FYC Wiki

This is a wiki site--a site that everyone in our class can read and edit.  (Just click "edit" to start editing, and then when you're done typing your changes in the editing window, click "save."  It's really easy!) 

Our task is to define plagiarism.  That's a difficult task, but I think we've all heard enough about the concept to come up with some basic guidelines about what is and isn't plagiarism in different contexts.  We're doing this because I find that in different contexts, people define plagiarism differently; I'd like us to pull together as many of these definitions as possible to help us think about it in a complex way.

Here are the rules:

Add your thoughts to any of the following sections:

Plagiarism is:

Some summarized stories about plagiarism (either personal stories or stories about famous people):

In college classroom settings, teachers and students should approach plagiarism in these ways:

Some things that confused me or that I disagreed with in the Plagiarism Tutorial (link in Week 4 assignments) are:

Public Blogging (Blackboard wiki page)

Even though it might seem crazy, we're getting closer and closer to the beginning of Project 2, which will ask you to make an argument about a political issue that matters to you.  As a way to start engaging with issues, we're going to write fewer discussion board posts and one public blog post per week for 3-5 weeks (depending on your response).  This will give people outside of class an opportunity to read and comment on your opinions on contemporary issues.  (Please note that I am not requiring anyone to reveal their identity in any way online; you are free to use pseudonyms or change the details of your life if you are not comfortable sharing personal information online.)

Your first public blog post is due at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, February 15 (the same day as your final draft of project 1).  There is no minimum word requirement; keep in mind that you're writing for a diverse audience of people who are probably interested in the topic you chose to write about.  That means you don't want to say so little that someone will feel it was a waste of time to click on your page!  (If you'd rather, you're also welcome to create a podcast and post it on your podbean site whenever one of these public blog posts is due.  Just let me know!) Grades will be recorded in the same gradebook column as your Blackboard discussion forums.

You can choose whatever you'd like to write about, as long as it is related to politics in some way.  Here are some examples to clarify that idea:

• Not related to politics at all:
• A post about the bread you baked last night
• A post about how angry you are at all your professors for giving you so much homework
• A post about how cute Jon Stewart or Sara Palin is
• Related to politics, and thus allowed:
• A post about how you've noticed food prices are really high, and your suggestions for how government can help fix it
• A post about the tightening budgets on college campuses
• A post about political media, or about any candidate for any office

Here are some suggestions about where to create your blog so that others might actually read and respond to you:

1. Newsvine (www.newsvine.com) is an amazing free site that allows users to gather any news stories they see on any site and create a link to it on Newsvine, where members can comment on stories and vote on how important they are.  The more votes an article gets, the more likely people are to see it. But this site also allows you to write your own articles (blog posts) and tag them with search terms so that they will almost certainly be read by others.  It's a hot place for political discussions, and everyone is very nice.  (Here's my page, though it hasn't been updated for a while; I used this with a class last spring.  The long column of headlines is mostly articles that I found somewhere else, though some are simple articles that I wrote.)
2. WritingBlogs (www.writingblogs.org) is a blogging site maintained by USF.  You're most likely to have your articles read by other USF writing students there, but it's open to the public, so anyone who searches for the right terms could come across your work there.  Last summer, for a different project, I made a tutorial page on how to create an account at writingblogs; I assume the info is still up to date, but I can't promise anything!  That page is at http://collegewriting.us/online/stedman/Shared%20Documents/usingwritingblogs.aspx.
3. Everything else: You're also welcome to use any other blogging page that is available to the entire world without a log-in.  This includes Blogger, WordPress, or a MySpace blog.  The key on these sites is to remember that people aren't automatically going to see your posts (unlike the previous two suggestions).  Therefore, if you use another blogging site, you are required to tag each post with words that might help searchers find your posts.  I'm glad to answer any questions about this.

Below, please type your name and paste a link to your personal blog site.  (Click "edit" in the upper-right of this page, add your change, and then click "save.")  Please be sure that your link takes us to your blog's main page, not a single post on your page.  If you look at your link, you can usually tell if it's a link to a specific site or not.  For instance, this is a link to an entire blog site: http://culturecat.net/.  This is a link to a single post on that site: http://culturecat.net/i-want-your-teeth-federal-reserve.  See the difference in the url?

