Course Descriptions
ENC 1101 - Introduction to College Writing
This course introduces students to the principal elements of writing
effectively. ENC 1101 focuses on writing rhetorical arguments, building
research skills, and developing critical thinking through reading,
writing, and discussion. Students will learn how to analyze the
strengths and weaknesses of their own and their peers’ writing and will
explore how differing conventions, styles, purposes, and audiences
affect writing practices.
Course Structure
This 3-credit class consists of three discussion sessions per week. Enrollment is limited to 19 students, enabling instructors to involve these students in a writing-focused workshop environment as well as to meet with them individually during the term. Students will have as resources a writing handbook and an anthology that defines various modes of argumentation and illustrates these with examples from contemporary discourse, ranging from writings on gender issues to substance abuse, from censorship to affirmative action. Students are also encouraged to work online with Internet resources and will have access to tutorial support from the University’s Reading and Writing Center and the Online Writing Laboratory (OWL).
Course Objectives and
Outcomes
ENC 1101 will teach students the following:
- To employ the stylistic principles necessary for writing coherent, cohesive, and clear prose
- To understand the goals and use the methods and sources of research in a variety of fields
- To read, write, and think critically
- To be able to evaluate and edit one another’s work constructively
- To navigate the writing process, from planning, drafting, and revising to editing and proofreading
- To shape their writing for different audiences and rhetorical contexts, adapting purpose, style, tone, and diction.
For more information on what skills and objectives are appropriate
in first year composition courses, interested students can go to the "WPA
Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition," developed by the
Council of Writing Program Administrators.
ENC 1102 - Introduction to Argument and Persuasion
ENC 1102 introduces students to techniques of argument in a broad range of disciplines, including the humanities, social sciences, business, and physical and biological sciences. This course focuses on writing clearly and efficiently within the framework of argumentative research writing. Students in ENC 1102 will learn how to formulate a coherent thesis and support it with evidence drawn from research in their various fields. They will also learn how to work through the stages of planning, research, organizing, and revising their writing.
ENC 1102 encourages students to investigate the relationship between
writing and knowledge, and to discover how writing can create, rather
than merely transmit, knowledge. Class lectures and discussions will
reveal the complementary relationship between writing and research and
demonstrate how persuasive techniques vary from discipline to
discipline. Students will learn that writing effectively and correctly
in their fields will help to integrate them as professionals into their
"discourse communities."
Course Structure
This 3-credit class consists of three discussion sessions per week. Enrollment is limited to 19 students, enabling instructors to involve these students in a writing-focused workshop environment as well as to meet with them individually during the term. Students will have as resources a writing handbook and an anthology that emphasizes writing across the curriculum and focuses on the knowledge base and techniques fundamental to research writing. Course assignments build progressively toward the production of the research paper. Students are encouraged to research topics online with Internet resources and will have access to tutorial support from the University’s Reading and Writing Center and the Online Writing Laboratory (OWL).
Course Objectives and
Outcomes
Students of ENC 1102 will learn to
- Evaluate the forms, sources, and focus of research in various fields
- Comprehend the value, purposes, and forms of written texts in the disciplines
- Deploy the discipline-specific conventions of usage, specialized vocabulary, and accepted documentation methods in their fields
- Write persuasively and coherently in a variety of academic styles, voices, and genres
- Integrate their own ideas into the ongoing written conversations in their disciplines
- Think and write about their academic roles, situations, and texts
- Select and consider the use of primary and secondary research and sources, including print and electronic resources.
ENC 3254 - Professional Communication
for Engineering
Professional Communication for Engineers is the study and practice
of how best to convey information to multiple audiences with different
goals and needs. In this class students not only learn how to research,
organize, and present information, but also how to write effectively,
participate in group collaboration, and use various technologies to
support their communication efforts, all in the context of the
profession and study of engineering.
ENC 3254 is designed to help students master a variety of communication
strategies and genres of writing relevant to engineering.
Students will focus primarily on the composition and design of larger
documents such as proposals, instructions, and formal reports using
collaborative writing; they will also compose and design shorter
documents such as memos, letters, resumes, and informal reports--as
well as construct formal presentations.
Students will practice analyzing writing situations in the technical
workplace; then they will use the strategies for audience-analysis,
organization, style, and page layout to develop documents that address
those rhetorical situations. The objective of this course is to help
students learn how to write for the professional engineering community
they will join.
