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The focus of Grammar and Style (ETWR 1372) is clear, succinct, effective writing for the workplace. The centerpiece of this course is Joseph M. Williams' Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace (8th edition), which we study intensively for most of the semester. During the early weeks of this course, you study —on your own outside of class—parts of speech, parts of the sentence, types of phrases and clauses, grammar and usage rules, and punctuation as indicated by diagnostics quizzes. Developing a reasonable familiarity with grammar terminology will enable you to understand the units on the Williams book, analyze writing styles, and improve your own writing.
| Most of the links on this page have been removed. If you need more detail, contact hcexres@io.com. |
| Semester/year |
Spring 208 |
| Instructor |
— |
| Class meetings |
Online-only class |
| Office |
Northridge 4216 |
| Office hours |
M 3:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m., TTh 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m., and by apptmt. (Always call before driving all the way out to Northridge Campus.) |
| Phone |
— |
| E-mail |
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Getting organized. During the first week of classes, please review the schedule, policies, objectives, and requirements for this course. Fill out an online questionnaire and write a brief personal memo that will be posted on our course website so we can all get know each other! At least once a month we'll talk in the course chatroom. We will need to agree on a day and time. To get started with the course, let's focus on what this course is about and by discussing grammar, style, usage, and good writing.
| Readings: |
Read Handbook for Technical Writing, James H. Shelton, Section 1 The Style of Technical Writing 1.1 through 1.4
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| Activities: |
Fill out the questionnaire—Jan. 18
Write the personal memo—Jan. 18
See the personal memos
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| Journal: |
Journal entry 1: Why are you here? Explain that in your online journal; why are you taking this course?—Jan. 22.
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Style, correctness, good writing. Let's start out by getting a grip on what we want to do in this course: focus on what makes some writing good and other writing bad. Let's put things like grammar and correctness into perspective.all in terms of the real goal, which is good writing. Read the first two Williams chapters carefully on issues involving writing style, correctness, and good writing. Be ready to discuss these issues in the chatroom. (And, just to be sure, remember that our focus is professional writing in the workplace—not journalistic or fiction writing.)
| Readings: |
Read Williams, Chapter 1, "Understanding Style"—Jan. 25
Read Handbook for Technical Writing by James H. Shelton, Section 1.5: Clarity—Jan. 25
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Style, correctness, good writing—continued.
| Readings: |
Read Williams, Chapter 2, "Correctness"—Jan. 30
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| Online discussion: |
Discuss style, correctness, good/bad writing in the chatroom—Jan. (7:00 p.m.).
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| Journal: |
Journal entry 2: Summarize the chatroom discussion and your additional thoughts on Williams' definitions of style, correctness, effective writing—Feb. 5.
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Grammar checkup. Take a 50-item diagnostic that checks how well you know (or remember) parts of speech, parts of the sentence, and types of phrases and clauses. Based on your individual results, the diagnostic sets up a page of links to readings and exercises for you. You'll have until the date shown below to complete this work.
Project 1. For this course to be of greater value to you, you need to do some writing of your own—rather than simply critique and revise the sentences of others.
| Writing/revising project: |
Start thinking about Project 1—Feb. 18.
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Nominalizations, weak be verbs, characters and subjects. Nominalizations of actions, reliance on be verbs, disjunctions between subjectsand characters—these are all a related nest of problems that drain the life and directness out of writing. These problems plague business, technical, and scientific writing.
| Readings: |
Read Williams, Chapter 3, "Actions"—Feb. 7
Read Handbook for Technical Writing, 1.6 When to Use the Past and Present Tense, 1.7 Conciseness—Feb. 8
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| Online meeting: |
We'll get you started on the Williams chapter 3 exercises in the chatroom—Feb. 7 (7:00 p.m.).
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| Activities: |
To get some practice identifying and revising sentences with weak be verbs, do these online exercises (we'll start them in the chatroom):
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Passive voice, noun stacks. Weak passive-voice constructions and noun stacks create wordy, dense, unclear writing. These problems plague technical and scientific writing in particular.
| Readings: |
Read Williams, Chapter 4, "Characters"—Feb. 14
Handbook for Technical Writing, Section 2.1 The Process of Technical Writing: Six Steps for Success —Feb. 14
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| Online meeting: |
We'll get you started on the Williams chapter 4 exercises in the chatroom chatroom—Feb. 15 (7:00 p.m.).
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| Activities: |
To get some practice identifying and revising sentences with weak passive voice, do these online exercises (we'll start them in the chatroom):
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Passive voice, noun stacks—continued.
| Projects: |
Project 1. Time to turn in project 1.
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| Activities: |
Complete grammar-diagnostic units—February 11. (Use the link to your own results on this diagnostic.)
