UPDATED 2/10/08
"Only connect! . . .Live in fragments no longer.” E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910), ch. 22
‘One
day when I was twenty-three or twenty-four this sentence seemed to form
in my head, without my willing it, much as sentences form when we are
half-asleep, ‘Hammer your thoughts into unity’.
For days I could think of nothing else and for years I tested all I did
by that sentence [...]” William Butler Yeats (Nobel Prize 1923; cited
in Frank Tuohy, Yeats,
1976, p.51 )
PROJECT
What is the professor looking for?
How do I convert a Word file into a web file?
What if I want to use Webspace rather than a blog site for the web version of my essay?
How do I submit my essay/website to SWORD?
How will the hard copy be graded?
WHAT EXACTLY IS THE PROFESSOR LOOKING FOR IN THIS ASSIGNMENT?
What I am looking for is an attempt on your part to get as close as you can to
PERFECTION
(knowing of course than no one can be perfect)
WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE? IF YOU WILL BE SUBMITTING THIS TO SWORD, YOUR PRIMARY AUDIENCE WILL BE COMPOSED OF FIVE MEMBERS OF THE CLASS, ASSIGNED AT RANDOM TO YOU. THEY WILL BE GRADING YOU AND YOU IN TURN WILL BE GRADING THEM. EVENTUALLY, YOU WILL BE TURNING A PRINT VERSION IN TO THE INSTRUCTOR.
1. FORM AND CONTENT. Because the medium IS the message, because form and content are inseparable, grades are based not only on content but also on number of errors and infelicities in writing style.
All projects must be concise, and have correct spelling and punctuation, consistent tense usage, logical transitions between sentences, and above all, the best word and best punctuation in the best place (see below). The smart thing is to try to write technically perfect papers that are well unified and flow smoothly.
2. CONTENT: Specificity and Details are particularly important.
3. CONTENT. TO GET CLOSE TO PERFECTION, make sure you proofread the essay carefully for every kind of error, including typos.
4. CONTENT. You must include pictures . (All pictures are to be in color unless the originals were black and white.)This requirement is usually met by inserting electronic files of pictures or photographs into your text (see “Insert” in Word or Dreamweaver). The purpose of the pictures is for you to become acquainted with the integration of verbal and visual rhetoric that has become common these days and to gain some practical experience in preparing a multimedia web site. Pay special attention to ”Effective Visual Design” in your anthology.
a.) Using Photoshop* or a similar program, for the print version if not the web version, reduce the size of the pictures to 1-6" wide. If you want to put two together make them 3" wide. (*This program is available in our classroom and in Parlin 6 for your use.)
b.) Insert pictures in text where they belong, not in a gallery or in footnotes at the end. Make sure to identify or title all pictures (in other words, supply captions).
c.) Pictures can be taken from the internet if you supply the URL for each internet picture in a footnote or in a List of Illustrations at the end.
d.) For pictures from print media, you will need to digitize them (make them into a computer file) with a scanner. If you are going to use them on the web 72 dpi is sufficient. There are scanner stations in our classroom, the Student Microcomputer Facility, FAC 212, and in the Rhetoric multimedia lab: PAR 102
5: CONTENT: DOCUMENTATION. All pictures and quotes are to be footnoted. The footnotes for the pictures should supply the label and the complete source, that is, the URL, or the full bibliographic information, down to the page number. The footnotes for the quotes should indicate clearly who is speaking in the passage and supply the complete source, that is, the URL, or the full bibliographic information, down to the page number. USE the University of Chicago footnote system which requires complete bibliographical information at the bottom of the page, and then there is no need for a list of works cited or a bibliography at the end. (When you put your project on the internet, the footnotes become endnotes.)
6. ENDING. The number of words is to be specified at the end of the project, after the final sentence (use “word count” under “tools” in Microsoft Word). Quotations from others and citations of references are not to be included in your word count.
ALSO AT THE END OF THE PRINTED VERSION OF THE PROJECT [FOR THE INSTRUCTOR] SUPPLY THE U.R.L. OF THE WEBSITE VERSION OF THE PROJECT
go to no. 8 if you want to jump ahead to how to upload to SWORD
7. CONTENT: Concerning word choice and all the "minor" details, learn from Hemingway's experience:
"Getting the words right" applies to every word, including even the little prepositions that accompany verbs. Concerning the latter, consider, for example, the phrase "My curiosity triumphed in convincing me": the best preposition would be "by" rather than "in." In the past you would know this automatically because of the amount of reading you had done, but now, apparently because many of even the best students don't read as much, you might have to look it up. Where would you look it up? In the kind of dictionary that gives detailed definitions and examples, such as the Oxford English Dictionary. If you were to look up the verb "triumph" you would see that using the preposition "in" is usually reserved for objects as in Shakespeare's "Which triumpht in that skie of his delight" and "triumphing in their faces." When you refer to an action such as "convincing," the most appropriate preposition is "by," as in Scott's "triumphed by anticipation over their surrender." When you use the "wrong" preposition the knowledgeable reader is halted in his or her reading and the effectiveness of your writing is weakened.
