nau | english | rothfork | teaching | online courses for fall 2008

    English 517

Professional Editing

Fall 2008

University:         Northern Arizona University
College:             Arts and Sciences
Dept.:                  English 
Courses:            English 517: Professional Editing:
                                
                         Find Statewide tuition rates here
When:                  Fall, Spring
Credit:                 3 hrs.
Instructor:         Greg Larkin
Office:                
(:                        928.523.0251
*:                     gregory.larkin@nau.edu  
Prerequisites:     None; graduate status

Access the Course:   http://vista.nau.edu   After registering, access the course. Use you dana account user name & password. I do not know your email address. If you register for the course, it is your obligation to access the class at the beginning of the class. Do not wait for me to send you an email.

Texts
1. Carolyn D. Rude.  Technical Editing, 4rd edition.   isbn 032133082X .  Pearson Education Press. Amazon (list $85, used $44).  Required
2. William Zinsser.  On Writing Well.  isbn: 0060006641. Harper.  Amazon ( used $.01). Not required.
3. Claire Kehrwald Cook.  Line by Line. Houghton  Mifflin. Amazon (Amazon $11, used $4). Not required.
You may have these texts sent to you from the NAU Bookstore. See: Statewide Orders at the NAU Bookstore.

Publisher's site for Carolyn Rude's Technical Editing

Question markWhat we do in the course

Rude: This text is in its 4th edition, which suggests that it is used by many instructors at many colleges & universities.  I hazard to guess that it is probably the most frequently used text for editing courses. We study through 2 chapters in Rude for each of the 12 lessons. There will be quizzes on Rude for each lesson. You will also do some of the exercises in Rude. 

Zinsser: There are 22 chapters in Zinsser's book. We read two chapters for each of the first 11 lessons. There are no evaluations or points directly based on this book.

Cook: There are only 5 chapters in this book. We read a few pages for each of the first 11 lessons. There are no evaluations or points directly based on this book.

Course Lessons:

Unit   Activities
01  Rude chs. 1-2
02   Rude ch. 3-4
03   Rude ch. 5-6 
04   Rude ch. 7-8 
05 Rude ch. 9-10
06   Rude ch. 11-12
07   Rude ch. 13-14
08  Rude ch. 15-16
09 Rude ch. 17-18
10   Rude ch. 19-20
11  Rude ch. 21-22
12    Rude ch. 23-24

Grades:  90% : A
              80% : B
              65% : C

Assignments:

Each unit has several components. The table illustrates a sample lesson providing directions for completing unit 03:

 
What to do for unit 03 Question mark    

  1. Read Carolyn Rude's, Technical Editing, 4th ed., ch. 5 & 6: pp. 68-105. 
     
  2. Read the associated Webpage, rude03. 
     
  3. Do these exercises in Rude:
    1. p. 82, #3.  Use the decimal outline system as a choice from the Numbering menu.  Click on the numbering icon.  Open Format to find Bullets & Numbering.  Choose the decimal outline system to produce numbers like these:

      1.  x

      1.1.  xxx

      1.2.  xxx

      1.1.1. xxx

      1.1.2  xxx

Insert a table of two horizontal cells.  Make the border around the table 3pt red. The internal divider should not be red. Write a title: Arial 14 bold, center. The body: Times Roman 12, justified  (12 points). 

  1. p. 83, #6.  Choose a website at geocities.  Begin at: http://pages.yahoo.com/
    Most of the websites at geocities are made by amateurs.  Consequently, you are more likely to find errors in the html code here than in professionally produced pages.  Identify the website you examine (give the url).  Examine the meta tags at the beginning of the source file to see if you can identify the html editor used to create the file.  For example, this page contains these two lines near the top:
    <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
    <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
    So, you know I used FrontPage to make this page (    8 points total).
     
  2. p. 104, #2.  Keep the document short.  Send it to me (10 points).
  1. Do quiz 03 (15 points).
     
  2. Read Cook: 18-35. 
     
  3. Read Zinsser, ch. 5 & 6.
     
  4. Read the Webpage on Cook & Zinsser.
     
  5. Do exercise_03 & send it to me as an email attachment (10 points).
     
  6. Contribute to the discussion page.  This is not a graded assignment.
    Click on Discussion in the menu in the bar at the left.
    Click on unit03.
    Read the discussion & post your thoughts on material covered in this unit. 

There are 55 points available in unit 03 from doing the exercises in Rude, the quiz, & the editing exercise. 
 

 

 
08.12.08