Diploma in Communications and Public Relations Course Syllabus CPR.

0005 Credit: 12 Hours

Instructor: E-mail: Jane Doe janedoe@yahoo.ca All contact should be done by email, except for extraordinary conditions. For emergency use only: 514-000-0000 Students may leave a short message which includes their name, student number and a contact phone number if necessary. Office Hours: By appointment Room xoxo Normally appointments will be made immediately after class on Wednesdays from 11:30 to 1:00. Wednesdays 08:45-11:30 online and TBA Wednesday, September 9th, 2013 or continuous continuous...

Business Writing for Communications and Public Relations

Phone:

Course Time: Location: Starting Date: Final Class: NOTE:

When contacting the instructor or TA by e-mail for any purpose, PLEASE be sure to properly identify yourself: put your STUDENT NUMBER in the subject line and end your message with your FULL NAME. A message from tinpotdictator@hotmail.com is NOT helpful to us in locating you. Students whose messages do not include their student

numbers may not receive a response. Please DO NOT e-mail the instructor to request your grade in this course. Final grades will be posted online and entered into each students dossier. Students MUST use the course e-mail address as noted above, when contacting the instructor AND NO OTHER. Messages to any other address will not receive a response. Students with disabilities must register at Access Services (Department for Students with Disabilities) on campus should they wish any specific accommodation regarding their disability. Disabled students are responsible for the arrangement of their own exams should they wish to take them at the Department for Students with Disabilities. Should a disabled student require specific assistance in class, please feel free to notify the TA of your needs. September 20th, 2013 is the last day to withdraw with a full refund and without academic penalty. (DNE) September 21st, 2013 is the last day to register for this course. November 2nd, 2013 is the last day for academic withdrawal from this course. (DISC) Religious Holidays: Concordia University and your professor are dedicated to respecting the religious beliefs and holy days of students and faculty. To your professors knowledge, the religious holy days which occur on dates of this course are: -September 16th, 2013: Lailat al Kadr (Islam) -September 23rd, 2013: Navaratri (Hindu) -November 25th, 2013: Hajj (Islam) November 25th is the date of the final exam in this course. For all Islamic students, who will be missing class on November 25th, there will be a makeup date established. Students for whom these are religious holy days in which you normally celebrate, absences for these dates will not be counted. Please be sure to notify the TA as soon as possible regarding your upcoming absence on these dates. Remember, it is not acceptable that you simply do not show up on these dates. You must notify us of your intentions not to show up for this class in advance. Please note that your professor, should he deem it necessary, is free to request/insist upon confirmation regarding your religious commitment from a local, recognized religious leader. If you are a student whose worship requires them to miss a class other than the ones noted above, please be sure to notify the TA of this matter. Required texts: Notes and handouts posted on course Moodle site

Business Writing (Eunson) 2012 Elements of Style (Strunk and White) can be found online

Course Description This course focuses on the business aspect of writing in diverse formats. Models of writing are presented and applied in different contexts in a practical fashion. Theoretical material of the course will be applied in practical manners and workshops devoted to an end of course practicum which synthesizes course knowledge. Starting with a quick review of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style," this course is designed to help the student understand and apply writing skills in a variety of formats. Practical applications include writing organizational emails, memos, reports and assessments, press releases, web content culminating in a practicum of writing either a basic business plan or industry white paper. Thus, the primary objective of this course is to provide the student with an understanding of: Organizational Writing - Interoffice Memos, Emails, Reports & Assessments, Press Releases Research and Documentation Web Content and Promotion Basic Business Plan Writing White Paper Analyses and Assessments Practicum: Mini White Paper or Rough Business Plan

The approach to learning and teaching in the classroom will involve lectures. However, students will have opportunities in the classroom to learn experientially by participating in large and small group discussions. Students are encouraged to interact both as individual contributors and questioners so that they are active participants in their learnings. Professors Goals This is considered an introductory course in Business Writing for Communications and Public Relations. Your professors goal is to help students learn to think in a disciplined and academic manner. Students are encouraged to use research, readings and their studies to help refine their understanding of the subject material. The professor hopes to teach students to begin to think as a Business Writer. Wild speculation although inevitable in an introductory course, seldom brings about a rich understanding of human interaction.

