WINTER QUARTER 2007 -- Information and Computer Science -- UC Irvine
ICS 139W Course Reference
COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS FOR COMPUTER SCIENTISTS
Instructor: Natasa Przulj, 408B Computer Science (824-7312; natasha@ics.uci.edu)
Teaching Assistants: Chayan Chakrabarti (cchakrab@ics.uci.edu) and Yosen Lin (yosenl@ics.uci.edu). The TAs will devote some of the scheduled discussion time to individual consultations, and will also be readily available by appointment.
Course goals: Even if you intend to spend your entire professional life designing software or configuring networks, you will spend more of it writing prose--memos, proposals, documentation, electronic mail--than you will writing code. Yet in most of your courses, this vital skill is exercised only after the last test case is run, in the half-hour before the due date. Here, we have the luxury of concentrating on your writing skills, with an emphasis on writing to meet the specific needs of different audiences; you will also make oral presentations and design presentation graphics.
This course satisfies
UCI's upper division writing requirement, which is designed to give students
the opportunity to do writing in ways that are specific to their own
academic disciplines, guided by faculty from that discipline rather than from
English.
Prerequisite concepts: Satisfaction of the lower division writing requirement is a prerequisite for this course, so we will expect every student to be able to write cogent, grammatical English at the level expected in Writing 39C.
Meeting place and times: There are two ICS 139W lectures this quarter, Lecture A and Lecture B. Each student is registered in one of them only. Lecture A (31 students) meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00pm-3:20pm in classroom ICS 253; discussion for this class meets on Fridays 3:00pm-3:50 pm in ICS 243. Lecture B (50 students) meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:30pm - 4:50pm in classroom ICS 180; discussion 1 for this class meets on Wednesdays 1:00pm-1:50pm in classroom ICS 253 and discussion 2 meets on Wednesdays 2:00pm-2:50pm in ICS 243. Some discussion days will involve required activities, but others will be set aside for individual consultations on your work.
Office hours: By appointment. The quickest and most effective way to
reach me is by electronic mail, as described below.
Questions and announcements: You can get a response to your course-related questions by sending electronic mail to one of the two TAs. If you need further clarifications, you can e-mail the instructor. Our individual e-mail addresses are listed above.
We may also send course
announcements by Email to the official course mailing list, so you should check
your Email regularly. Note that this mailing list goes to the Email address
that the registrar has for you (your UCInet ID). If you prefer to read your
Email on another account, you should set your UCInet account to forward your
Email to your preferred account (from http://phwww.cwis.uci.edu/cgi-bin/phupdate you can do this on the web).
Don't let this slide; if you miss official announcements, your grade could
suffer.
This course has a home page at http://www.ics.uci.edu/~natasha/ics139w. An archive of official course Email and a course Note Board for student-to-student discussions is available when you log on to eee.uci.edu . We don't use a news group for this course.
Course materials: Writing from A to Z (currently in the third
edition) by Ebest, Alred, Brusaw, and Oliu. This is the writing reference for
lower division writing at UCI. Everyone needs a general writing reference, and
you should get this one if you don't have it or an equivalent. Earlier editions
are fine.
An English dictionary.
Ideally you should have a paperback dictionary as well as a large, unabridged
dictionary where you'll do most of your writing. The former has faster access
time but the latter has greater capacity, so both are valuable. A paperback
thesaurus is also useful, though you should remember that a thesaurus doesn't
give the connotations or appropriate contexts for the synonyms it lists.
(Optional) Introduction to Technical Writing, Process & Practice, second edition, by Lois Johnson Rew. This book addresses different forms and aspects of technical writing as well as general writing guidelines.
(Optional) Bugs in
Writing: A Guide to Debugging Your Prose, by Lyn Dupré. The author has
worked as an editor for a wide range of famous computer scientists. Her book
addresses the very hardest, but most essential, part of becoming a good writer:
developing an "ear for language."
(Optional) The MIT
Guide to Science and Engineering Communication, second edition, by James
Paradis and Muriel Zimmerman. This brief guide describes the various forms of
scientific and technical writing, including sections on oral presentations and
document design.
(Optional) Visual & Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making, by Edward R. Tufte. This reprint of Chapter 2 of Tufte's book, Visual Explanation, describes two situations where the way information was presented had life-or-death consequences.
