, then I may still record the absence as unexcused.
• When I sign a roster of away games, my policy is that the student should also, at that time, hand me completed copies of all the necessary "Absence Forms."
  

5.1.3. Unexcused Absences

Repeated late arrivals, early departures, inattentiveness or unpreparedness may accumulate to count as unexcused absences.

If you are absent from class without a legitimate excuse on a day when a major assignment is due, the assignment will be counted an extra day late. (Rather than stay up all night and sleep through class, please get at least a little sleep, come to class so you won't fall farther behind, and turn in your assignment later in the day.)

5.1.4. Notes for Once-A-Week Courses

• Each meeting is very important. Provided you can make arrangements to catch up on missed work, I will permit one absence without penalty.
  
• Each additional absence lowers your final grade by two-thirds of a letter grade.
  
• After two consecutive unexcused absences, or three total absences (excused or unexcused), I will assume your intention is to drop the course, and may stop returning or accepting new work from you.  (I will of course be flexible in the event of extenuating circumstances, but it may not be possible to recover after missing that much of the course.)

Students are expected to contribute actively to a positive classroom environment, both in person and online. Simply "being present" is a good first step, but earning full marks requires more than that.

Common sense and common courtesy tell us that absences, late arrivals and early departures, lack of preparation, or attention, or manners (such as using electronic devices when you should be focusing on something else, or eating more than a discreet snack) will impact your participation grade. Those who contribute above and beyond the call of duty will receive a bonus.

Students who dislike public speaking may wish to invest more effort in their online writing, and vice-versa.

Class participation may raise a student's final grade by up to 1/3 of a letter grade, or lower it by up to a full letter grade.  Having above-average class participation will earn you a slight boost if your final grade falls near a border (e.g. I will have a reason to report a 2.95 as a B).

This course expects you to use the internet regularly. I'm not expecting you to have 24/7 internet access, but just as students in generations past learned to carry an extra inkhorn and spare lamp wicks, there are certain common-sense strategies that will help you do the necessary work.

• Print out a copy of the course syllabus, and print out online readings in advance, so that you can work on the readings if the internet happens to be down.
• Get in the habit of e-mailing drafts to yourself, so that you can retrieve them from your archives if you lose your thumb drive or your hard drive crashes. (The website docs.google.com will let you store your word-processor files in a format you can edit online.)
• Unless the homework assignment specifically mentions a printout, you should assume that I don't want a hard copy. (Most homework will be submitted via turnitin.com, though some assignments will ask you to use other services. We will spend some class time familiarizing ourselves with the various tools.)

Getting Credit for Late Work

By default, late assignments automatically lose one letter grade if they are not submitted on time, and another letter grade for each additional day late. This means that no assignment will earn any credit if it is more than four days late (unless there are extenuating circumstances).

If you are asking that I waive a late penalty, e-mail me a copy of your completed Absence Form (see section 5.1, above) with a subject line that follows this pattern: "Smith EL200 Ex 1-2 Absence Form". (Make sure your absence form specifies the assignment in question.)

Deadlines for the submission of turnitin.com assignments are typically 15 minutes before class starts. (This is to discourage you from being late for class because you were working on your homework, and it also permits me to scan submissions briefly before class begins.) If your assignment is late by a few minutes, but you are still on time to class, your paper won't count as late.

Please note that late submissions always go to the bottom of my to-do list. If I have already marked and returned a set of assignments, chances are I won't even notice when you submit your late work.  Call my attention to late submissions by e-mailing me a note.

If you are concerned about not getting a late paper back soon enough to help you complete the next step in a multi-stage assignment, please make an appointment during my office hours, so that I can go over it with you orally.

Special Cases

• Preparation and In-Class Activities: Some assignments are designed to get you ready for a particular day's class, to give you the skills you'll need to tackle a pending assignment, or to help you process something we did during class. For that reason, some time-sensitive assignments can't be made up. (I am willing to make an exception in extenuating circumstances, with proper documentation and follow-through from you.)
• Reading Response Items: These time-sensitive online assignments are designed to prepare you for in-class discussion of assigned readings. If you miss these assignments, your class participation will be affected. (You should still complete any items you missed in order to get full credit for your class portfolio.)
• Class Participation: The ideal way to get credit for a missed in-class activity is to contribute substantially to the online discussion. In a timely fashion (within a few days of the missed activity), post thoughtful comments on the course website, your peers' websites, and/or your own. To make sure that I see and record credit for this alternative work, describe it in a detailed e-mail.
  
• Make-up/Extra Credit Assignments: I do not have a policy of inventing make-up or extra-credit assignments to enable you to pull your grade up in the last few weeks of the term.
  

Required Texts for Media Lab (Spring 2010)

• Goldstein, Norm. The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Basic Books, 2007. (ISBN 465012620)
  
• Williams, Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace, 3rd ed.  Longman, 2008.  (ISBN 0205605354)

If you already own an older version of the AP Stylebook, you can use it instead.

This section contains important official statements, using language provided by the SHU administration.

Disability Statement
If you have a disability that requires instructor consideration please contact the Director of Disability Services at 724-838-4295. It is recommended that this be accomplished by the second week of class.

If you need accommodations for successful participation in class activities prior to your appointment at the Disability Services Office, you should offer information in writing that includes suggestions for assistance in participating in and completing class assignments. It is not necessary to disclose the nature of your disability.

Academic Honesty and Ethical Conduct

Seton Hill University expects that all its students will practice academic honesty and ethical conduct.

The University regards plagiarism, cheating on examinations, falsification of papers, non-sanctioned collaboration, and misuse of library material, computer material, or any other material, published or unpublished, as violations of academic honesty. Violators of the code may expect disciplinary sanctions, which are discussed in the Seton Hill University Catalog, page 30, Code of Academic Conduct.

Many of your college assignments will involve quoting from or responding to other people's words and ideas. However, using those words or ideas without properly citing them, or resubmitting your own work for a different class, constitutes plagiarism.

Paraphrasing the thoughts or written work of another without reference -- even with permission from the source -- is also plagiarism.

Helpful information is available at What It Is and How to Recognize and Avoid It.

Any plagiarism or other form of academic dishonesty will result in a zero for that assignment. Any plagiarism or other form of academic dishonesty on a draft will result in a zero for the final grade on that assignment. All academic dishonesty will be reported to the dean's office.