1. Course expectations, rules, grading
CS 2315
Course expectations, rules, grading

2. How to contact instructor - 1
The office hours are the best way to contact me in person. Meetings may be scheduled in advance if office hours are not suitable.
Anything told by us orally in the hallways or after class must be confirmed in writing, as the instructors cannot remember every rule or communication.
If something slips through the cracks, remind us by .

3. TRACS
Assignments are to be turned in on TRACS, except news articles and some in-class quizzes.
In case of conflict between the TRACS deadline and a deadline elsewhere on the course webpages or class announcement, TRACS takes precedence. Contact us right away if you notice discrepancies.
Watch out for 0's on your assignments, and notify us in a timely manner.

4. Assignments & Exams One homework assignment (long) News articles
Final term paper components
Presentation
In-class quizzes
Two exams – one midterm and one final

5. Rationale for the rules
We have many students, and need the rules to be strict so as to be as fair as possible, and not to overburden the instructor staff.

6. Homework guidelines
The information for how to do each assignment is on TRACS. Read the instructions carefully, and re-read them when you are just going to turn in your work.

7. Deadlines, slip days
One news article and one in-class quiz may be skipped with no excuse. The lowest score will be anyway dropped.
Interviews, university sponsored activities, and health reasons are not handled separately. Turn in your work early, if required.
Prolonged health or family emergency absences will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

8. Missed homework and project components
All (long) homework assignments will be counted.
For anything turned in on-line, one day’s delay past the deadline might be accepted, for a 50% penalty. This does not apply to in-class quizzes.
The best strategy is to finish your homework early if you anticipate a problem around the deadline.

9. Grading disputes
Grading issues or disputes must be brought to our attention in writing within five days of the grades being released. Be specific about your cause of dispute.
Regrades will be strict, and your score may go down.

10. Grading Rubrics
Read the rubrics carefully, including the longer descriptions.
Remember that grading written work is partly subjective – we hope that if you lose some, you will also win some.

11. Computer use in class
Please do not use computer devices in class, unless you have prior permission from the instructor.
If you want to check up on something we are discussing, you may look something up. You are required then to share what you found.

12. What we expect from written work
Follow the instructions as to word count or paragraph count.
Go beyond the very minimum. Excellence counts. Essays are not computer programs that have to barely meet specs.
Research and citations are expected for all long homeworks and for the project.
Use standard citation format (any of them), including inline citations. Points will be deducted for URL's listed without proper formatting.

13. Editing your work Make a printed copy of your work.
Read your work out aloud, making or noting down corrections on paper.
Re-read your work a day after writing it.
Double-check with the grading rubric.
Check for header, name etc.

14. Thesis statement
The thesis statement is that sentence or two in your text that contains the focus of your essay and tells your reader what the essay is going to be about.
Revisit your thesis statement after your essay is done.
Make sure it is comprehensive and complete.
Rephrase thesis statements like "In this paper, we show …".
Such statements, however, are better than no thesis statements.

15. Which is the thesis statement?
What has happened to the American male? For a long time, he seemed utterly confident in his manhood, sure of his masculine role in society, easy and definite in his sense of sexual identity. The frontiersmen of James Fenimore Cooper, for example, never had any concern about masculinity; they were men, and it did not occur to them to think twice about it. Even well into the twentieth century, the heroes of Dreiser, of Fitzgerald, of Hemingway remain men. But one begins to detect a new theme emerging in some of these authors, especially in Hemingway: the theme of the male hero increasingly preoccupied with proving his virility to himself. And by mid-century, the male role had plainly lost its rugged clarity of outline. Today men are more and more conscious of maleness not as a fact but as a problem. The ways by which American men affirm their masculinity are uncertain and obscure. There are multiplying signs, indeed, that something has gone badly wrong with the American male's conception of himself.

16. Which is the thesis statement?
What has happened to the American male? For a long time, he seemed utterly confident in his manhood, sure of his masculine role in society, easy and definite in his sense of sexual identity. The frontiersmen of James Fenimore Cooper, for example, never had any concern about masculinity; they were men, and it did not occur to them to think twice about it. Even well into the twentieth century, the heroes of Dreiser, of Fitzgerald, of Hemingway remain men. But one begins to detect a new theme emerging in some of these authors, especially in Hemingway: the theme of the male hero increasingly preoccupied with proving his virility to himself. And by mid-century, the male role had plainly lost its rugged clarity of outline. Today men are more and more conscious of maleness not as a fact but as a problem. The ways by which American men affirm their masculinity are uncertain and obscure. There are multiplying signs, indeed, that something has gone badly wrong with the American male's conception of himself.

17. Which of the lines A, B, C or D in the next page is the thesis statement?

18. Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language—so the argument runs—must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes. Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written. A B C D E

19. Ethical analysis in your writing
Include ethical analysis in your writing where appropriate.
The Research and Analysis part of the grading rubric may not explicitly state ethical analysis.

20. Citations
In general, you must include references/citations in your homework. You will not be specifically instructed about this.