Classroom activities will encourage students to develop a critical awareness of the principles of clear and correct prose. Although brief lectures will focus the aims of each unit, most sessions will be workshop-oriented and will emphasize:
- writing activities
- discussion and assessment of student writing
- discussion of ways to revise and improve written products
- rewriting activities.
Students will work in small study groups, learning to assess the effectiveness of one another’s writing and to recommend strategies for organization and for revision.
Students will acquire these skills by performing a variety of writing tasks to prepare them for future workplace related writing activities. Students will:
- write routine letters such as
- a.requests for information
- b.responses to request for information
- write memoranda which
- a.instruct
- b.report
- write summaries of field-related readings
- write descriptions of phenomena or mechanisms
- explain data or processes
- complete preparatory writing exercises.
Successful students should be able to undertake the more complex writing tasks required in CMNS 1110, 1111, and 1115 or English 1130.
Special Course Objectives
By the end of the course, successful students will have developed proficiency in writing skills allowing them to
- write coherent paragraphs
- organize data in accurate and coherent form
- show logical connections between assertions
- write grammatically correct sentences
- choose words appropriate to the writing task
- spell correctly
- summarize field-related readings
- write business correspondence and memoranda in appropriate format
- use library resources effectively and efficiently
- gather data from firsthand observation
- distinguish between fact and opinion
- submit assignments in a neat and legible form that considers readers’ needs.
Evaluation will be based on this general breakdown:
| Letters (3) | 15% |
| Memoranda (2) | 20% |
| Summaries (2) | 20% |
| Description | 10% |
| Explanations | 10% |
| Tests/Quizzes/Exercises | 15% |
| Preparedness and participation | 10% |
| 100% |
The instructor will choose a suitable textbook. Possible choices are as follows:
The Brief English Handbook. Dornan & Dawe
Writing Fundamentals. J. T. Lyons
Canadian Business English. Mary E. Guffey & P. Burke
The Bare Essentials. S. Norton & B. Green
The Least You Should Know About English. T. F. Glazier
The Reluctant Writer. Mann & Roberts
Impact. Mary Northey
Satisfactory result on College Writing Assessment or substitution / equivalent as stated in College Calendar.
Courses listed here must be completed either prior to or simultaneously with this course:
- No corequisite courses
Courses listed here are equivalent to this course and cannot be taken for further credit:
- No equivalency courses