ENG 3050
New Common Syllabus
Technical Communication I: Reports
Wayne State University Undergraduate Bulletin Description
Cr. 3. Prereq: C or better in ENG 1020 or equiv., sophomore standing.
Instruction in basic technical writing skills. Requirements include writing letters, memos,
summaries, instructions, proposals, and technical reports. Topics include audience and purpose
analysis, textual and visual aspects of technical document design, and formatting.
ENG 3050 Prerequisite
This prerequisite must appear on every ENG 3050 syllabus:
A grade of C or better in General Education BC [Basic Composition] (ENG 1020 or equiv.).
Checking Prerequisites for ENG 3050
An English Department prerequisite check now applies to ENG 3050 during registration. If you
have doubts that a student has met the prerequisite, look up his/her record on STARS because
there is one loophole still in the system: a student may have been allowed to register in ENG
3050 but not have a passing grade in ENG 1020 if s/he took it in the previous term. To look up a
student in STARS, log into Pipeline (http://pipeline.wayne.edu) and select the Faculty tab; under
the Teaching menu, select Advisor’s Menu and then Student Academic Transcript. You may
search for a student in your course by name or ID.
ENG 3050 General Education Designation
This General Education designation must appear on every ENG 3050 syllabus:
With a grade of C or better, ENG 3050 fulfills the General Education IC [Intermediate
Composition] graduation requirement.
Successful completion of Intermediate Composition [IC] with a grade of C or better is a
prerequisite to enrolling in courses in the major that fulfill the General Education WI [Writing
Intensive] requirement for graduation.
A grade of C or better in ENG 3050 is a pre-requisite to enrollment in ENG 3060. With a grade
of C or better, ENG 3060 fulfills the General Education OC [Oral Competency] graduation
requirement.
BACKGROUND -- ENG 3050 & ENG 3060
ENG 3050 (Technical Communication I: Reports) and ENG 3060 (Technical Communication II:
Presentations) are in a two-course sequence. A grade of C or better in ENG 3050 is a
prerequisite for ENG 3060. At WSU, ENG 3050 and ENG 3060 are requirements in the
College of Engineering, aimed at fulfilling one of the its outcomes for accreditation:
“Engineering programs must demonstrate that their graduates attain the following outcomes: [G]
an ability to communicate effectively” (ABET [Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology]. Recently, students and majors from a variety of programs and departments also
have enrolled in ENG 3050, including pre-med, allied health, business, and English majors
interested in technical writing.
In ENG 3050 and ENG 3060, there is considerable variation in instructors’ emphasis on
collaboration in writing on teams. The model ENG 3050 syllabus attached to this document
places the emphasis on an individual writer; a model ENG 3060 syllabus (under development)
places the emphasis on a collaborative writer as a member of a team. Individual instructors may
wish to include collaboration and team work in ENG 3050; however, it is important that each
student meet the course goals and learning objectives individually; in other words, every student
should be capable of writing a technical report independently.
ENG 3050 Department of English Description
This course description must appear on every ENG 3050 syllabus:
ENG 3050 prepares students for reading, researching, writing, and designing technical
documents. While some technical writing addresses a lay audience (e.g., instructions), technical
documents are often written for specialized audiences with multiple purposes (e.g., technical
reports with executive summaries). Technical documents incorporate both textual (writing) and
visual (graphics, pictures, etc.) elements of design. The main goals of the course are (1) to teach
students to consider the audience(s) and purpose(s) in reading and writing technical documents;
(2) to integrate reading, researching, writing, and designing in the basic genres of technical
writing; (3) to design effective technical documents with attention to text, visuals, format,
usability, documentation, and mechanics, using a flexible writing process incorporating drafts
and revision; and (4) to work with current technologies for technical document design.
ENG 3050 Learning Objectives
The following learning objectives must appear on every ENG 3050 syllabus:

to read, analyze and evaluate the design of technical documents, including text, visuals
(graphics, pictures, etc.), format, usability, documentation, and mechanics

to consider the audience(s) and purpose(s) for any given technical document

to conduct research in support of designing technical documents, finding and evaluating
print and electronic sources

to write in basic genres of technical writing, including letters, resumés, memos,
instructions, usability reports, proposals, and technical reports

to use a flexible writing process that includes brainstorming, organizing, writing,
providing and responding to feedback, revising, formatting, editing, documenting, and
proofreading

to use appropriate grammar, mechanics, and style for formal and informal technical
documents, and to use standard conventions of citation and documentation to avoid
plagiarism

to use technology for reading, researching, writing, and designing technical documents

