IW
Intermediate Composition 2 (Higher Intermediate)
- Pukyong National University (Daeyeon Campus)
- Fall 2020
- Course #109820
- Syllabus (revised 2020.09.01)
- Room: C25-530 (allotted room, but not likely used)
- Instructional medium: This course will be conducted with a blend of live Zoom sessions and some uploaded, pre-recorded videos in the LMS. It is unlikely that we will hold live classes in our classroom.
Prof. Kent Lee
- Office: C25-1103
- Office hours: By appointment
Contents
1 Course description
This course is designed mainly for sophomores, juniors and seniors in social science and humanities fields. The goals of the course consist of improving your academic English writing skills, and expressing yourselves better in English. This includes specific skills like:
- Writing different types of paragraphs (definition, classification, narrative, etc.)
- Prewriting techniques
- Using basic sentence types effectively; this includes common second-language issues such as essay structure, style, wording, and grammar issues.
- Developing main ideas, topic sentences, and body paragraphs
1.1 Readings and materials
The textbook for this course is a course packet, which will be made available in a PDF file in the LMS. Other materials will be available in the LMS and at this course website.
2 Tentative schedule
This is tentative, so you can expect changes and other activities, including readings, short paragraph assignments, and other short assignments. (HW = homework; ex. = exercise; ¶ = paragraph writing exercise; GF = online Google Forms; SE = short essay; LMS = assignment to be submitted via the LMS.)
| week | date | topics | assignments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 01 Sept. | Intro; self-intros; narrative paragraphs | GF#1: Info & survey form; ¶ |
| 02 | 07 Sept. | Narrative & descriptive ¶s; verb tenses | |
| 03 | 14 Sept. | Classification & example¶s; delimiters | |
| 04 | 21 Sept. | Definition ¶s; delimiters | ¶ |
| 05 | 28 Sept.* | Process ¶s; infinitives, gerunds | |
| 06 | 05 Oct. | Contrast & comparison ¶s; relative clauses | |
| 07 | 12 Oct. | Evaluation ¶s; modals | ¶ |
| 08 | 19 Oct. | Cause & effect ¶s | |
| 09 | 26 Oct. | Argumentation | |
| 10 | 02 Nov. | Midterms | Midterm |
| 11 | 09 Nov. | Inductive, deductive, & hypothesis testing ¶s | |
| 12 | 16 Nov. | Analysis ¶s | ¶ |
| 13 | 23 Nov. | Problem-solution ¶s | |
| 14 | 30 Nov. | Problem-solution; citing sources | ¶ |
| 15 | 07 Dec. | Citing sources (Chicago Manual) | |
| 16 | 14 Dec. | Argumentation | |
| ? | ? | Finals week | Final paper |
3 News sites
There are the top news outlets, sites and publications for general world news, political news, original reporting, investigative journalism, commentary and analysis. Many of these predate the Internet, so here, format includes its original format before going online.
3.1 General news
| Name / site | Format & scope | Location |
|---|---|---|
| ABC News] (US) | Traditional nightly TV news | US |
| ABC News] (Australia) | Traditional TV news | Australia |
| Wire service | US | |
| The Atlantic | Magazine; commentary & analysis of news, culture and society | US |
| BBC News | Traditional TV news | UK |
| CBS News | Traditional TV news | US |
| CNN Cable News Network | TV news; general news | US |
| Foreign Affairs | Magazine; in-depth analysis of global affairs | US (published by a famous thinktank, the Council on Foreign Relations) |
| The Guardian | Newspaper | UK |
| [1] | US political news & commentary | US |
| Huffingtonpost | Magazine format; commentary and analysis of US & international news, politics, society, and culture | US |
| NBC News | Traditional TV news | US |
| The New Yorker | Magazine; commentary & analysis of news, culture and society | US |
| National Public Radio | Radio news | US |
| New York Times | Newspaper | US |
| Reuters | Wire service | Germany |
| Politico | US political news & commentary | US |
| [http://www.time.com Time magazine | Magazine | US |
| [http://www.wsj.com The Wall Street Journal | Newspaper; US & international financial & general news | US |
| [http://www.washingtonpost.com The Washington Post | Newspaper | US |
The following are news aggregators, which do not do original reporting, but merely aggregate or collect trending stories from many news outlets.
The following report on news and provide commentary and analysis from a specific political perspective. They are not intended as general news sources, but as sources of (generally) intelligent political commentary.
- The New Republic (US; liberal)
- The Nation (US; liberal)
- National Review (US; conservative)
- The Weekly Standard (US; conservative)
3.2 Business & financial news
| Name / site | Format & scope | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Bloomberg | TV news | US |
| Business Insider | Magazine | US |
| [http:// cnbc.com CNBC | TV news | US |
| The Economist | Magazine | US |
| The Financial Times | Magazine | UK |
| Forbes | Magazine | US |
| [4] | Magazine | US |
| New York Times (business section) | Newspaper | US |
| [http://www.wsj.com The Wall Street Journal | Newspaper; US & international financial & general news | US |
3.3 Technology & IT news
3.4 Science news
- New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com
- Scientific American http://www.scientificamerican.com
- Science News http://www.sciencenews.org
4 Reference materials
4.1 Citation systems
The following are some commonly used citation systems; you can use any one of these for your papers in this course.
- See also this general introduction to citing and referencing sources.
- Brief Prezi on citing & referencing sources.
| Style | Typical field |
|---|---|
| * Chicago Manual, short & long footnote styles | humanities (This is a more semi-formal citation style; end references are still required with footnotes) |
| * Chicago Manual (parenthetical) | humanities (This is a more formal style with Author+Year in parenthetical in-text citations) humanities |
| * Chicago Manual (all versions) | complete guide to all versions |
If you have a lot of media sources, you might find Chicago or MLA easier to use.
4.2 Discourse & style issues
Read the relevant course packet chapters on coherence / transitionals, cohesion, reporting verbs, and word choice. We may go through some of this quickly in class, as this is rather dry. Please look at the examples and bring your questions, as you may or may not understand why some examples are given, or are flagged as problematic.
| To revise and improve your midterm paper, first look at these more general guides to style and wording. | Then look at these more specific topics.
|
