Rochester Community and Technical College

Instructor: Mike Mutschelknaus

Office: MH 337

Phone: 507/280-33510

E-mail: Mike.Mutschelknaus@roch.edu

Web page: http://www.acd.roch.edu/mmutschelknaus/

Office hours: 10:00--10:50 MWF & by appointment
 
 

Course Description

This course offers intensive work in the review and application of standard editorial principles. Students edit a variety of texts representative of business, professional, and academic writing. Designed for practical application, this course allows students to refine those editorial skills they will apply in designing, editing, or transcribing documents in professional settings. (Prerequisites: none; 3 credits)

Course Focus

The course uses an editorial focus to study and examine principles of language use. Students review and refine editorial principles that are frequently applied in prepared formal documents, ranging through business, professional and educational writings. Students use a variety of texts and exercises that provide ample guided learning experiences and practical applications.

Text and References

• Camp, Satterwhite. College English and Communication. 8^th Edition. Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.
• Camp, Satterwhite. Student Activity Workbook for College English and Communication. 8^th edition. Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.

Each student is expected to spend at least 6 hours per week preparing for class. Attendance is crucial in this class. The handout on attendance guidelines will be discussed in class.

Course Schedule

The class meets for 3 lecture hours per week.

Grading

You will receive a percentage grade for five written tests that measure your application of editorial principles in these areas: possessives, pronouns, subject-verb agreement, punctuation, and capitalization. The average of these five tests constitutes four-fifths of your final grade.

Should you earn a C, D, or F on one of the five tests of editorial principles, you may choose to take an alternate test. Your two test grades will then be averaged. You must wait a minimum of two days before testing again. This procedure allows ample study time.

You will take the five tests on editorial applications in a group setting with everyone testing at the same time. Alternate tests are scheduled individually within a classroom lab time. No make-up or alternate tests are allowed unless your absence is prearranged.

A writing assignment averages one-fifth of the final grade.

The grading scale for the course is as follows:

A = 92-100

B = 84-91

C = 78-83

D = 73-77

F = 0-72

Attendance:

Daily attendance provides a sound foundation for success in this class. For most students, it is a crucial component. There is no makeup on scheduled tests unless your absence is prearranged.

Course Goals

The following list of course goals will be addressed in the course. These goals are directly related to the performance objectives (Addendum A).

1. Contrast uses for semicolon, colon and dash
2. Identify semicolon, colon, or dash use
3. Apply semicolons, colons, or dashes
4. Recognize visual-centered spelling principles
5. Recognize auditory-centered spelling principles
6. Apply spelling principles
7. Recognize possessive nouns
8. Recognize possessive pronouns
9. Identify possessive principles
10. Apply possessive principles
11. Recognize nominative pronouns
12. Recognize objective pronouns
13. Identify principles of pronoun use
14. Apply principles of pronoun use
15. Recognize subject/verb agreement principles
16. Recognize pronoun-antecedent principles
17. Identify predicate agreement principles
18. Apply predicate agreement principles
19. Recognize basic comma principles
20. Recognize special use comma principles
21. Recognize common comma errors
22. Identify comma principles
23. Apply comma principles
24. Identify end punctuation principles for sentences
25. Apply end punctuation principles for sentences
26. Recognize capitalization principles
27. Identify capitalization principles
28. Apply capitalization principles
29. Exhibit classroom work ethic

You must turn in the following writing assignment sometime during the semester. If I do not receive it by the end of the semester, you will get 0/20 points for the assignment. Here is the assignment:

1. In your textbook, read section 9.3, pages 386 through 393.
2. In your textbook on page 393, do numbers 1 and 2 of Review of Key Terms and numbers 6 and 7 of Discussion Point. E-mail me your responses.
3. In your Student Activity Workbook, do pages 234A and B, 236D, 237E and F. E-mail me your responses.

The calendar is a rough guide about what will be covered when in the course.
 

