The Course:

This Honors course has several goals:

• to significantly improve your writing;
• to develop a sense of confidence when you write;
• to develop a certain mastery of computers, the terminology, and the relative concepts;
• to explore issues related to computers and writing;
• to experiment with different modes and types of writing;
• and to develop techniques for conducting research on the Internet and with other electronic databases.

This course is subtitled "Writing, Technology, and the Future of Ideas." Writing, computers, and the Internet are at the center of this course. A substantial portion of this course will be taught using the Internet, and at least three weeks of the semester will be devoted to techniques in conducting research on the Internet. We will also discuss the concept of hypertext and its relationship to your own writing. But, essentially, this is a writing course, and we will do a great deal of writing over the next few months. We'll discuss issues of audience and voice (such as why it was ok for me to use a contraction there), and learn how to use e-mail to its greatest benefits. We will also consider in what ways the Internet has influenced writing and vice versa. We will work mostly on PCs; if you have a Mac, the majority of what we cover in this course may be easily transferred. By the semester's end, you should be more aware of the benefits and possible drawbacks of writing with the computer, and you should feel confident using the Internet for research.

Academic Honesty:

Plagiarism is the theft of someone else’s ideas and work. Whether a student copies verbatim or simply rephrases the ideas of another without properly acknowledging the source, the theft is the same. In the preparation of work submitted to meet course requirements, whether a draft or a final version of a paper, project, or computer program, students must take great care to distinguish their own ideas and language from information derived from sources. Sources include published primary and secondary materials, the Internet, and information and opinions gained directly from other people. Whenever ideas or facts are derived from a student’s reading and research, the sources must be properly cited. Once your paper is submitted in hard copy on the date due, you must, by noon the day a paper is due, upload an electronic copy of your paper to turnitin.com. The class ID is 1237870, and the enrollment password is gators.

It is the student’s responsibility to learn the proper forms of citation according to standards delineated by Russell Sage College. Students who have questions about the standards of scholarly writing should speak with their instructors before beginning research on assigned papers and projects. Violations include, at the discretion of the instructor, failure for the individual paper to failure for the course; such violations may be entered in the student’s permanent academic record, and upon multiple offenses the Dean may recommend expulsion from the College.

E-Mail:

You must have a valid e-mail account by the end of the first week of class, and you must be committed to checking your e-mail at least once a day.

Getting in Touch:

My office is on the second floor of Carriage House, and my Spring Office Hours are M/W 10:20-11:15 and T/Th 11:15-12:00 (or by appointment). The office phone number is 244-3118. My e-mail address is salomd@sage.edu.