(optional learning objective) to learn to write collaboratively as part of a team
Required Textbook in ENG 3050 -- ENG 3060
Instructors are required to use the following textbook for both ENG 3050 and ENG 3060:
Gurak, Laura J. and John M. Lannon. Strategies for Technical Communication in the Workplace
with MyTechCommLab Student Access Code Card, 2nd ed. Boston: Longman/Pearson, 2010.
ISBN: 1256658782 (Use this ISBN for spring/summer 2012)
With NEW MyTechCommLab Student Access Code Card in fall 2012:
ISBN-10: 0321846281 OR ISBN-13: 9780321846280
or
Graves, Heather and Roger Graves. A Strategic Guide to Technical Communication. 2nd ed.
Buffalo, NY: Broadview, 2012. $54.95
ISBN: 978-1-55481-107-6
or
Anderson, Paul V. Technical Communication. 7th ed. Boston: Wadsworth/Cengage, 2011.
Ebook. Available at http://www.cengagebrain.com/shop/isbn/9781428263932.
ISBN10: 1-4282-6393-4, ISBN13: 978-1-4282-6393-2
Please advise students to use the following coupon code for a discount on fall 2012 purchases:
FALL2012 (valid through 9/30/2012)
Recommended text for ENG 3050
Reynolds, Garr. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. 2nd ed.
Berkeley: New Riders/Pearson, 2012. Print.
ISBN 0-321-91198-4
Wolfe, Joanna. Team Writing: A Guide to Working in Groups. 1st ed. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin’s. Print.
ISBN-13: 9780312565824
Instructors are free to require supplemental or recommended books or readings for their
individual sections.
Desk copies of the textbook and the instructor’s manual are available in the Department of
English.
The campus Barnes and Noble will have the Anderson textbook in stock; if you require any
additional books or readings, you must order them for your individual sections at Barnes and
Noble. Instructors must order all items individually for their sections at Marwil’s, including the
Anderson textbook and any additional books and readings you might order.
Reading, Research, and Writing in ENG 3050
Reading
Students enter ENG 3050 with a wide range of experience in reading technical documents: for
some students, ENG 3050 will be the first time they are reading technical writing; other students,
especially working students, will be familiar with technical documents of many kinds. Students
should read a wide variety of technical documents in ENG 3050, including print and electronic
materials. Readings should include examples of the basic genres covered in the course – letters,
memos, instructions, usability reports, proposals, and technical reports. Readings should be
challenging, exposing students to the level and sophistication of readings and research they will
encounter in upper-level college courses. At least some readings should be related to students’
own programs and majors.
Research
Instructors cannot assume that ENG 3050 students have experience in researching technical
topics, including topics in their programs and majors. In ENG 3050, students should be
explicitly taught research skills for technical writing (Anderson, Chapter 6), including
conducting a search to find primary and secondary materials in print and electronic sources;
evaluating information from sources, especially online sources; and integrating information from
sources with their own ideas in technical documents. At least some research should be related to
students’ own programs and majors.
With respect to integrating information and ideas, students also should be explicitly taught the
basics of intellectual property law and the details of documentation and citation to avoid
plagiarism of language, text, and visuals (Anderson, Chapter 6, pp. 157-161; Appendix A, 671679). Students should become proficient in APA style: the Writing Center can help students
learn APA, and the Purdue OWL [Online Writing Lab] has a helpful guide for students:
(http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/).
Writing
Students in ENG 3050 should write extensively: a General Education course requirement is
that students produce at least 8,000 words (16 or more single-spaced pages, 32 doublespaced) during the term.
Instructors are free to decide how to allocate these word/page requirements across drafts and
revisions within their individual sections. Technical documents in ENG 3050 can be shorter or
longer, from single-page letters to lengthy technical reports. After taking ENG 3050, students
should be prepared to produce research-based technical reports of 6-10 pages, single-spaced, for
upper-level courses.
Students in ENG 3050 should use a writing process that involves brainstorming, writing,
preparing and responding to feedback, revising, editing, documenting, and proofreading
(Anderson, Chapters 7 and 14). Students should be proficient in editing for grammar and
mechanics at the sentence level and in using correct APA citation and documentation.
Students who are not proficient in editing, documenting, and proofreading should be identified
by their performance on the in-class diagnostic summary. Students who need some help with
grammar and mechanics can be required to attend tutoring sessions at the WSU Writing Center.
International students with serious and persistent sentence-level errors should be referred to the
English Language Institute at the beginning of the term.
Revising
Instructors are strongly encouraged to incorporate revisions within assignments only
(Anderson, Chapter 14). There should be no rewrites after the final grade has been
awarded for an assignment. Revising can take place in response to written feedback from the
instructor or in peer review groups or conferences. Revising within the context of the
assignment is teaching students valuable skills of providing and responding to feedback, which is
an essential part of the writing process in workplaces. Rewriting solely for a grade is artificial
revision, and it risks grade inflation.
One best practice of writing instruction is to shift the place of commentary on papers in a twostep process: instructors can collect and comment on a student’s first or second draft, providing
feedback for revision, and then read and grade the final paper with minimal or no commentary
(this is not to suggest grading twice; it is to suggest writing comments on a student’s paper once
and then reading the final draft fairly quickly for a grade). The model ENG 3050 syllabus
incorporates revision within the assignment in two ways: students may choose to submit drafts
for commentary for some assignments (e.g., instructions, proposals, executive summaries), and
students must submit the draft of their technical report for instructor commentary.
ENG 3050 Assignments
Assignments in all sections of ENG 3050 must include the following basic technical writing
genres:






diagnostic summary
resumé and cover letter
technical instructions
usability report/memo
proposal
technical report
Sample assignments with rubrics are provided in the model syllabus. All assignments must be
distributed with a written assignment sheet; this is essential should your students go to the
Writing Center for tutoring. All assignments must be distributed with a grading rubric; a
rubric gives students a concrete understanding of the expectations for grading, and grading with
a rubric also helps achieve consistency in grading and guards against grade inflation.
Assignments in ENG 3050 should utilize the wide range of technologies available for reading,
research, and writing, including word processing, power point, websites, data bases, blogs, and
wikis. Most sections of ENG 3050 are taught in media-equipped classrooms; the equipment
includes a computer and projector. To use the carts, you need media training provided by the
WSU OTL [Office of Teaching and Learning]: consult the OTL website for group and
individual trainings (http://www.otl.wayne.edu/).
In your ENG 3050 syllabus, please provide approximate word count/page lengths for
assignments; remember that students must write the equivalent of 8,000 words (16 singlespaced pages) during the course. See the model syllabus.
ENG 3050 Plagiarism Policy
Students in ENG 3050 should be taught how to avoid plagiarism, either deliberate or inadvertent
(Anderson, Chapter 6, pp. 157-161). Every ENG 3050 syllabus must include the following
plagiarism policy:
Plagiarism is the act of copying work from books, articles, and websites without
documenting and citing the source. Plagiarism includes copying language, texts, and
visuals without citation (e.g., cutting and pasting from websites). All assignments in
ENG 3050 will be submitted to SafeAssign on Blackboard. Plagiarism is a serious
academic offense: the minimum penalty for plagiarism is an F for the assignment; the
full penalty for plagiarism may result in an F for the course. All cases of plagiarism
in ENG 3050 will be reported to the Department of English.
Instructors must review all major assignments in ENG 3050 with SafeAssign on
Blackboard. If you are not familiar with Blackboard and SafeAssign, please sign up for an
introductory training at the WSU OTL [Office of Teaching and Learning]. Look at the OTL
calendar for the relevant workshops and their days/times: Blackboard Basics and Promoting
Academic Integrity with Plagiarism Detection Software (http://www.otl.wayne.edu).
Grades in ENG 3050
All assignment sheets in ENG 3050 must include a rubric for grading. The sample
assignments provided with the model syllabus all contain basic rubrics. For more on rubrics, see
the materials from the 2009 Grading Workshop, available on the WSU Composition Faculty
Handbook wiki (http://wsucompositionfacultyhandbook.pbworks.com).
Instructors set their own grading percentages and policies in ENG 3050, including the weight
given to each paper, and the policies and processes for revision, with attention to the best
practices of revision described above. Final grades on assignments should reflect the quality of
writing, not the amount of effort expended.
To avoid grade inflation, instructors should grade conservatively, especially at the beginning of
the term. Following guidelines for other composition classes, grading guidelines for ENG 3050
are as follows:




A
up to 20%
B
up to 30%
C+/C
up to 30%
C-/Other*
approx. 25%
(*includes withdrawals)
i.e., around 5 students in a class of 24
i.e., around 7 students in a class of 24
i.e., around 7 students in a class of 24
i.e., around 6 students in a class of 24
These guidelines aim at no more than a 50% distribution of As and Bs in a standard class, which
seems intuitively reasonable: sometimes instructors have exceptional classes, but this doesn’t
happen every term. Grade distributions within individual sections will be reviewed within the
English Department.
Hints for grading to the guidelines:
 do not make attendance and participation worth 10% of a course grade: on a 100 point
scale, that allows non-writing to change an entire letter grade. The model syllabus
weights attendance and participation as 5% of the grade, which offers students a chance
to boost their grade by only half a letter grade.
 make assignments challenging: if assignments are too easy, especially at the beginning
of the term, you may find yourself giving too many As and Bs that have a cumulative
effect of an inflated course grade.
 leverage the students’ interest in grades: students in ENG 3050 are often highly
motivated by the material and by the possibility of a good grade (make ‘em work).
 grade conservatively at the beginning of the course: this gives you room to use the entire
grading scale as the term goes on, especially for the technical report.
 read through the entire set of papers before beginning to grade individual papers: you
will see the variation in the set and get an intuitive idea of how the range of grades -- A,
B, C+/C, C-/D/F – can be applied.
 make the technical report the most heavily weighted assignment: by the time students
write their technical reports, they will be experienced writers in the context of the class,
and they will be familiar with the level of work required for an A, B, C+/C, or C-/D/F
paper.
 grade with a rubric: this is now required in ENG 3050.
 don’t allow rewrites after final grades on an assignment: this, too, is now required in
ENG 3050.
 don’t worry unduly about SET scores: the English Department is aware that students rate
instructors in rigorous required courses lower than they perhaps deserve. In the English
Department, decisions about staffing are never made solely or primarily on the basis of
SET scores.
WSU Writing Center
The following information about the Writing Center must appear on every ENG 3050
syllabus:
The Writing Center (2nd floor, UGL) provides individual tutoring consultations free of
charge for students at Wayne State University. Undergraduate students in General
Education courses, including composition courses, receive priority for tutoring
appointments. The Writing Center serves as a resource for writers, providing tutoring
sessions on the range of activities in the writing process – considering the audience,
analyzing the assignment or genre, brainstorming, researching, writing drafts, revising,
editing, and preparing documentation. The Writing Center is not an editing or
proofreading service; rather, students are guided as they engage collaboratively in the
process of academic writing, from developing an idea to correctly citing sources. To
make an appointment, consult the Writing Center website:
http://www.clas.wayne.edu/writing/
To submit material for online tutoring, consult the Writing Center HOOT website
(Hypertext One-on-One Tutoring):
http://www.clas.wayne.edu/unit-inner.asp?WebPageID=1330.
Instructors may require individual students to attend the Writing Center to receive tutoring on a
specific assignment, skill, or aspects of the writing process (e.g., editing at the sentence-level,
citation and documentation, etc.). Instructors may not require entire classes to attend the Writing
Center.
The staff of the Writing Center is also available for in-class sessions (e.g., using APA style).
Contact Jule Wallis, Director of the Writing Center, for information (au1145@wayne.edu, 313577-2544).
Mandatory elements of an ENG 3050 Syllabus
The following elements are mandatory in an ENG 3050 syllabus:
 ENG 3050 Prerequisite
 ENG 3050 General Education Designation
 ENG 3050 Department of English Course Description
 ENG 3050 Learning Objectives
 ENG 3050 Required textbook and chapters
 ENG 3050 Required assignments (with word count/page length specified)
 ENG 3050 Plagiarism policy
 WSU Writing Center information
Model ENG 3050 Syllabus
Attached is the model syllabus for ENG 3050, incorporating all mandatory elements. Starting
Fall, 2009, all GTA and part-time faculty instructors must follow the model syllabus the first
time they teach ENG 3050 under the New Common Syllabus; after that, they may specialize the
their syllabi and assignments individually, while staying within the bounds of the New Common
Syllabus.
The model syllabus incorporates the required textbook chapters and assignments, including
assignment sheets and rubrics. In the model syllabus, time is spent every class period on the
assignments. Instructors may use this time as seems fit – planning work, reviewing work as a
class or in small groups, working individually with students on in-class writing and revising, etc.
Students should become familiar with providing and responding to feedback in class sessions.
Mandatory Submission of Syllabus to Department
According to WSU policy, all instructors are required to submit a copy of their ENG 3050
syllabus to the Department of English. The deadline for submitting a copy of the syllabus
is the end of the third week of classes (for Fall, 2009, this deadline is Friday, September 18).
ENG 3050 syllabi will be reviewed within the English Department to check for the mandatory
elements of the New Common Syllabus.