Week one: 8/26-/30 Predicate agreement learning	Read textbook pages 136 through 140, completing Self Assessments A through D as they appear. (Answers on page 677).  Read textbook pages 141 through 148, completing Self Assessments E through H as they appear. (Answers on pages 677 and 678).
Week two: 9/3-6 Predicate agreement application	Do Student Activity Workbook pages 69A through 77F. Be sure to check your answers by using the link on our home page. Create five of your own sentences that have predicate agreement mistakes. Bring them to class for discussion.  Bring five answers you got wrong in the workbook to class. For each answer, explain why you answered incorrectly the first time and how you now understand the correct answer.
Week three: 9/9-13 Predicate agreement test	Prepare for and take the predicate agreement test
Week four: 9/16-20 Possessives learning	Read textbook pages 151 through 161, completing Self Assessments A through D as they appear. (Answers on page 678.)  Read textbook pages 163 through 166, completing Self Assessments A and B as they appear. (Answers on page 678.)  Read textbook pages 167 through 170, completing Self Assessment C (Answers on page 678.) and the Practical Application on 170. There are no answers in the back for the practical application.
Week five: 9/23-27 Possessives application	Do Student Activity Workbook pages 79A, 81B, 86A, 87B, 89C, 90D, 91E.  Create five of your own sentences that have possessive mistakes. Bring them to class for discussion.  Bring five answers you got wrong in the workbook to class. For each answer, explain why you answered incorrectly the first time and how you now understand the correct answer.
Week six: 9/30-10/4 Possessives test	Prepare for and take the possessives test
Week seven: 10-7-11 Nominative and objective pronouns learning	Memorize nominative and objective pronouns:  Nominative: I, you, he, she, we, they, who, whoever Objective: me, you, him, her, us, them, whom, whomever Read textbook pages 171 through 176, completing Self Assessments A through D as they appear. (Answers on pages 678-679.)
Week eight: 10/14-16 Pronouns application	Do Student Activity Workbook pages 92A through 99F.  Create five of your own sentences that have pronoun mistakes. Bring them to class for discussion.  Bring five answers you got wrong in the workbook to class. For each answer, explain why you answered incorrectly the first time and how you now understand the correct answer.
Week nine: 10/21-25 Pronouns test	Prepare for and take the nominative and objective pronouns test
Week ten: 10/28-11/1 Punctuation learning	Read textbook pages 229 through Appositives, page 238, completing Self Assessments A through D as they appear. (Answers on pages 680 and 681)  Read textbook pages 239 through 246, completing Self Assessments E through I as they appear. (Answers on page 681.)  Read textbook pages 248 through 255, completing Self Assessments A through D as they appear. (Answers on page 681.)
Week eleven: 11/4-8 Punctuation application	Do Student Activity Workbook pages 125A through 130D and pages 137A through 142D.  Create five of your own sentences that have punctuation mistakes. Bring them to class for discussion.  Bring five answers you got wrong in the workbook to class. For each answer, explain why you answered incorrectly the first time and how you now understand the correct answer.
Week twelve: 11/13-15 Punctuation test	Prepare for and take the punctuation test
Week thirteen: 11/18-22 Capitalization learning	Read textbook pages 266 through 272, completing Self Assessments A through C as they appear. (Answers on page 682.)  Do Textbook Practical Application 7 on page 273.
Week fourteen: 11/25-27 Capitalization application	Do Student Activity Workbook pages 148A through 152D.  Create five of your own sentences that have capitalization mistakes. Bring them to class for discussion.  Bring five answers you got wrong in the workbook to class. For each answer, explain why you answered incorrectly the first time and how you now understand the correct answer.
Week fifteen: 12/2-6	Student conferences
Week sixteen: 12/9-13	Writing assignment work
Week seventeen: 12/16-20	Prepare for and take the capitalization test

 

Grade tracker

Figuring out your grade is easy for this course. Look at the following table. As you can see in the example test, the student took the test two times and finished with a 79.5% average. You then multiply that average by 20 to find out how many points you earned. At the end of the semester, there are one hundred total points. I will merely add up your points, refer to the grading scale for the course, and calculate your final grade. For the writing assignment, enter your grade in the third column, and then multiply by twenty.
 

	First attempt	Second attempt	Average of two attempts	Points out of twenty
Example test	71%	88%	79.5%	.795 * 20 = 15.9
Test one: possessives
Test two: pronouns
Test three: subject-verb agreement
Test four: punctuation
Test five: capitalization
Writing assignment	xxxxxxxxx	xxxxxx