There’re four major components to your course grade, most of which consist of two or more assignments. You must complete all projects satisfactorily in order to receive a passing grade for the course. Here is a brief description of each major project and its components. For more detailed instructions on each project, click on the links.
In-Class Quizzes/Exercises (520 points)
There are five quizzes in this course, each worth 40 points. Each quiz tests you on one of the major aspects covered in this course, e.g., copymarking. You’re required to apply what you learned from specific chapters to editing situations. All quizzes are listed in the schedule. Please check the dates carefully.
Here’re the taken-home assignments, each of which is also worth 40 points:
- Assignment 1–Copymarking
- Assignment 2–Style Sheets
- Assignment 3–Copyediting
- Assignment 4–Punctuation
- Assignment 5–Proofreading
- Assignment 6–Comprehensive Editing
- Assignment 7–Organization
- Assignment 8–Comprehensive Editing
Grammar Presentation (80 points)
You will pair up with one classmate for this project. You two will choose one aspect of grammar to work on. Your task is to learn as much about this grammatical aspect as possible, summarize your knowledge in a written handouot for the class, and do a 10-15-minute oral presentaion on the topic. For your oral presentation, use a combination of formats, such as lecturing, oral quiz, question and answer, or whatever you think is appropriate and doable within the time frame.
Here’s the presentation schedule.
| Date | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 02/12 | Spelling | Gregory & Meghan |
| 02/14 | Appositives | Ryan & Kimber |
| 02/19 | Active vs. passive voices | Walter & Joshua |
| 02/21 | Articles (a and the) | Josephine & Gayla |
| 02/26 | Comma splices and run-ons | Bethany & Ian |
| 02/28 | Parallelism | Shelbi & Katie |
| 03/11 | Punctuation: other than commas | Elizabeth, Clark, & Raven |
| 03/13 | Adjectives & adverbs | Jennifer & Kalena |
| 03/18 | Apostrophes | Alice & Brian |
| 03/20 | Quotation marks | Keisha & Britney |
| 03/25 | Verbals, gerunds, participles, & infinitives | Brandon & Karah |
In groups of three to four, you will find an existing document, either on or off campus, that requires comprehensive editing. Using what you learned in this course, you will edit/redesign the document to make it truly effective.
This project contains the following three elements:
- Initial proposal, saved as “Initial(LastNames).doc”
- Original document–saved as “Final(LastNames)1.doc”
- Edited document–saved as “Final(LastNames)2.doc”
- Rhetorical analysis–optional, saved as “Final(LastNames)RA.doc”
The rhetorical analysis is optional. However, it would be helpful if you could briefly explain your project: what the original document is, what audience it was intended for, what major changes you made in both format and content design, and why you made those changes. This would help me understand your project better and evaluate it more fairly.
Final Exam (150 points)
This exam tests you on the major topics covered in this course. It will involve the definition of some key terms of editing as well as some hands-on editing practice.