If you have taken this course in order to learn how to manipulate others, prove you are right, or convince others they should think exactly like youyou will probably have difficulties with this course. This course is about students gaining an in-depth understanding of how human systems work and how to help the individuals within those systems resolve their problems, and achieve an optimal working environment. It is not your professors goal or intention to convince you to believe in one theory or another. Rather, it is his goal to help you gain an introductory understanding of various theories and a disciplined way of thinking so that you might use them and develop them in the future. Students Responsibilities Students are responsible to attend class, read the assigned materials, and participate in class activities and discussions. This is a University course, not High School or CEGEP. As you look around, you can see this is a large class of 150 students. Attention-seeking and disruptive behaviour are not acceptable here. For further details about the matters addressed here, please be sure to read the document entitled Course Outline Supplement One in our course Moodle site. Experiential Learning The department accents what we call experiential learning. This is not experimental learning; it is experiential learning. That is, learning by doing. For example, in medical school, law school, engineering, etc. students are often presented with actual cases which they must attend to. As in medical school, young students will go on rounds with a doctor, gather symptoms of a patient, and make an educated speculation on a diagnoses and course of treatment. In law school, students go through Moot court where two panels of students must take on opposite sides of a case and argue a case before their classmates and professor. Learning by doing helps integrate theoretical and academic information. Think about it for a minute, would you like to fly in an airliner with a pilot who had only studied the principles and physics of aviation but had never actually been in a cockpit or flown a plane before? In this course you will in small groups work on projects and then discuss your groups findings in class as part of your learning. You must discuss and interact with fellow students and at times present to the class as a whole. Once again, I remind you that this is a University course, comments such as Im too shy to speak up or talk with others, must be left behind in high school. Course Objectives Swiss theorist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) stressed the importance of disequilibrium (a sense of being unbalanced and/or uncomfortable) in the learning process. This sense of disequilibrium motivates people to develop cognitively, and this development is an

important goal for each student. For this reason, the course will work at the learning edge as this is part of the educational process.

In this course you will have opportunities to: develop, practice, and improve business writing skills link your observations of writing to models of business writing at times, contribute your observations, analyses, and comments on business writing to create a pool of shared knowledge with other members of your discussion group and class as a whole demonstrate an understanding of developmental processes within and behind the business writing process.

This course will challenge you and your beliefs, and it will require reflection, insight, and a fair amount of hard work. The goals of this course are for you to develop your observational and diagnostic skills within systems; to acquire skills in appropriate participation and interventions in groups and human systems; and to acquire an understanding of the theoretical concepts behind systems and relevant forms of interventions within human systems. This course makes use of experiential learning and in this course you will learn about systems: how they work, what helps them work and function; and what interferes with a systems functioning. All students are personally responsible for any materials or lecture notes from classes they may miss. All materials missed from class may be gathered from a fellow student. OR You may access course material from the university website. To access materials from this course online do the following: Step 1: Go to: our website and log on with your student NetName and Password. Step 2: Select Course Websites from the menu near top of the screen on the left. Step 3: Select the submenu item named: Powered by Moodle This will bring you to www.ourwebsite.com Step 4: Select the course: Bus.000 (just an example)

Course Requirements NOTE Each class will have a sign-in AND sign-out sheet. Students who have signed in and not signed out or the reverse will not be considered to have attended that class. In addition, students who sign in and then leave the class for an extended period (more than 15 minutes) only to return later in order to sign out will not be considered as having attended that class. Important note: Students must sign in and sign out for themselves. As this is part of the course requirements, if you have another student sign-in or sign-out for you, this is an academic fraud and will be dealt with by your professor accordingly. Both students involved in this matter are responsible for the fraud, and therefore are equally responsible. If you dont wish to attend class regularly, then attend another course. Signin sheets will be withdrawn 15 minutes after the start of each class. Students who miss more than 3 classes are responsible to make an appointment with the professor in order to discuss their circumstances. Students who have missed four or more classes may need to apply for a medical withdrawal or may be required to retake the course. 1. Attendance and Participation (10%) Due to this courses emphasis on class lectures and experiential learning, which will involve working with other students in the classroom, it is important that students participate and attend in class. Students may miss one class as a day of grace. Any student who misses more than one class in this term will need to present a medical certificate or other appropriate documentation to be eligible for full class attendance credit. If a student does produce a medical certificate, the certificate must be dated on the day the student missed class, plus or minus two days. It must also identify that the student attended the clinic for specific treatment and that treatment was given. Certificates which merely say the student was ill on a given date without addressing that the student has received treatment for an illness, will not be considered valid. For every day missed after the one day of grace, a student will not be given 5 points to a total of 10 points for 2 days absence. Obviously, one cannot participate if they are not in attendance. There will be a total of three exams for this course:

2. Exam 1 (15%)

October 7th, 2013, 08:45-09:45

The test will consist of multiple choice, fill in the blank, and short answer items on theories and material presented up to this point. There will be class after the exam.

