The Course Structure

English 102 Online is 16 weeks long, the same as the classes being held face-to-face at Oakton, and  it will follow the same schedule they do in terms of beginning and ending dates, withdrawal deadlines, and so on. The basic scheduling unit is the seven-day week, beginning on Monday.  On Monday, a page containing the week’s activities will be posted to the Content area of the course website under Weekly Lectures & Assignments.  In general, these activities will consist of  (a) reading a  brief, written "lecture,"  (b) reading web-based materials in connection with the week’s topics, (c) working in a collaborative activity in which you will write something (usually) brief and post it to the discussion forum by Thursday or Friday, (d) reading and writing responses to each other’s postings during the period from Thursday through Sunday, and (e) individually completing an assignment or exercise which you are to submit directly to the instructor via e-mail by Sunday.
 
 

The specific content and nature of the individual and collaborative activities will vary from week to week.  In general, individual activities will consist of:

• Quizzes which cover those points of fact and information from course readings which I consider to be essential parts of an effective researcher/writer’s mental tool kit.  
• Activites to brainstorm and refine paper topics which you will sumit through the Dropbox tool.
• Paper drafts  which you will submit through the course e-mail.
  

Collaborative activities

• Even though we won’t be meeting face-to-face or at the same time, we can still have group discussions—and very good ones—in the Discussions area of our Desire2Learn courseware. I will give you questions for which you will prepare responses and post them to the Discussions area, where you can read and respond to each other’s postings.
• Effective writing involves working through several drafts, and peer reviewing is a vital part of that process.  I will assign you a classmate's first draft to comment upon, and the exchange of drafts will take place through the course e-mail.  I know this sounds intimidating at first glance, so let me be clear that you will do this within a framework of guiding questions which I will  provide  and that you will be doing it for the purpose of assisting yourself and your fellow writers in focusing and refining the prose. You will not grade, score, or otherwise evaluate each other's work in a way that directly affects  anyone's course grades.  Students will not "correct" each other's grammar, spelling, or mechanics (in any but the most general and nonjudgmental ways) nor will  you be asked—or allowed—to "play English teacher" (that’s what I get paid for!!) :-> 

• Develop a personal checklist of criteria for evaluating the quality of traditional research sources
• Develop a personal checklist of criteria for evaluating the quality of internet sources
• Write a paper of 2 to 3 pages drawing upon a single research source
• Write a paper of 3 to 5 pages  drawing upon three research sources
• Compile an annotated bibliography of 5 to 7 sources for the final research paper, and 
• Write a 10 to 15 page research paper drawing upon multiple sources and documented according to standard academic conventions and  format. ( Or alternatively, an annotated bibliography of 14 items on a topic of interest which presents opposing viewpoints. Consent of instructor required) 

What You Will Learn

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Choose and evaluate the suitability of a subject area for research
• Narrow a subject area into a topic for research
• Formulate theses and/or research questions about a topic
• Develop a plan for conducting research
• Develop and apply criteria for evaluating the quality of information in print sources
• Develop and apply criteria for evaluating the quality of information in web-based sources
• Conduct searches for internet-based information using search engines
• Conduct searches for information using online periodical indexes and databases
• Conduct searches for books using online library catalogs
• Describe the general basis and organization of the two major library cataloging systems
• Use at least one of these library cataloging systems to locate information
• Identify and evaluate the important and pertinent facts and concepts in a source
• Write summaries and paraphrases of information found in research sources
• Write essays effectively incorporating a variety of  sources
• Integrate quotations, summaries, and paraphrases of sources into your writing
• Define plagiarism and copyright infringement
• Explain the reasons for documenting sources
• Correctly document research sources in a standard format
• Develop effective, logical, and well-supported arguments
• Give constructive feedback to your peers about organization, clarity, content, and style in their writing
• Use constructive feedback from your peers to improve organization, clarity, content, and style in your writing
• Proofread your writing for your own most common errors of spelling, grammar, and syntax
• Revise your writing to improve and increase organization, clarity, content, style, and the use of sources
• Use word processing software as a writing tool

