WRD 104 focuses on the kind of academic writing that uses information drawn from research to shape convincing, defensible arguments. As the second part of the two-course sequence in first-year writing, WRD 104 reinforces and extends students' ability to deal with the variable relationships between writer, reader, and subject in the specific context of academic research and argumentation. This course is part of the university Liberal Studies core, and students must achieve a grade of C- or better to receive graduation credit.
Course Goals. WRD 104 has the following specific goals:
- Students should further develop their conception of writing as an interaction between writer and reader and their ability to analyze their audience's knowledge, assumptions, and disposition.
- Students should develop the ability to read and evaluate the writing of others with accuracy, understanding, and insight.
- Students should develop strategies of effective research, note taking, summarizing, and paraphrasing.
- Students should learn to develop and support convincing arguments from their research.
- Students should learn to incorporate quotations and paraphrased passages into their writing and to document such material with standard scholarly apparatus.
- Students should refine their skill in using the language of academic writing shaped with greater stylistic sophistication, especially in the context of argumentative strategies.
Minimum Course Requirements. Each section of WRD 104 is expected to meet the following minimum expectations for student work:
- Amount of Writing: Students will write at least twelve to fifteen pages of finished material for the course, including at least one formally documented research paper at least six pages (1500 words) long.
- Types of assignment include: Summaries, annotated bibliographies, discovery drafts, researched arguments
- Student Portfolio (and reflective component).
- Summarizing and Paraphrasing: Students will learn and practice strategies of summarizing and paraphrasing other texts as part of or in the context of preparing the research paper.
- Library Resources: Students will complete an exercise in using the resources and technology of the library.
- Drafting and Revising: Students will submit preliminary drafts of at least part of their work for the instructor's review and comment, so that some weight in the final grade is given to the student's skill in developing and revising his or her writing.
- Students will not receive a grade of C- or better if their finished work repeatedly fails to conform to certain basic standards.