Syllabus, Spring 2010, Guided Independent Study
Updated 18 February 2009
Instructor: Robert Gaines
Office: 2106 Skinner Building
Phone: 301.405.6526
Email: gaines@arsrhetorica.net
An introduction to principles and practices of text authentication pertinent to rhetorical discourse, with special attention to speeches and essays by and about African Americans in the period between the thirteenth and nineteenth amendments to the US Constitution. The course will be conducted as a guided independent study for up to three semester hours of credit. Participants in the class will collaborate in a rhetorical corpus development project under the supervision of the instructor.
To authenticate a rhetorical text is to ensure that it is sufficiently reliable to support scholarly study. Students in the course will authenticate and create electronic texts as part of structured course submissions concerning civil rights discourses delivered or published during the period 6 December 1865 through 18 August 1920. Evaluation in the course will be based on the number and quality of submissions. Each submission will incorporate the following components:
1. An electronic text of a civil rights discourse. Students are responsible for selecting discourses and creating accurate electronic texts representing those discourses (in docx, doc, rtf, or txt format). Discourses proposed for authentication by students must be approved in advance by the instructor. (This is chiefly to avoid duplication of the same discourse by different students--see the list of discourses already selected.)
2. A list of textual sources (usually brief) for the text in bibliographic form accompanied by a simple explanation why one particular source (namely, the composition-text) has been followed in constructing the electronic text.
3. An account of departures from the composition-text and an explanation of such departures--if any--usually with reference to other textual sources. Alongside any departures from the composition-text you should also specify how double quotation marks and single quotation marks are rendered in the electronic text (usually you will write this: All double quotation marks are rendered with ", all single quotation marks with apostrophe). Additionally, you need to specify any ambiguous end-of-line hyphenations in the composition-text (usually you will write this: The composition-text contains no ambiguous end-of-line hyphenations). Normally it is clear whether a word hyphenated at the end of a line would or would not be hyphenated in the middle of the line (for example, in a typical English text it would be clear that "tanta-|mount" should be printed as "tantamount" at mid-line and that "five-|dollar" should be printed as "five-dollar" at mid-line). But in rare cases, this matter is not clear (for example "un-|graded"). In such cases you simple note the end-of-line hyphenation and say how it has been entered in the electronic text (for example: composition-text contains one ambiguous end-of-line hyphenation on page 77, namely "un-|graded"; the word has been printed in the text as "un-graded").
4. A very brief biography of the speaker/author, including dates of birth and death, major occupations and/or accomplishments, regional associations, and similar facts that might relate to the discourse and/or its contents.
5. A very brief description of the context in which the discourse was delivered or published. This description should give the reader an idea why the speaker/author would present such a discourse when, where, and with the contents presented.
Students will make two submissions for one credit, four submissions for two credits, and six submissions for three credits. Authenticated electronic texts, speaker/author biographies, and context descriptions submitted for the course will be subject to adoption or revision for placement online at a website designed for dissemination of rhetorical texts. Student will receive explicit editorial and authorial credit for work they have done that is used or adapted for use at the website (or in other forms of publication).
Students will be guided in selecting and authenticating texts by textual and historical information, templates, and sample documents available at the course website once the semester begins.
Due dates for submissions are 05MAR10, 19MAR10, 02APR10, 16APR10, 30APR10, and 14MAY10. Students who undertake the course for less than three credits may use due dates in late March and April.
It is expected that each student will behave honorably in this course. Academic dishonesty, including cheating, fabrication, facilitating academic dishonesty, and plagiarism, will not be tolerated. Students who are uncertain as to what constitutes academic dishonesty should consult the Student Honor Council Code of Academic Integrity at the following address: http://www.studenthonorcouncil.umd.edu/code.html.
Honor Pledge. The University of Maryland, College Park, has established the following Honor Pledge for use in all University classes: "I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this assignment/examination." Ordinarily, the Honor Pledge is handwritten and signed on the front page of all assignments submitted for evaluation at the University. However, in this course you may indicate your compliance with the honor pledge in the email that you use to send electronic submissions to the instructor. The Honor Pledge is not compulsory; however, students who fail to assert their compliance with the Honor Pledge may be asked to confer with the instructor.
In this course, the grade of "I" will be granted only to a student who meets both of the following criteria: (1) the student has satisfactorily completed a major portion of the work of the course and (2) the student has been unable to complete some small portion of the work of the course because of illness or other circumstances beyond the student's control.
Within this course, students will not be penalized in any way for participation in religious observances. Students will be allowed to make up academic assignments that are missed due to such absences. It is the student's responsibility to make arrangements with the instructor regarding make-up examinations (for the procedure to follow, see Examinations above). It is the student's responsibility to make arrangements with the instructor regarding make-up examinations.
Students who have documented disabilities and who wish to discuss academic accommodations within this course should contact the instructor before or as soon as possible after the beginning of the course.
In the event that (a) the University closes for an extended period due to an emergency, (b) the University does not cancel courses for the academic term affected, and (c) the University's internet and other electronic services are not significantly disrupted, then students will have the opportunity to continue/complete their academic work in this course consistent with the following plan. Students should continue work on graded assignments and submit them in electronic format the to instructor by due dates.