Course requirements and grading: To satisfy the upper division writing requirement, you must receive a grade of C or better in this course; you may also take this class on a pass/not-pass basis (which also requires work at the C level to pass). In addition to satisfactory participation and completion of the assignments, to pass 139W you must successfully complete an in-class writing sample (described in more detail in the following section) demonstrating your ability to write a short passage in clear, correct, grammatical, cogent academic English.
* Four main writing assignments, each with multiple parts: "Writing Instructions" (about 10% of the course grade), "Influencing Policy" (about 20%), "Changing the System Introductory Tutorial" (about 15%), "Changing the System Proposal" (about 25%).
* Two or three smaller exercises, each worth about 5%.
* Class attendance and participation, including three or four oral presentations, worth about 20% overall. The importance of participation in this course is clear from its weight. Much of the learning comes from activities we conduct in class; there is no other way to make them up, and your grade will suffer if you miss them. The course outline indicates certain activities with a bullet (*); it is particularly important that you attend class or lab on those dates.
In general we will assign scores on a 100-point scale, with 95 a clear A, 85 a clear B, and below 70 not of passing quality (i.e., below C). It is possible but not guaranteed that the cutoffs for course letter grades of A and B will be assigned more leniently; that is, an overall score of 89% might receive an A or A-.
There will be no exams.
In-class writing sample: The first in-class writing sample is scheduled for Thursday, January 11; if you don't pass the first sample, you will have another chance during the second week. The topic for each sample will be something designed to be easy to write about so you can concentrate on your writing rather than the underlying ideas. In the 80-minute class period, we will ask you to write roughly 300 words (for comparison, this page contains nearly 600 words); this should give you plenty of time to revise and rewrite your passage. To pass, your writing must have essentially perfect mechanics, grammar, and usage, and it must be reasonably clear and well organized. You may bring a dictionary or any other reference works. Being able to produce clear and correct writing is a requirement for completing lower division writing, so we expect everyone in the class to be able to demonstrate this ability.
Computer access: Students in ICS 139W this quarter have access to the ICS open labs. These machines run Windows and have the full Microsoft Office suite of software, including Word and PowerPoint. For this course you may use any system to which you legitimately have access; we will require that you learn and use PowerPoint for part of one assignment.
Assignment requirements: The separate sheet titled "Writing Assignment Requirements" contains important advice that can affect your grade. Read it now and check it again every time you start a new assignment. There are also mechanical details for submitting assignments; each major assignment is submitted in two ways: on paper (including all the previously submitted, marked versions) and electronically via checkmate.ics.uci.edu). It's important that every assignment be precisely where it's supposed to be at the time it's supposed to be there.
What you must do
right now to get started in ICS 139W:
-- If you do
not have a UCInet ID (an account on the EA system for Email), get one. See http://activate.uci.edu/activate/menu.html and http://www.nacs.uci.edu/computing/accounts.html
-- If you prefer to read your electronic mail on an account other than your
UCInet account, redirect your mail at http://phwww.cwis.uci.edu/cgi-bin/phupdate
-- Give a snapshot
of yourself (with your name written on the back) to your TA. This will help us
learn your names quickly. (This is not just for fun--it's a course
requirement.) Also turn in your signed Questionnaire to your TA in discussion
section.
-- On the Web, go to checkmate.ics.uci.edu, log in with your UCInet ID,
choose "Course Listing" for "Winter 2007," click
"Go" next to ICS 139W, and then click "List me for this
course." You'll submit some of your work electronically; this step is
necessary to set that up.
-- If you aren't yet officially enrolled in the course, check the course Email
archive regularly (see above) so you can keep up with official announcements
(which may include announcements about enrollment).
Good advice and helpful hints:
Check your electronic mail regularly; this is an official channel for course announcements.
Attendance in class is important (and essential on the days marked with a bullet (*) in the outline below). Class participation of various kinds is rewarded at 20% of the course grade.
Always keep your own copy of each assignment, both electronically and on paper; if an assignment should get lost in the shuffle (or if a file server in the lab should crash, which has happened in the past), we'll expect you to be able to supply a replacement easily.
If you find yourself having trouble or getting behind, speak with a TA or the instructor. But never take the shortcut of copying someone else's work and turning it in; the consequences can be far worse than just a low score on one assignment. The ICS department takes academic honesty very seriously; for a more complete discussion, see the ICS departmental web page covering academic honesty issues: http://www.editor.uci.edu/catalogue/appx/appx.2.htm.
