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In-Class Expository Essay

On Course Week Ten, November 6th, there is an Expository Essay in class.

You will need a paper dictionary, writing implements (such as pen, pencil, eraser, white-out, etc.)  and your Course Reader. No other materials or access are permitted.

The precise instructions for the assignment will be given on the examination sheet in class.

For your general preparation, you will be required to write an essay of a defined length, the purpose of which is to demonstrate your command of the Course material and information from lecture to date. the more and the better that your essay demonstrates how well you have learned specific material and information, the better the grade will be.

The examination will have two aspects:

1. The essay itself demonstrating your command of materials and information from lecture to date.
2. Your identification on the essay which points of information have been used and where they are in the essay: by underlining, by highlighting, by marginal notation, by parenthetical notation, by notation in the bank line in your double-spaced essay. Your preference.

The examination will be ninety minutes long, with two hours given in which to complete it.

Class Reading Break

The class on Tuesday October 9th 2012 is now designated as a Reading Break.

Students will not come to 1177 class that week.

In place of class attendance, students but will schedule an opportunity to substitute the same amount of time to advance in the readings for 1177 elsewhere in their own time and their preferred location.

Course Outline

Click here for all information, schedules, and deadlines for lecture, lab, assignments, examinations, grading, and reading.

Course Assignments

Consult the Course Syllabus for assignment dates & deadlines.

• Summary Assignment
• Summary Assignment CheckList
• Short Argument Essay Assignment
• The file has all four parts of the assignment:
1. Draft Version Instructions
2. Draft Version Checklist 
3. Final Version Instructions
4. Final Version Checklist
• Hand in all four parts completed on the Due Date.
• In-Class Expository Essay
• Research Essay
• A draft version of this essay is due at the start of class, Course Week 13.
• A revised version of this essay is due at the start of class, Course Week 14.
• Research Essay Checklist

Instructor's Contact Information

DR. STEPHEN A. OGDEN
Instructor, Liberal Studies
BCIT, SW2, Room 108,
3700 Willingdon Ave.
Burnaby, B.C. V5G 3H2
Tel. 604-412-7494
stephen_ogden@bcit.ca

Office Hours: Tuesday 16:30-18:30

I began my IT career in 1979 as a Computer Operator: by 1986, Mananger of Computer Operations, Western Region, for Geac Computers International, which was a great Canadian corporate success story 'back in the day'—the company effectively created on-line banking technology. In 1987 I moved to SFU to take my Ph.D., working also full-time as an IT technician.

From 2003 to 2011 I was full time Lecturer in the Department of English at SFU, teaching and publishing in scholarly fields relating to Victorian literature, 20th C. British literature, and Japanese literature, classical & modern. This year I moved here to Liberal Studies at BCIT.

I have a very great deal of practical and academic experience in two areas pertinent to IT, Business expectations, and digital Course delivery.

• Professional writing and Technical writing. Example, from 1992 to 2002 I was Chairman of the Advisory Committe to the Professional Writing Program—"Print Futures"—at Douglas College.
• Online course incorporation, and development of pedagogy that advances individual independence as a necessary faculty for higher professional excellence. I began writing online course at Geac for staff at our international banking clients as early as 1981, and I worked for several years on Distance Education modules at SFU.

My expertise is available to help your own professional development through LIBS 7023.

Course E-Mail Netiquette

Here are the points of e-mail protocol for our course :

1. E-mail (indeed, all communication) between Instructor and student is a formal and professional exchange. Accordingly, proper salutation and closing is essential.
2. Business e-mail is courteous but, of professional necessity, concise and direct. It rejects roundabout or ornate language, informal diction, and any appearance of what is termed in the vernacular, 'chat.'
3. Customary response time for student e-mail to the Course Instructror is two to three office days. E-mail on weekends will ordinarily be read the Monday following.
4. Use only your BCIT account for e-mail to the Course Instructor.

In general, Course e-mail is for matters of Course administration solely. All questions about understanding of lecture material, course reading, assignment criteria, and deadlines are reserved for Classes and Office Hour.

Missed classes and deadlines are not to be reported by e-mail: if a medical or bereavement exception is being claimed, the supporting documentation is handed in, along with the completed assignment, either in person or to the Instructor's mailbox outside the Department Office.

How to Take Notes

"Learn how to listen and you will prosper even from those who talk badly.” Plutarch (AD 46-120) Greek Biographer & Philosopher.

The Student Learning Commons at the W.A.C. Bennett Library at Simon Fraser University has an exceptionally helpful on-line guide to effective note-taking at lecture. (It is a trifle disconcerting reading for the Lecturers themselves, because it implies--indeed, all-but declares--that many of us are dull, confused, inarticulate, habituated and otherwise deficient in our craft.)

The guide is available online in .pdf format at this hotlink.

The Student Learning Commons additionally has an entire page of links to on-line resources to improve the student's "Listening & Note-Taking" at this hotlink.

Note-taking in lecture is one of the skills that one learns at post-secondary institutions that has material applicability in life. Arguably, learning how to take written notes from oral delivery is one of the most practically valuable benefits of a post-Secondary education.

In professional, governmental, community appointments, inability to properly take notes in meetings is a significant handicap to success. Leaning now the art and skill of note-taking will position you to rise above the many and, in brute language, succeed.

Thaink about what proper note-taking actually is. It is the learned ability to listen and observe the speaker's body language and then recognise, record, and reorganise to your own requirements the truly valuable information, insight, and intelligence that the speaker is giving. This is money--free, found money-- simply picked up for nothing by those  who have taken the trouble to learn note-taking.

It is the wisdom beside the famous Shelrock Holmes rebuke to Watson: "you see, but you do not observe." Holmes has trained hmself in that skill and so takes for himself all the value that lesser others are unable to access. Be Holmes: raise yourself above the many

These resources linked here are immensely valuable: especially as it is increasingly common for undergraduates to confuse note-taking with copying down PowerPoint slides. It is rule worth learning that nowhere is PowerPoint the Lecture: lectures are what happen when you are distracted by copying down PowerPoint slides.

Assignment Grades: What is Their Relative Importance? A Dialectic

The topic is course marks, and their arguable importance.

Post-Secondary is for the learning of skills, knowledge, and advanced understanding: to acquire these concrete improvements, students commit themselves to some years of sacrifice and application.

To measure progress in the acquisition of these concrete improvements, an arbitrary abstraction (i.e. number) is applied to prescribed exercises during a defined course of study, and at the conclusion of each Course, these abstract measurements are tabulated into a final measurement of the degree to which the specific skills, knowledge, and advanced understanding have been acquired.

So much so obvious: to succeed at a desirable career, certain people attend a Post Secondary institution in order to acquire the skills, knowledge, and advanced understanding necessary to perform the fundamental requirements of their preferred careers.

Yet, it seems quite incredibly, it is far from rare to hear it said by students that the most important part of Post Secondary study is the abstract measurement itself! The real—skills, knowledge, and advanced understanding—is all-but ignored and the abstraction—the arbitrary choice of number as measure of attainment—is astonishingly given place of primary importance.

Now, prima facie, this is absurd: it is not even sense—it is like asking 'how much does yellowness weigh?

But let us address ourselves to the topic in a clarifying way; using Dialectic, as follows.

THESIS. Marks are the most important aspect of Post-Secondary study. Employers ask for marks and will not accept an applicant who cannot present a certain Grade number. The goal--the purpose--of Post-Secondary is to get hired: to be chosen by a preferred Employer. Employers ask for Marks. Therefore, success in Post-Secondary is high marks; and a student's sole focus must be on what Employers want--Marks.

Ergo, Marks are important: everthing else is secondary.

ANTITHESIS. Marks are not important. This would be proved irrefutably if we could actually see what the employers themselves say they are looking for when they hire. If they say they are looking for Marks, then the thesis is proven. If they say that they are looking for skills and attributes then the antithesis is proven.

And, Lo!, Employers do tell us what they are looking for. The Business Council of British Columbia (a voluntary association of each and every Employer sector in British Columbia) publishes a biennial survey subtitled "What Are BC Employers Looking for?"

This is a perfect goldmine for prospective employees. It is their desired employers speaking freely amongst themselves about exactly what it is that they want in new hires. It as good as a stolen look at their secret documents. It is priceless. And it is yours for free.

So, is their answer to their own question of what BC Employers are looking for (which is also the answer to our topic here) "Marks" or is it "Skills and Attributes?

The answer is in the title: "2010 BIENNIAL SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES SURVEY REPORT." (Click on link for report).

And there you have it. It is not titled 'The 2020 Biennial Marks Survey Report', and nowhere in the report is there any mention whatsoever of Marks. Moreover, the report specifically lists the top ten skills and the top ten attributes that they, the Employers, themselves look for in their job applicants. Here is the very language of the report:

• "....the employers were first asked to choose ten key Attributes they sought in all new job hires" (emphasis mine).
• "....the employers were asked to choose ten key Skills they sought in all new job hires" (emphasis mine.)

So, if you are a potential new job hire and you do not listen to exactly what your prospective Employers are freely telling each other honestly and without coercion, then you are certainly planing to fail to be hired.

DIALECTICAL CONCLUSION.

The conclusion of the dialectic is this. Marks are an abstract measurement of skills, knowledge, and advanced attributes, and as such serve as a valuable sign to those attainments. However, the abstraction does not have any independent existence: skills, knowledge, and advanced attributes have independent meaning and value, and therefore they must be the focus of your Post Secondary efforts.

Thus, if your primary focus is on the the prescribed exercises upon which abstract measurement is based (i.e.  assignments), then you are planning to fail: for you are putting your focus and energies on the abstraction rather than the real. But of course at the same time, if full attention is put on study—on aquiring the skills, knowledge, and advanced attributes—then high Marks will appear all of their own naturally.

(The analogy is waxing your car: there is no independent thing called a 'shine'. We all want a gleaming shining car: but it is only by focusing hard and entirely on the the real work of washing, applying, rubbing, and polishing that the abstract 'shine' appears.)


TAKE-HOME LESSON

There is a take-home lesson for this dialectic; one that is more or less obvious. If you walk into a class on Day One and care, in the slightest degree, about the format that the assignments will take, then you have already lost: you are planning to fail.

Assuming that you care about Excellence, the only way to approach a Post-Secondary course is to study the material fully and properly. The format of an Assignment is perfectly irrelevant if the material has been studied properly and thoroughly. Material thoroughly studied can be commandingly written down on an assignment no matter what form it is presented in.

Attempting to tailor studying to match a preferred assignment format is nothing more than a shortcut. And there are no shortcuts to Excellence.

None.

Do you consider yourself weak in one of the possible forms that an assignment may take? Then practice that form until you have mastered it. Take, just for an example, essay writing. Do you believe that it is possible to have a career of excellence without command of the fundamentals of essay writing? Return to the BCBC Biennial Skills and Attributes Survey Report.

Look at the list of the Top Ten Skills BC Employers Are Looking For. Number Five is "Writing". And Number One, the most important skill that BC employers want in new hires, is "Speaking & Listening". And command of the skill of speaking is a direct function of command of writing: orators and essayists share precisely the same fundamental skill set.

[The second half of the Number One skill that employers require, "Listening" (which is opposed to mere hearing) is gained by proper Note Taking: a skill that is now widely atrophying in the age of PowerPoint Lectures and iPad & iPhone screen captures. However, this presents you with a glorious opportunity. Determine to avoid the easy shortcuts of the technology, and master the skill of proper note taking (detailed here), then you will be in the elite; head and shoulders above the many who took the easy way. The widespread atrophying of note-taking ability is for you a golden opportunity for Excellence (for succeeeding over the mediocre many) in the humber one skill that Employers say that they are looking for in new hires.]

That is how important essay writing is. In fact, the top eight of the top ten skills that Employers say themselves that they require are all Liberal Arts skills (what are foolishly labelled 'soft' skills). None of the top eight have anything to do with specific task-related skill. "Computer Competancy" is number nine, and in very last place is "Efficient Use of Technology, Tools, & Equipment".

So, Excellence demands time and effort: but nothing other than time and effort. Should you presently lack a necessary skill or attribute, then you have not yet given it sufficient time and effort.

Always keep in mind: Excellence is easy; anyone can attain it: it only requires hard work.

Lecture Slides

Reading PowerPoint slides is damaging to a mental faculty all-but-supreme in professional life: the faculty of active listening (outlined here).

But, thus forewarned, here are lecture slides from our Course.

Lecture Slides On-Line.

Instructor's CopyEditing Legend

Follow this link, as well as this other link, for a legend of the standard copy-editing symbols used in the marking of your essays

Some of the more frequently-used are the following.

• SYN: faulty syntax
• GR: faulty grammar
• AWK: awkward wording or awkward expression of idea.
• SP: faulty spelling
• PRON: missing or faulty pronoun.
• AGR: faulty agreement (grammar.)
• T: incorrect tense (grammar.)
• M: incorrect mood (grammar.)
• //: lack of correct parallelism
• ¶ : faulty paragraph structure
• CAP: capitalise
• MM: mixed metaphor
• NO CAP: don't capitalise
• WDY: excessive, roundabout or unhelpful wording that obscures the argument.
• ARG: argument required.
• DEV: faulty or missing development of the argument
• D: faulty diction (e.g. use of jargon or informal idiom.)
• PASS: passive (usually adjectival rather than adverbial) form
• WC: faulty word choice
• WW: wrong word
• PURPLE: gradiloquent section: ornate, florid or overly-written piece of incongruous writing.
• LITOTES: unnecessary and unhelpful use of negative construction.
• RELEV: irrelevant remark.
• PETITIO: a petitio principii ('begging the question')—assuming as a conclusion that which needs to be established as a premis. Often in essay argument, a statement delivered as a proof which itself is as yet unproven.
• UNCL: unclear expression of an idea
• ARTIC: missing or mistaken use of grammatical article.
• REP: repetitive wording or repetition of a previously-presented idea.
• REL: faulty relation of idea or no clear relation to surrounding idea.
• TRUISM: statement of the obvious: unnecessary.
• C&E: mistake between cause and effect
• P: faulty punctuation.
• INTROD: faulty (e.g. weak, missing or unclear) introduction of idea or item.
• DEL: unnecessary text requiring deletion
• PLEON: pleonasm
• REPORT: book report--i.e. absence of argument. 
• CIT: missing citation
• DANGL: dangling modifier.
• STR: faulty or absent argument structure.
• R-O: run-on sentence.
• FRAG: sentence fragment
• THESIS: misplaced thesis-level sentence
• X: false statement.
• SS: faulty sentence structure
• ARR: faulty arrangement of the sentences in relation to the argument.
• INDIR: indirect expression of idea--often weak or padded syntax.
• EVAL: an evaluative opinion of quality, in word or phrase, rather than argument.