The Quantitative Perspective

The components of your course grade and their relative weights are as follows:
 

Single-source essay	10%
Multiple-source essay	10%
Annotated bibliography	10%
Individual exercises (quizzes, researcher's notebook, etc)	20%
Collaborative activities (group project, discussions, peer                                    reviewing, etc)	20%
Final research paper (see detailed discussion below)	30%
TOTAL	100%

All assignment grades are recorded as percentages, not letter grades, even though you will receive letter grades on the short essays, annotated bibliography, and some other assignments. The table below translates letter grades into percentages:
 
 
 

Letter Grade	Percentage	Letter Grade	Percentage
A+	100%	C	75%
A	95%	C-	72%
A-	92%	D+	68%
B+	88%	D	65%
B	85%	D-	62%
B-	82%	F	50%
C+	78%	0	0%

Course work that is not submitted on time, or does not meet the minimum requirements of the assignment, will receive a Zero (0%) not an F (50%).

For the short papers and annotated bibliography, the arithmetic is pretty straightforward, but what about the individual assignments, collaborative activities, and research paper?

Over the course of the semester, there will be 20 individual exercises and 20 collaborative activities, so they're worth 1% of your course grade apiece. So to translate the table above for these items, just move the decimal point two places to the left.

The following factors (shown with the corresponding percentages of the final course grade) will be considered in evaluating the research paper: 

Evaluation Factor	% of Course Grade
Use of Sources Is there an appropriate balance between the author's own ideas and those drawn from sources? Is there a balance between the use of summary, paraphrase, and quotation? Are quotations used for appropriate purposes? Are summaries, paraphrases, and quotations smoothly integrated into the prose of the research paper?	15%
Use of Documentation Are all the uses of source material documented? Is the number of source citations appropriate - neither too few nor too many? Is the author consistent in the format used for notes and bibliography? Is all the necessary information present in the notes and bibliography, and correctly sequenced and punctuated?	7.5%
Overall Quality of Essay Is the argument or line of reasoning fully and coherently developed? Are paragraphs well developed and sequential? Are there problems with spelling, grammar, syntax and punctuation?	7.5%
TOTAL	30%

OK, so to sum it all up, the table below shows letter grades with equivalent percentages of final course grade for short papers (10% each maximum), individual and collaborative work (1% each maximum), and research paper (30% maximum).
 
 

	%-age of Final Course Grade	%-age of Final Course Grade	%-age of Final Course Grade
Letter Grade	Individual & Collaborative Work	Short Papers & Bibliography	Research Paper
A+	1.0%	10%	30%
A	.95%	9.5%	28.5%
A-	.92%	9.2%	27.6%
B+	.88%	8.8%	26.4%
B	.85%	8.5%	25.5%
B-	.82%	8.2%	24.6%
C+	.78%	7.8%	23.4%
C	.75%	7.5%	22.5%
C-	.72%	7.2%	21.6%
D+	.68%	6.8%	20.4%
D	.65%	6.5%	19.5%
D-	.62%	6.2%	18.6%
F	.5%	5.0%	15.0%
0	0%	0%	0%

Obviously, quality factors are taken into account when assessing writing, as explained in the "Methods of Evaluation" section of the Syllabus, and are incorporated into the numeric scoring system above through the use of letter grades.

But quality of participation is also of great importance, and this grading system is structured to include that also.

You've seen that the individual and collaborative activities combined add up to 40% of the course grade.  These are also the activities which require you to participate by logging in to the course.

One of the factors of high-quality participation is timeliness, and as you saw above, late work does not receive any credit.  So even submitting something that will get you an F is better than submitting nothing at all.  And you'll also see in the "Course Practices Required" section of the Syllabus that submitting the first drafts of either of the short essays or the research paper late will cost you a full letter grade.

Other factors of high-quality participation are frequency and regularity.  You are required to log in to the course 4 times per week.  There are also deadlines each week for submitting exercises and activities, and these are on different days of the week for two reasons.  First, the staggered due dates give you the chance to spread your work for the course more evenly over the week.  Second, the staggered due dates encourage you to develop the good habit of logging in to the course on multiple days each week.