Grammar-usage checkup. Take another 50-item diagnostic that checks how well you know (or remember) rules of grammar, usage, and punctuation. Based on your individual results, the diagnostic sets up a page of links to readings and exercises for you. You'll have until the date shown below to complete this work.
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| Online meeting: |
chatroom—Feb. 21 (7:00 p.m.).
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Content, organization, transitions (cohesion). Learn some techniques for developing discussions fully (adding content), checking and revising organization, and evaluating transitions and strengthening them. Learn Williams's techniques for evaluating transitions and strengthening them.
| Readings: |
Handbook for Technical Writing, Section 2.2-2.6—Feb. 27
Read Williams, Chapter 5, "Cohesion and Coherence"—Feb. 27
Use the readings available in Study resources: transitions—Feb. 27
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| Online meeting: |
We'll get you started doing the Williams chapter 5 exercises in the chatroom—Feb. 28.
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| Activities: |
To get some practice improving coherence, do these online exercises (we'll start them in the chatroom):
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Journal entry 3. Explain in your own words some of the important concepts you've been reading about in Joseph M. Williams' Style.
Project 2. Same idea—do some writing of your own in which you write clearly, succinctly, directly!
| Writing/revising project: |
Start thinking about Project 2—Mar. 31.
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Punctuation exercises. Get some practice with commas, semicolons, italics, and quotation marks.
| Readings: |
Handbook for Technical Writing, Section 3—Mar. 6
Read Williams, Chapter 6, "Emphasis"—Mar. 6
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Journal entry 4 Explain in your own words some of the important concepts you've been reading about in Joseph M. Williams' Style.
Often-confused words and wordy phrases. Make sure you are familiar with these!
Emphasis. Learn some techniques for achieving the right emphasis in sentences and avoiding sentences that sound like flat tires.
| Activities: |
Same routine with these exercises:
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Spring break!
Wordiness, redundancy, conciseness. Another important area of problems in business, technical, and scientific writing has to do with wordy set phrases.phrases that use multiple words when one word would do.
| Readings: |
Handbook for Technical Writing, Section 4—Mar. 20
Read Williams, Chapter 7,"Concision"—Mar. 20
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| Online meeting: |
We'll get you started doing the Williams chapter 7 exercises in the chatroom—Mar. 20 (7:00 p.m.).
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| Activities: |
Same routine with these exercises:
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Sentence-diagnostic units. Remember that your recommended units on grammar, usage,and punctuation are due this week.
| Activities: |
Complete punctuation units from the grammar-usage-punctuation diagnostic—Mar. 31. (Use the link to your own results on this diagnostic.)
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Projects. Remember that project 2 is due next week.
Journal entry. Explain in your own words some of the important concepts you've been reading about in Joseph M. Williams' Style.
Online meeting
| Online meeting: |
chatroom—Mar. 27 (7:00 p.m.).
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Project 2. Time to turn in project 2.
| Writing/revising project: |
Turn in Project 2—Mar. 31.
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Long interrupters, long introductions, long subjects, and sprawl. These writing problems Williams puts into the category of "shape." Fixing problems like these makes sentences much clearer and easier to read.
| Readings: |
Read Williams, Chapter 8, "Shape"—Apr. 3
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| Online meeting: |
We'll get you started doing the Williams chapter 8 exercises in the chatroom—Apr. 3 (7:00 p.m.).
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| Activities: |
Same routine with these exercises:
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Project 3. One last chance to write something that avoids wordiness, unnecessary passive voice, unnecessary expletives, awkward nominalizations, pompous word choice, and redundancies!
| Writing/revising project: |
Start thinking about Project 3—May 9.
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| Readings: |
Read Williams, Chapter 9, "Elegance"—Apr. 10
Handbook for Technical Writing, Section 5—Apr. 10
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| Journal: |
Journal entry 6—Apr. 12.
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| Online meeting: |
Online meeting—Apr. 10 (7:00 p.m.).
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| Activities: |
Same routine with these exercises:
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| Readings: |
Handout to be made available.—Apr. 18
Read Williams, Chapter 10, "Motivating Coherence"—Apr. 18
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| Online meeting: |
Online meeting—Apr. 17 (7:00 p.m.).
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| Readings: |
Read Williams, Chapter 11, "Global Coherence"—Apr. 24
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| Online meeting: |
Online meeting—Apr. 24 (7:00 p.m.)
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| Journal: |
Journal entry 7—Apr. 26
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| Readings: |
Read Williams, Chapter 12, "The Ethics of Style"—Apr. 28
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Project 3. Remember project 3 is due next week.
| Writing/revising project: |
Turn in Project 3—May 9.
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