Course Description: This course is designed to provide students with the knowledge required to successfully undertake a technical writing project, e.g. produce a journal article or geologic report.  This is a "hands-on" course involving assignments that provide students with experience researching, writing, editing, and preparing (computer publishing) technical writing materials.  The class is intended both to give you practice writing -- in hopes of improving your prose -- and to familiarize you with the concepts and techniques of geotechnical writing.

General course information: a separate, online document

Grading scale (%)
 

A	>= 90	B-	82.9-80.0	C-	72.9-70.0	D-	62.9-60.0
B+	89.9-87.0	C+	79.9-77.0	D+	69.9-67.0	F	< 60
B	86.9-83.0	C	76.9-73.0	D	66.9-63.0

Grading criteria: Each week there will be independent exercises to perform and to submit based on the posted schedule on this website. All assignments are posted online and you should be able to complete them with little or no input from me. If you have questions, feel free to email me or meet with me during my office hours to discuss the assignment.
    The class culminates with a research project involving production of a brief (1500 word) research paper.  This project requires that you combine virtually every writing technique covered in the class. The final project is worth 30 points.
    Weekly assignments will each be awarded a grade ranging from 0 to 10 points, unless otherwise indicated. Your score will be based on the quality of your work, as well as whether or not you met the due date for the assignment. For each day that your assignment is late, I will deduct 1 pt. from your score.

NOTE: You will not necessarily have an entire week to complete each assignment. In this case, you will usually have a day or two to complete the assignment and then will leave it in the file cabinet in KOM 300, a D2L "drop box" associated with the class, or e-mail it to me.  This should not strike you as particularly unusual since many laboratory classes, for example, require that you complete work during class for submission at the end of the period.  This way I can look it over and get results back to you more rapidly than would be possible otherwise.

Textbook: The (suggested) text for the course is:  Geowriting - A guide to writing, editing, and printing in Earth Science:  (5th ed.), R. L. Bates, M. D. Adkins-Heljeson, R. C. Buchanan, 1995, Alexandria, VA, American Geological Institute, 138 p.  Your instructor chose this text ("BAB") for two reasons: (1) because it provides useful general information on geotechnical writing and (2) because it will familiarize you with how materials are prepared for publication -- critical if you intend to go on and publish in the geosciences. It is not a required text, but rather a suggestion for those who will be doing writing in graduate school or in professional employment (in other words, for nearly everyone).

To save you money, rather than requiring that you purchase a copy, I will place my own personal copy in the file cabinet KOM300. Please ensure that it remains there for the use of others.

You would derive the most benefit from reading the materials BEFORE attempting the associated writing assignments (with the exception of the first two weeks).

Week 1: Introduction to Library and Library Services; Electronic Databases: MTSU Voyager, GeoRef, etc. (BAB, Chpt. 10, 16)

Week 2: Introduction to Technical Writing (BAB, Chpt. 1 -3)

Week 3: Grammar and language usage (BAB, Chpt. 4, 9)

Week 4: Proof reading and editing (BAB, Chpt. 11)

Week 5: Preparing Annotations

Week 6: Abstracts and abstracting (BAB, Chpt. 6)

Week 7: Outlines and Outlining; Outlining software

Week 8: Citing references, Preparing a bibliography; Bibliographic software (BAB, Chpt. 5)

Week 9: Preparing figures for presentation and publication; Graphics software (BAB, Chpt. 7/8)

Week 10: Technical articles vs. technical reports - content and format

Weeks 11-12: Independent research project and geotechnical report preparation (BAB, Chpt. 15)