Fridays, Noon - 1:20 AM, 200 Deschutes
CRN: 12013, 2 Credits
Web Pages: http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/classes/10F/cis640/
Anthony
Hornof, Associate Professor
356 Deschutes
hornof@cs.uoregon.edu
Office Hours: Tues and Thurs 2:30-3:30 PM, or by appointment
The point of this course is to help CIS graduate students with one of the most important and yet one of the most painful aspects of academic life—writing. Most honest researchers will secretly confide in their closest friends how much they dread writing. But it does not need to be so painful. Writing is a powerful way to communicate your plans, ideas, results, and theories through writing, and to successfully and constructively critique the ideas of other researchers through writing. Through writing, you can win great fame, and millions and millions of dollars in fortune.
The course is intended to work with students wherever they are in their development as a scientific writer, and regardless of whether English is their first or second language. The course is intended to help address the intimidation of writing papers by showing students how to dissect existing published research papers to understand the overall structure, so that students can then apply the same structure, and established writing techniques, to writing their own papers. The course is intended to be fun, not stressful.
Robert A. Day, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 6th edition, Greenwood, 2006.
You are expected to read the assigned chapters and papers before class, take notes when you read, and come to class ready to discuss those chapters, with questions about what you read. Note that the textbook includes a lot of American idioms. If you do not understand something in the book, please ask about it in class.
You will be expected to write, including for live, timed "spontaneous writing" sessions in class during which you write without stopping or editing. You will also be expected to write analyses of papers that you read or, if it would be useful to you, to write analyses of your own writing projects.
All students are expeect to attend and participate in all classes, take notes, and participate in discussions and peer review sessions. You are expected to offer honest and constructive critique of your fellow students' writing, and to work on improving your abilities to elicit and hear feedback from your peers.
Please communicate with the instructor regarding any questions, concerns, suggestions, or problems that you have with regards to any aspect of the class.
You are expected to schedule other events such as trips or job interviews to avoid conflicts with the course. The only acceptable excuses for missing a class are documented medical problems, religious holidays, presenting papers at academic conferences, and documented personal emergencies.
Your final grade will be weighted as follows:
Grades for the course will be determined on the following scale:
90-100% = A
80-89% = B
70-79% = C
60-69% = D
59 and below = F
Assignments submitted late will be subjected to a full letter grade penalty. Assignments will be accepted no more than two calendar days past the due date. Any grading discrepancies (such as a miscounting of points on an assignment) must be resolved within a week after the assignment is returned.
A.Hornof 10/4/2010