"Getting the words right" also applies to punctuation, as we know from our excerpt from Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. Footnote numbers, for example, should not be put in parentheses, should be set above the line, and follow any punctuation marks except a dash. Footnote placement as well as citations is to follow the U. of Chicago rules. (There is no need for a bibliography if full information is provided in the notes.)
Concerning dialogue: If you are deliberately making mistakes to make speech or writing more authentic you must follow each mistake with "sic" or I will assume the mistake is yours rather than the speaker's.
Concerning punctuation of quotes: When you quote within a quote remember to use italics or single quotation marks to set off the actual quotation from the rest of the words ascribed to the speaker.
ADDITIONAL GRADING DETAILS
TIME MANAGEMENT:
DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. For posting late on SWORD, -500 points, as SWORD will then not let you post any more projects on it.
Essay itself rather than URL uploaded to SWORD- 10
LENGTH OF THE ESSAY
No word count –10
Inaccurate word count – 5-25
Word count inflated by counting quotations or references: -5 to -20, depending on the amount of the inflation.Less than minimum words : 50 words or so less –10; 100 words or so –15 etc. Obviously, the more words you write the greater the risk of error. Thus some may be tempted to write as little as possible and thereby expect a better grade than those who wrote more. Hence the penalty must be fairly heavy because we don’t want to penalize those who do the assignment and reward those who do not.
ADDITIONS
Quote included +2, well integrated +3 or more; up to +20 points total for quotations
Pictures on the website: with labels, +2 each, IF also referred to in the text +3 each; up to + 10 points total for pictures (beyond the required picture)
audio well integrated +10 or more; video well integrated +20 or more
(must come up automatically when the relevant word(s) in the text are clicked/selected)
1 or more pictures not working on site: -5 (follow directions for uploading to Webspace; make sure permissions are set to "share"; test from another computer)
No captions on pictures: -1 per picture
No source information for pictures: -1 per picture
No pictures - 10
No documentation - 25
Wrong documentation system- 10
Incomplete or incorrect documentation -5
Get help if need be: take advantage of the services you have paid for in the Undergraduate Writing Center and Jester Learning Center. For more specific help, feel free to email the writing mentor (if there is one) or me, or call me on the phone to make an appointment to meet in my office.
8. Convert your projects into web (html) files. If you have not written your project in a web-site-creation program such as iWEB, Dreamweaver, or Front Page you will need to convert your file(s) into web files, that is, "htm" or "html" files. Most students use Microsoft Word for word processing, so we will use that as our example. After you have written your project and inserted the pictures, with captions, find the “Save as Web file” option in Word. (If your word processing program does not have this option, see the instructor.) Use the “Save as Web file” option. Make sure your file ends in "htm" or "html," not "mht" or "doc" or "docx" or "wps." (You can not just type "htm" at the end of the file name because that alone won't make the file accessible to the web.) If the resulting file name is long or contains spaces, shorten it. Generally, make file names and folder names as brief as possible to avoid transcription errors later. For example, P1A.doc, rather than "Project One about .......... doc." At the next stage then you will have P1A.htm rather than Project One about .......... Brevity is especially important for folder names on Webspace because they will precede file names.
9. Upload your htm and all related multimedia files to a website. If you do not use a blog account or have your own web site, you can use your webspace account. For more on webspace see directions at the end of this document.
SUBMITTING YOUR ESSAY TO SWORD
10. When you have your web site working properly, go to Word and open a new document. Into this document paste the URL of yourweb site. Save this document as a "doc" file. To post projects for others to see and comment on, follow these directions.
SWORD works best if you access it with Firefox, not Explorer. If you use Explorer your session often expires before you get started. Here is what one student suggested: "For microsofties, downloading FireFox solves the logout problem on Sword. But everyone should be using FireFox anyway, talk about much sexier security. If you can't download firefox, go to internet explorer, click tools -> internet options -> privacy and knock your security down one notch from medium to low. Change it back after you're done with sword or get spyware!" ( doa)
Now go to SWORD and choose our course.Go to "Assignments" and then choose "Submit your first writing." You will see instructions such as
"Click the following Browse or Choose File button to choose your writing. Only MS-Word file [.doc],Adobe [.pdf], and Rich Text Format [.rtf] are accepted. If your file does not have the extension such as .doc, add a proper one to your file. Your file size should be less than 3MB. It is your responsibility to submit a correct copy/file of your writing. Close your file when you submit it."