Slideshow Presentation

Note: I presented this to students in a 4-page Blackboard wiki page that they weren't allowed to edit. That allowed me to easily create a multi-linked 4-page site description, which I found much less intimidating than the massive Word doc I used the semester before.  Because of that, many of the internal links below won't work:

Page 1: Home

Overview:
You are nearing the end of ENC 1102, which means that you have nearly completed six credit hours of college‐level writing instruction (or its equivalent through AP classes, etc.). You’ve learned a lot—perhaps more than you know—and it is therefore appropriate for you to share that knowledge to help the next generation of composition students.

For this project you will create a presentation that teaches future students how to approach a single area of writing of your choice. You must use PowerPoint, Keynote, Impress, Google Presentations, or similar software that allows you to design slide‐based presentations. (Click here for more information on technology options.)  As a focus, you must choose a single bulleted line from the First‐Year Composition Grading Form that I use to grade your final drafts of each writing project. (It's available as a pdf under the Documents/Handouts section of BB.  Anything except the “Format” section is allowed.)  Teach students taking ENC 1102 what they should know in advance about your chosen line on the grading form.  (Click here for more tips about what to keep in mind for this topic.)

You will then share your presentation with the rest of the class (and the rest of the world) on SlideShare, a free site that allows users to upload presentation files and view them online. You also have the option of using SlideShare to add narration to your presentation, allowing you to more closely mimic a face‐to‐face presentation situation. You should decide early whether you are designing a presentation that can effectively teach others on its own, with no additional narration from a live person, or if you are instead designing a presentation that requires a narrator to explain words and concepts that are only briefly alluded to in the presentation itself. Either option is fine, but each will demand different rhetorical strategies. A presentation with narration will probably have fewer words on the screen at a time, and it may need fewer slides, while a presentation without narration needs to be readable and understandable without any outside guidance. (See grading options for more details on how this option will affect your grade.)

Revision:
By now, I assume that you have learned what revision strategy works best for you. Therefore, you are not required to turn in early drafts of this project. However, you are still expected to work in the wisest way, which often means drafting an early version that you further refine through multiple stages of revision.

Peer Review:
None required for this project, though you are welcome to e‐mail drafts of your project to each other or to me for advice. I know you haven’t gotten to know each other very well in this online class, but perhaps you especially respected the comments of one of your peer review partners. If so, feel free to ask that person for their thoughts on your presentation drafts.

Goals:
You will:

• Demonstrate mastery of presentation skills, including issues of text and layout
• Demonstrate mastery of a single writing issue
• Gain experience teaching others about a writing issue in ways that your audience understands
• Become familiar with various presentation tools and software

Background:
There is a good chance that you’ll be asked to make a presentation in the future, whether in a professional or classroom setting. It’s therefore crucial that you enter those situations with knowledge about how best to arrange your information, anticipate the needs of your audience, and manipulate a host of new media tools that not everyone is familiar with (like SlideShare).

Resources:
You must incorporate information from at least three sources (books or websites) and include an MLA‐ or APA‐formatted Works Cited or References slide at the end of your presentation. You may take exercises, examples, or ideas directly from these sources, but you must tie them together with your own organization, transitions, and explanatory language. You also must cite your sources on the slide so that people can find the information on their own later if they chose. In slideshows, it’s common to put a small footnote at the bottom saying something like, “Examples quoted from [site],” or “Adapted from [site].” Be sure not to use exact language from elsewhere without letting your audience know that you did so!

Length:
No minimum or maximum length. Try to ask yourself, “Have I explained everything about my topic in a sufficient way for my audience?” not, “Have I reached the minimum requirements yet?”