3. Exam 2 (20%)

November 4th, 2013 08:45-10:15

The test will consist of multiple choice, fill in the blank, and short answer items on theories and material presented on October 7th through to October 28th inclusively. There will be class after the exam. 4. Final Exam (25%) November 25th, 2013 08:45-10:15

The test will consist of multiple choice, fill in the blank, and short answer items on theories and material presented on November 4th through to November 18th inclusively. There will be no class after the exam. 5. Learning Paper (5%) Due last day of class (December 2nd) by 9:00AM

All students are required to write a one page paper in bullet form entitled My Learnings. Be sure to include your name and student number. You must list a series of learnings which fill one complete page. Each bullet is to refer to a separate idea. The bullets are to be 2 spaces/lines apart. Not more, not less, and students are to use font size 12 when writing this paper. This paper must be original work and reflect your personal learnings. To copy the work from a fellow student will be considered plagiarism and seen as an academic fraud. This paper must be submitted twice (2): once to the course email address by 9:00 on December 2nd and the second time on hard copy in class on the morning of December 2nd. This is not a difficult requirement and is considered by your professor a relatively easy way to earn 5%. However, this paper must be handed in on time, be a full page and contain viable learnings in order to receive full credit. Be advised, excuses such as my printer ran out of ink, my internet went down, my computer crashed, etc. will not be seen as acceptable excuses. Theres no reason why students must wait until the last minute to submit this paper. You could easily submit and print it several days in advance. 6. Practicum Presentation (25%) December 2nd, 2009

In small groups (4-6 students) you will present a practicum presentation. Your presentation will involve theories, practice and interventions either a business plan or a business white paper. Details of this Practicum Presentation will be addressed in a separate document. Presentations are considered by your professor as part of the course and therefore attendance by all students is mandatory. Policy on missed exam or presentation

Should a student miss the exam or presentation, he/she needs to provide a medical certificate or other appropriate documentation to be considered by your professor as an exceptional case. Examples of unacceptable reasons for missing an exam or presentation are, I slept in, I had to work or I drove my mother to the airport. In such a case, the student will unfortunately receive zero for that exam or presentation. If a student is considered an exceptional case by the professor, they may be asked to take a supplemental exam or his/her next exam/test/presentation may be increased in value by the number of points from the missed exam or a paper on an assigned topic may be requested. These are some of the options available to course instructor. He is not limited to these options and the choice of option is at his discretion. Professors Notes It is important that students understand that your professor is not required to post his notes online or give them to the students in any manner. Somehow students have developed the false belief that they have a right to the professors notes. You do not have any such right. One ploy students often try with a professor in order to receive his/her notes is to say, all my other professors do it. This does not work with me. I am 53 years old. I have taken countless courses and have completed a Bachelors, a Masters and a Ph.D. Through all my years of study, I have never, never been given my professors notes. And by the way I have a visual impairment, which makes reading very labour intensive. At the same time I do wish to help my students learn. However, I also wish them to read the given materials in their original form, and not merely go over my notes in order to prepare for an exam. Therefore, I may post my notes so as to assist your learning, but be clear I am not required to do so and I probably will do this after class so as to encourage you to first read the materials at hand. Grading Scheme The following chart shows the conversion of letter grades to percentages to grade points. Final grades are based on this scheme. Outstanding 904.3 A+ 100 0 4.0 A 85-89 0 3.7 A- 80-84 0 Very Good 76B+ 79 73B 75 70B72 Average 66C+ 69 63C 65 60C62 Marginal Pass 56D+ 1.30 59 53D 1.00 55 50D0.70 52

3.3 0 3.0 0 2.7 0

2.3 0 2.0 0 1.7 0

Grades As Evaluated By the Standards Of Our Institute

A = Outstanding - Work which is conspicuous by way of its excellence. Remarkable work which is above and beyond a simple completion of the course requirements. Work which shows a depth of understanding and/or integrates theory in a unique and profound manner, often this work teaches your professor something new. B = Very Good - This is work which has met all the course requirements and at a level commensurate with quality university work. C = Average - This work is consistent with a level of performance that most university students can and do meet. This work meets most or all of the course requirements, but does not demonstrate a depth of understanding above the average student. D = Marginal Pass - This is work which has met some of the course requirements and not at a level commensurate with satisfactory university work. F = Fail - Work which has not met most if any of the course requirements. Additionally the work done is at a very poor level and not consistent to university standards. Please, there is to be no use of CELL PHONES or TEXT MESSAGING during class or group meetings; this is simply distracting to you and other students. Students found by the professor or T.A to be texting or on the phone during class, will be considered as not having attended the class. Important note on Plagiarism/Cheating Plagiarism/Cheating and copying work from a fellow student in an exam is an academic offence that is handled very seriously by the Institute Article 21 of the Code of Conduct (Academic) states: 21 An instructor who, in the course of grading a students work or through any other means has reasonable grounds to believe that a student in the instructors course or working under his or her direction has committed a non-examination related offence shall complete a Code of Conduct (Academic) Incident Report (Incident Report). The instructor shall forward the Incident Report to the Dean as defined in article 7 of this Code. The instructor may not, on his or her own authority, impose a sanction on the student. Pending the outcome of any proceedings under this Code, the instructor shall withhold the grade for the course, if applicable. PLEASE DO NOT PLAGIARIZE/CHEAT! We have no discretion as to how to handle any such case, and a student is putting a significant risk on his/her academic success.