WHAT YOU SUBMIT TO SWORD IS THE WORD DOCUMENT (ENDING IN ".DOC") THAT CONTAINS only one line: THE U.R.L. OF THE BLOG SITE OR WEBSITE WHERE THE WEB VERSION OF THE ESSAY RESIDES.
11. SWORD will also ask you to fill out a form called "Self Evaluation" asking you to evaluate your own essay on the basis of the SWORD CRITERIA established for your course. Unfortunately, SWORD does not supply a copy of this form to the instructor for backup, so it is essential that you make copies of this form BEFORE you actually submit it to SWORD. It is required for your portfolio and you will need to hand a copy to your instructor to prove you did the assignment.
13. Eventually, you will need to make a CD. Then you need to make sure it works it on a different computer and checking the results. If you use a PC check your webspace file on an internet-accessed Mac or vice versa. This is the only effective way to make sure your site is working properly. IF YOU ARE USING A NEW PC RUNNING VISTA EXPECT THAT MICROSOFT WILL HAVE SABOTAGED ANY MAC-READABLE VERSION YOU WILL TRY TO CREATE AND PUT ON A CD.
For turning in hard copies to me late: -10 pts. for each class day late.Printer and other computer problems are not acceptable excuses (= my dog ate my home work). EXPECT unanticipated problems; you need to do your work in advance so that you can deal with such problems before the deadline.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS ON HOW YOUR FINAL PRINTED PROJECT WILL BE GRADED:
-- "Good" in margin = +3 or more
Major errors first project: -3, minor errors -2, infelicities –1. Same errors repeated in revision of first project –7, -4, -3; in second project –9, -5, -4; in revision of second project –11, -7, -5. This system is employed to strongly encourage you to master time management, the secret of rewriting.
No hard copy: project not accepted
No CD with working files: project not accepted
Main project file on CD not htm or html file (for example, they are .doc files rather than .htm): project not accepted
No self-evaluation -10 for each one missing
No working URL on hard copy- 5 (make sure permissions are set to "share"; test from another computer; file must be a true htm or html file, not a doc or mht file)
No pictures on hard copy - 5-10
Pictures not in color in hard copy -5
No title -5
No page numbers -5
Not double spaced -5
No folder -10
No name legible on the folder -5
Folder missing items: -5 for each missing item
Numbers in the margin will refer to page numbers in Faigley, except for the symbol of the inverted V, which stands for “transition needed between these sentences” (more coherence, more unity needed)
N.B.: Faigley, of course, insists on American, not British, punctuation.
*WEBSPACE INSTRUCTIONS See Putting Pages on the Web Using Webspace in your anthology. Then follow the instructions, written by Brooks Antweil in E375L, sp 05:
1. Go to http://webspace.utexas.edu and log in to your personal page.
2. To make it easier, I made a separate folder called E 375 L just for my project.
3. "Share" the folder that will contain your project (instructions in the course packet).
4. Now go into the new folder. Click the "Upload" button in the tool bar. Find the file (not the folder) that your project is saved under. This will most likely be in your "My Documents" folder in Windows. The one you're looking for is "(filename).htm," so if your file is called "project1," the file you want is called "project1.htm." When this file is uploaded, you will have uploaded the written part of the project, but not the pictures.
5. When you saved the project in ".htm" format, Word also created a folder with the same name as your project to hold the multimedia files (read "pictures"). The default name of this folder is "(filename)_files"; (using the previous example it would be "project1_files"). In the same directory as your "project1.htm" file in webspace, create a folder with the same name as the one that Word created for you. You have to do this because Internet Explorer will not let you upload the entire folder. To do this, click "New Directory" in the webspace toolbar and type in the exact name of the folder that word created. Make sure that all spaces and underscores are there, and all words are spelled correctly, because the name of this folder is going to be "sensitive."
6. After you have created a folder called "project1_files" (just an example), click on this folder to open it. NOW, you can upload all of the files that are in the folder Word created. Make sure to upload every file that is in your Word folder. In other words, click the "Upload" button in the toolbar, and then upload each individual file from the "project1_files" directory on your computer.
Once
you have uploaded your complete project you need to make sure all
files related to the project have their permissions
set to "share" in Webspace.