Delivery and Due Dates:
Your presentation must be uploaded to SlideShare by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, April 30.  At this deadline, your presentation must also be posted to the SlideShare group “ENC 1102 Online at USF, Spring 2009” (http://www.slideshare.net/group/enc-1102-online-at-usf-spring-2009).  If you upload your presentation but don’t share it with the group, I won’t be able to access it, and it will therefore be counted late!   Hint: when using an unfamiliar service, it is very wise to upload early, just in case you have unforeseen technical difficulties.

Page 2: Grading:

This presentation is worth 5% of your final grade.

Each presentation will be graded based on these 4 categories:

• Organization (logical flow; lets us know what’s coming; clear transitions when necessary)
• Layout and Visuals (readable font; uncluttered look; attractive and consistent visuals; appropriate and interesting to college‐level first‐year composition students)
• Teaching Effectiveness (Will viewers be better writers after seeing your presentation? Is the presentation interesting and attention‐grabbing?)
• Conventions (Writing free of grammatical or mechanical errors; information from other sources is clearly marked; presentation ends with properly formatted Works Cited or References page)

However, the grading will be slightly different if you choose to add narration to your presentation (create a “Slidecast”). Those who choose not to add narration will be graded on the above four categories, with each category equally weighted at 25% of their project grade. However, those who add narration to their presentation will be graded on those four categories plus a fifth category for narration, which will automatically receive a 100% if you manage to create a Slidecast. (I will only grade you on if you can make the technology work, not the quality of your narration.) In other words, here’s how it will break down:

Projects WITHOUT Narration	Projects WITH Narration
Organization (25%)	Organization (20%)
Layout/Visuals (25%)	Layout/Visuals (20%)
Teaching Effectiveness (25%)	Teaching Effectiveness (20%)
Conventions (25%)	Conventions (20%)
	Narration (20% of project, but this category will always get a score of 100)

Practically, this means that those who choose not to create a Slidecast will still have the opportunity to get a perfect grade, but those who choose to create a Slidecast will have a better chance of getting a higher grade on the project.

Here’s an example, with some sample student grades filled in:

Project without Narration		Project with Narration
	Student grades		Student grades
Organization (25%)	87	Organization (20%)	87
Layout/Visuals (25%)	87	Layout/Visuals (20%)	87
Teaching Effectiveness (25%)	87	Teaching Effectiveness (20%)	87
Conventions (25%)	87	Conventions (20%)	87
		Narration (20% of project, but this category always 100%)	100
Total project grade	87	Total project grade	89.6 (rounds up to 90)

Page 3: Technology Tools

You have a number of options available to you when creating slideshows:

Software Options:

• PowerPoint (Microsoft): http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/FX100648951033.aspx
• Keynote (Apple): http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/
• Impress (Free, Open‐Source software; part of Open Office; compatible with both PC and Mac): http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html
• Google Presentations (If you use this, you will have to create the presentation online, download it as a presentation file, and then upload that file to SlideShare, but you'll have the added security of knowing that you can access your slideshow from any computer.): http://docs.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=15116

SlideShare information

• SlideShare home: http://www.slideshare.net/
• SlideShare instructions on how to “Slidecast” (add sound to a presentation): http://www.slideshare.net/faqs/slidecast
• SlideShare’s frequently asked questions: http://www.slideshare.net/faqs