The best advice we can give you is to read all the materials with care and pay close attention to what they specify. Even if a natural language like English is not quite as precise as a formal language like Java, precise expression in English is precisely what this course is about and we have tried to reflect that in our course materials. The time it takes to read each assignment twice will be time well spent.
Approximate course
outline:
|
Week |
Date |
Topic |
Item(s) Due |
|
1. |
9 January |
Introduction to the course |
|
|
|
11 January |
* In-class writing sample I |
|
|
|
10/12 January (sec.) |
[No section meetings this week] |
|
|
2. |
16 January |
|
|
|
|
18 January |
Effective typography and presentation graphics [example] |
|
|
|
17/19 January (sec.) |
Consultation on "Changing System" topics and "Writing Instructions" |
"Changing System" Email to TA due on January 19 |
|
3. |
23 January |
* Using other people's writing |
"Writing Instructions" (draft, 3 copies)* |
|
|
25 January |
* Oral Synopsis of "Changing System" |
"Changing System" Synopsis (oral) |
|
|
24/26 January (sec.) |
Consultation
hour |
|
|
4. |
30 January |
"Changing System" Intro (draft, 3 copies)* |
|
|
|
1 February |
* Oral tutorial Introduction to "Changing System" |
"Writing
Instructions" (final + peer edited drafts -- hard copy and electronic
submission) "Changing System" Intro (oral) |
|
|
Jan 31/Feb2 (sec.) |
Consultation
hour |
|
|
5. |
6 February |
* Oral tutorial Introduction to "Changing System" cont'd |
"Changing System" Intro (oral) |
|
|
8 February |
* Oral tutorial Introduction to "Changing System" cont'd (if necessary) |
"Changing
System" Intro (oral) "Changing System" Intro (final -- electronic and hard copy; also hard copy of 3 peer edited drafts) |
|
|
7/9 February (sec.) |
* Consultation hour |
|
|
6. |
13 February |
Group
editing of "Changing System" Proposals |
"Changing System" Proposal (paper draft + talk slides, 3 copies)* |
|
|
15 February |
"Changing
System" Proposal (paper revised + slides revised -- hard copy +
electronic submission) "Influencing Policy" (draft, 3 copies)* |
|
|
|
14/16 February (sec.) |
Consultation
on Influencing Policy |
"Influencing Policy" (draft) |
|
7. |
20 February |
* Oral - "Changing System" Proposal to decision-makers |
"Influencing
Policy" (paper revised -- hard copy + electronic submission) "Changing
System" Proposal (oral) Slides for "Changing System" Proposal oral presentations -- due electronically on February 19 |
|
|
22 February |
* Oral "Changing System" Proposals (continued) |
"Changing System" Proposal (oral) |
|
|
21/23 February (sec.) |
* Oral "Changing System" proposals (continued again) |
"Changing System" Proposal (oral) |
|
8. |
27 February |
Information visualization |
"Influencing Policy" (final -- hard copy + electronic submission) |
|
|
1 March |
Web
page design issues Resumes and Cover Letters |
"Changing System" Proposal (final -- hard copy + electronic submission) |
|
|
Feb 28/March 2 (sec.) |
Consultation on "Changing System" Proposals/Promo/ Resumes & Cover Letters / "Trimming the Fat" |
|
|
9. |
6 March |
Group
editing of "Trimming
the Fat" assignment |
"Trimming the Fat" (draft, 3 copies)* |
|
|
8 March |
* Group editing of promotion pieces or résumés and cover letters |
"Changing
System" Promo (draft, 3 copies)* "Trimming the Fat" (final -- hard copy + electronic submission) |
|
|
7/9 March (sec.) |
Consultation on Promotion pieces |
|
|
10. |
13 March |
* Oral "Changing System" Promotion of change to users |
"Changing System" Promo (oral) |
|
|
15 March |
* Oral "Changing System" Promotion of change to users |
"Changing
System" Promo (oral) "Changing System" Promo (final -- hard copy + electronic submission) |
|
|
14/16 March (sec.) |
Consultation on résumés and cover letters |
|
All assignments listed above must be submitted in two ways (on paper at the start of class and via Checkmate/DropBox), as described on the previous page, with these exceptions:
* Of course the Email message listed above should not be submitted any other way.
* The assignments marked "oral" do not entail any other submission (though most of them have related parts that do have to be submitted in multiple ways; those parts are all listed separately).
* The assignments marked with an asterisk (*) should be submitted in class on paper only; they do not have to be submitted electronically.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007 -- 8:40 AM