07118: Communication: Rhetoric and Reasoning L

Assessment

Summary of Assignments

See Assignments (below) for a detailed description of each of these assessment requirements.

Presenting written assignments

When presenting assignments for assessment, please observe the following guidelines and procedures:

• Word-process or type your work whenever possible
• Print, type or write on one side of the page only
• Leave a wide left margin (at least 3.5 cm) and generous margins elsewhere
• Use double-spacing or 1.5 spacing between lines
• Use an easily readable font (such as Palatino) in a reasonable size (12 point, usually)
• Write in grammatically correct prose, with proper punctuation and spelling
• Number each page
• Reference your work adequately and correctly
• Ensure that you make a copy of the assignment for yourself
• Include a properly filled in cover sheet with each assignment, in accordance with the guidelines for external students
• Staple the pages in the top left-hand corner (do not use plastic sleeves or folders)
• Submit your assignment by the deadline to the address designated in the guidelines for external students

Deadlines are listed below under Assignments and on the Planner/ timetable. You must submit assignments in the order in which they are set, but you may, of course, submit them earlier than the date specified. Read the article ‘Time management’ included in the CR&R Resource material textbook for some strategies for meeting deadlines.

Please Note:

1. Word limits given under Assessment requirements are general guides to the size of each assignment rather than rigid rules (be aware, however, that some subjects demand that you adhere strictly to word limits). Nevertheless, you should aim to work within about a 10% margin either side of the word limit.
2. Plagiarism is the act of taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. It is regarded as a very serious academic and professional offence, and is a form of theft. Never use anyone else’s work in your own without properly acknowledging it as another’s work (usually through adequate citing and referencing). If you are found to have plagiarised, or to have cheated in any way in your work, your assignment will be failed, and you will be liable to disciplinary action for academic misconduct. Check with your tutor about the University of SA’s policies on plagiarism if you require further information.
3. Deadlines must be adhered to. You must submit assignments by 5pm on the dates they are due. Failure to do so in this subject will result in the late assignment being awarded a maximum nominal pass of 50%, and it will not be corrected for mistakes nor commented upon. (Other subjects may have differing policies and procedures regarding late submissions.)
4. If you are unable to submit an assignment by the deadline for reasons which you know about beforehand (usually on medical or sympathetic grounds), contact your tutor before the deadline to request an extension. If you have not been able to meet a deadline but believe you have an adequate and reasonable excuse, contact your tutor as soon as possible to explain the situation.

Exercises

Exercise 1 (due Friday 21 August)
A precis of an article from the CR&R Resource material as described under Writing for Weeks 3/4 of the Study schedule.

Exercise 2 (due Friday 11 September)
A draft contents page and a summary/proposal of your Report (see below), outlining your topic and ideas in the form of an abstract or other piece of writing. The precise nature of the topic will be negotiated with your tutor, but more information about what the report should involve and the form of this exercise is to be found under Writing for Weeks 5/6 of the Study schedule.

Exercise 3 (due Friday 16 October)
A critique of an article from the CR&R Resource material as described under Writing for Weeks 9/10 of the Study schedule.

Journal (due Friday 6 November)

The information contained in the Reading is essential for your development in the aims and objectives of this subject. To help you to think about and keep track of what you have read you are required to maintain a journal in which you write some entries each week containing the following:

• any work based on the tasks prescribed for the Discussion/research topics for that fornight, usually in the form of responses to a particular question, exercise or situation
• a paragraph or two in which you review or reflect on your own work (in all areas of your study, not just this subject) in the light of what you have found in your current reading
• in addition your journal should provide a record of your participation in and contributions to the electronic newsgroup COMMA, in the form of short entries indicating the messages you posted, any replies you received, and any other items of interest you found and followed up through accessing COMMA

The journal may take the form of a folder, exercise book or notebook, but the entries should be organised under weekly/fortnightly headings and written in prose form (not as a series of notes) and presented neatly and legibly.

You may also open a Word file template for your Journal entries by clicking on the hotlinked heading to this section. Then you can key-in your Journal entry and print it each week or fortnight, or save it on disk and print all the entries at the end of the semester (remember to make a back-up copy, though).

Keeping the journal will not only help you to understand more of what you read, it will also help to improve your summarising and critical skills.

Report (due Friday 13 November)

The major written assignment for CR&R is a research report, in which you must

• choose a topic involving an issue or area in which there is or has been an ongoing series of communications, such as a current issue of debate in the newspapers or on television, or an advertising campaign, or a situation in which you have found yourself sending/receiving letters, e-mails or other communication back and forth, or any other suitable topic which you have discussed with your tutor;

and write a report which

• outlines the nature and background of the issue
• describes the various sides or points of view which have emerged
• analyses the effectiveness of the means by which the various sides or points of view have been expressed, using some of the concepts you have encountered in your reading and discussions in CR&R

In Exercise 2, above, you will have provided an outline of your topic in the form of drafts of certain sections of the proposed report. Your tutor will have given you feedback about your topic, your research and your writing based on Exercise 2, and then you will use this to write the fully drafted and properly formatted research report. More information about report writing will be dealt with in your reading and in the Discussion/research topics for Weeks 5/6 of the Study schedule.

Assignment grades and marks

Your assignments will be graded and marked according to the following scheme, which is standard throughout the University of SA and in most Australian universities:

Your overall mark and grade for the subject will be awarded according to the same scheme.

Please Note

1. Even if your tutor does not use percentage marks on your assignments, the grades will still represent the same proportional range of marks.
2. If you receive a grade of P2 or F1 for an assignment, you may be entitled to resubmit an improved version of it for remarking. Talk to your tutor to arrange a resubmission.
3. The maximum grade you can receive for a resubmission is a P1.
4. Distinctions (D) and High distinctions (HD) are awarded only for very high quality work; they are difficult grades to achieve in a university context.
5. All assignments are graded according to their own merit; your tutor is not bound to award set proportions of Distinctions, Credits, Level 1 passes, and so on. Thus, for example, an assignment which has been done well by a lot of students may attract a high proportion of Credits and above, while another which has been poorly done overall may attract few if any of the higher grades.
6. If you receive an F1 for your final overall grade, you will be entitled to submit a piece of work as a supplementary in order to have a chance of passing the subject. You will be notified by mail that you are supplementary qualified; you must then contact the subject coordinator immediately to discuss the nature and details of the work to be submitted. The maximum overall mark you can receive if your supplementary work is acceptable is 50%.
7. Always see your tutor first if you have a query or problem regarding your assignment results.

For assistance contact: paul.skrebels@unisa.edu.au
Copyright ©1997 University of South Australia
Prepared by the Flexible Learning Centre, University of South Australia
Prepared: 28 January 1997
Revised: December 1997
URL: http://www.roma.unisa.edu.au/07118/assess.htm