Page 4: Tips

• Last year, I allowed people to choose large topics (like the entire Focus/Organization section) or to pick smaller sections (“Includes a logical progression of sophisticated ideas that support the main idea,” or “subject/verb agreement,” or “Avoids wordiness and cliché,” etc.).  The #1 problem, though, was that students bit off more than they could chew, resulting in some slideshows that were 70 slides long and still rather vague (no kidding).  Therefore, you're required to pick a smaller section.  If you feel that it makes sense to tackle two or three related bullets, please e-mail me first to get my permission.
• Pick a topic from the rubric about which you have something interesting to say.  In other words, if you’ve been confused by the “Critical Thinking and Support” category all semester, you probably shouldn’t pick something from it.  But if you think you have some interesting, practical advice to give about how to write essays that show good reasoning, you should pick it!
• The best presentations will be more than a simple patchwork of ideas and exercises found elsewhere online.  Instead, try to think of what teaching strategies haven’t worked for you in the past when you were taught these things, and then try to teach in the opposite way.  How might you grab your audience’s attention?  What kind of crazy story or unusual exercise or super-practical tips could you give?
• If SlideShare confuses you, they have a host of online help files to help you out. 
• Be sure that you post your show to our group on SlideShare (or risk losing points), and be sure that you don’t try to upload a .pptx file (which they don’t accept). 
• Also, if you embed slide transitions, animations, audio or video into your presentation, it won’t show up in SlideShare. 
• Mac users will have to save their Keynote files as pdfs and then upload the pdfs to SlideShare.
• Your slideshow will be available online for all the world to see.  Therefore, there’s a balance between the need to identify yourself (so people know who made the presentation) and the need for privacy.  Because of this balance, you must identify yourself somehow in your actual presentation, but you may use a pseudonym if you wish.  (I.e. I could include the language “Created by Kyle Stedman” or the language “Created by ILoveSloppyJoes45,” but I need to have one or the other.)
• Since you’ll be representing yourself online as a member of USF, it’s important that you only use images or sounds that you may legally use.  (SlideShare even has a way for people to report this stuff to the authorities.)  Because we’re in an academic setting, you may use any image you find online as long as you clearly cite it in your presentation.  But it’s safer to use Clip Art, photos you’ve taken yourself, or to search for Creative Commons-licensed images on Flickr using the Creative Commons search tool: http://search.creativecommons.org/.   
• I’ll be sharing these presentations with future classes, and perhaps even putting a link to them on the main First-Year Composition website (http://collegewriting.us).  Keep that audience in mind as you make rhetorical choices!

Due: 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, January 25

Big Picture

Your first major project will be to produce a podcast.  The main goal of this assignment is to introduce you to the changing rhetorical decisions people make when they communicate in different ways.  In other words, if I'm writing an academic essay, how should I craft that essay so that it meets the expectations of a professor?  What if I write about the same subject in a blog—how is that different?  What if I talk about it in a podcast—won't I make different choices about that, too?  You'll think about these questions through ACTION—by creating your own podcast.

The Assignment

The focus and topic of your podcast will prepare you for your first major essay assignment, in which you will analyze written arguments on science-related topics:

• Produce a podcast in which you informally discuss your opinions about a topic that you read about in the "Science and Technology" area of the online database, CQ Researcher.  (See below for information on accessing and using this database.)  Read a report from the database, and then in your podcast make an argument about any aspect of that topic that interests you, carefully paying attention to issues of self-presentation: how do you want to come across to your listeners?  (Angry yet certain?  Passive and tentative?  Curious?)  Be sure to include information that might be convincing and interesting to a wide population of educated people, as if all the students, staff, and faculty at USF were to hear it.  Your podcast must be at least 3 minutes long, and ideally no longer than 5 minutes long.

Delivery

You will submit two deliverables for this project:

1. The podcast itself, which you will upload to your free account at www.podbean.com.  In the appropriate Blackboard forum, you will then create a thread with a link to your completed and uploaded podcast. For example, my podbean page is kstedman.podbean.com.  From there, you can find the single file I've uploaded (some advice I gave to students last semester).  The forum directions will have more information on uploading your completed podcast, but feel free to start looking around the site.  You may want to create your account now so you won't have to bother with this later.
   
   
2. You will also upload a one-page (double-spaced) document to the Assignments section of Blackboard that shows your plan for the podcast.  This plan may be a script or a loose outline of the things you want to include in your podcast.  It is meant to encourage you to plan what information and arguments you want to make before you start recording.

Grading

The entire podcast (audio file + planning document) will count as 5% of your final course grade.  The audio file itself will count for 90% of your podcast project grade.  You will be graded on the thoughtfulness of your response and the suitability of your podcast for the general public, not the fanciness of your podcast.  In other words, the student with fancy music, audio effects, but no thoughtful engagement with the issues will get a lower grade than the student with a podcast with simple talking and brilliant ideas.  On the other hand, the student who simply talks for a long time about uninteresting material may get a lower grade because of the podcasts unsuitability for a general audience.  You may want to see this podcast grading sheet from another university; I won't use it, but it articulates some helpful suggestions.

Your 1-page planning document will represent the other 10% of your grade.  It will be graded simply on completion; if it meets the length requirement and shows that you planned your podcast, you will receive full credit.

Tips

Regardless of which option you choose, there are a number of guidelines and suggestions you should keep in mind:

• You will be publishing your podcast on a public website (podbean.com) so other people can hear it.  Keep in mind the needs of the general public as you create your podcast: these listeners won't know who you are, and they won't have the context of this class in mind, and they don't want to be bored.  (We'll have a discussion about these decisions later on.)
• I'm checking to see if the USF library has microphones that can be rented for free; I'll get back to you.  If you don't have a microphone or have a friend with one, cheap mics can be purchased for about $10.
• Be sure you know some of the conventions of podcasting before you begin:
• Most podcasts use music at the beginning and end of each episode; you're encouraged, but not required to add music.  (I know the technology can be tricky, and I realize we're beginners!)  Free, legal music is available at http://www.podsafeaudio.com and http://ccmixter.org.
• Many podcasts take the form of interviews; you may do this if you wish. 
• Many podcasters also write out scripts in advance to help them sound less uncertain.
• For an example of an instructional podcast, visit http://odeo.com/channels/140428-Grammar-Girl-s-Quick-and-Dirty-Tips-for-Better-Writing.  Many other can be found by poking around PodBean or searching in iTunes.
• I know this can be a scary assignment!  Feel free to contact me with questions or problems, but as always, I'd also like you to try finding answers to your questions online.  You can do it!

CQ Researcher

This is a unique database to which our library subscribes, which allows any USF student to access the information it provides for free.  According to the site, it is a collection of "12,000-word reports," each of which "is researched and written by a seasoned journalist. The consistent, reader-friendly organization provides researchers with an introductory overview; background and chronology on the topic; an assessment of the current situation; tables and maps; pro/con statements from representatives of opposing positions; and bibliographies of key sources."  These reports can be browsed by topic (using the left-hand navigation bar); for this project, you are interested in anything found under the "Science and Technology" section and all of its subsections.

From a computer on campus, you can access CQ Researcher easily: simply head to http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/.  If you're off campus, you'll have to access it by first heading to the USF library site and logging in there (in the upper left-hand corner of the library home page, or by accessing the library’s page through Blackboard) and then accessing CQ Researcher from the library's site.  Otherwise, the database won't know that you have a right to access its materials.  Here's what to do:

• Head to Blackboard.  Click the “USF Libraries” tab in the upper tab, and then click “Tampa Library.”
• You’ll be on the library’s home page, and you’ll be automatically logged into the library site (because you accessed it through Blackboard).
• Click “Databases by Title/Subject” (because you know the name of the database you want).
• Type “CQ Researcher” in the box and click “Go.”  Click “CQ Researcher.”
• You’re in!  Now you can click “Browse by Topic” in the left-hand bar to get to the “Science and Technology” reports.

Peer Review Guidelines

Writing doesn't happen in a vacuum.  As you know, writers in any context need to take into account the intersections between their purpose and the needs of their audience.  But here's the problem: sometimes we focus on a piece of writing for so long that we start to forget what it will sound like to an outsider.  That's one purpose of the multiple drafts you write in this class--to hear the immediate reactions of someone who isn't you.

That's also the purpose of this peer review exercise: to help you hear how others respond to your writing.  Each time you write your second draft of a major essay, you'll upload it to Google Docs for two other people to read and response to.  Your groups will change each time; you can find your group for each project in the folder for that project on the Assignments tab. 

My hope is that after everyone in your peer review group reads each others' essays, you'll have some answers to those difficult questions that are so hard for us to answer ourselves sometimes: Am I making sense?  Do I sound convincing?  What am I doing best?  What holes have I left--in logic, possible sources, or kindness? 

Here are the guidelines: