193 W22 Morton

ENGL-193/SPCOMM-193: Communication in the Sciences Syllabus

Winter 2022

Instructor: R. Travis Morton

Contact E-Mail: rtmorton@uwaterloo.ca

Office Hours: By appointment via Zoom

Course Description

            Hello everyone and welcome to Communication in the Sciences! This course will focus on your ability to communicate information from an esoteric field in effective ways and which will serve to strengthen your relationships both in your field and around it. In this course, you will work with me to better understand how and why your ability to express these complex concepts in a digestible way will benefit you. You will also learn some new ways to do so in practice, with plenty of experience with your classmates to help you along the way. Finally, and most importantly, you will begin to understand how it is that language not only structures and informs the world around you, but also structures your sense of personal and social values that, in turn, organize your sense of why your work is important, and how to share it with others.

            This course was originally built to accommodate an in-class teaching environment, and has since been adapted to be entirely online and asynchronous. I realize many of you were likely awaiting a class that would be attended in person, and I apologize that it cannot. In particular, a class about communication is one that would be best taken in person! That said, I will be doing all that I can to ensure the class is useful to you and presented in an effective manner!

Expectations

            Each of us is better learning how classrooms must adapt to changing global conditions. Rest assured, I am here to help you, and I am always prepared to work with and communicate with students in order to ensure their success. To that end, I will emphasize two things to keep in mind that go a long way with me in ensuring that success:

1. Communicate - I can't stress this enough. You will find that in going through the syllabus, there are several aspects to it that will no doubt involve talking with me. If you have questions, please ask them! There are no stupid questions, and you aren't expected to know everything going in. That's what makes you a student. If you need accommodation, don't hesitate to ask! There are mechanisms through the school, such as AccessAbility that will help, but also I can work with you to adjust things in the course to suit your needs as well. Your open dialogue with me is always going to help--I can and do take your personal circumstances into account when considering your performance in the course.
2. Take Things Seriously - I will always endeavour to make the classroom, virtual or otherwise, a welcoming place where you can feel free to share, debate, and speak freely. All I ask is that when you do so, you take the things we are looking at and discussing seriously, in good faith, and on their own terms. That might be difficult to grasp at first, but don't stress too much! I'm happy to help, and I always endeavour to be patient.

            Those things out of the way, I would like to ensure that this course has just enough to keep you engaged without taxing you too much in terms of weekly expectations! On a weekly basis, you will be expected to do the following: Listen to the lecture I provide, Read the selected materials, and prepare for the assignments I have detailed below. There will be four major assignments in the course, which will be detailed in the next section. That's all!

Mark Breakdown

Your grade breakdown for this course is as follows:

Interview - 15%

Temet Nosce - 25%

Grant Pitch - 20%

Project Proposal - 25%

Engagement - 15%

Details

I have endeavoured in this section to break down each grade item as they will appear. While each may appear a little overwhelming, we will go over them in lectures and we will have lots of opportunities for clarification as well. Try to bear with me as I go through each one, and if there are any points that are at all unclear, make note of them and ask me--I'm more than happy to field questions! Where it proves necessary, there will also be assignment sheets made available to you for each of them that will add a little clarity. There will not, however, be rubrics for these assignments.

1. Interview - 15%: This assignment will be an interactive one. It will be designed to get you acclimatized to several non-verbal aspects of communication, and will involve the participation of someone you trust that is willing to help you in completing it. The assignment sheet will include for you a list of interview questions. You will be expected to produce for me a video of yourself answering these questions as they are given to you by the interviewer. The camera shot should include as much of your body as possible (by which I mean so that I can see a sufficient degree of your body language. Head out of the gutter, please. ;)) There will be only ten, but you will be expected to answer them to the best of your ability, and you will be graded on your effective use of the strategies and skills we have discussed in class to that point. It is important that the person you have interviewing you be someone you trust! This is mainly to put you at ease, but there will be a final question which that questioner will be able to come up with for themselves! It will not be arduous on them, and so long as I am aware what the final question is, nothing they say needs to be recorded (you can mute their posing the questions if they prefer), and they needn't appear on camera. The final question is meant in some way to catch you off-guard, but it is my hope that it will be fun for the both of you. The interviewer does not need to be in the room, either, so long as I can see enough of you--so it can be conducted over Zoom (or etc.) if you'd like, but I would prefer it if they were in the room with you for reasons which I hope will become evident over the coming weeks! 
2. "Temet Nosce" - 25%: For reasons that will become clear when the time comes, this assignment I cannot offer you any details on at this time. Do not worry--it will not involve anything you won't have available to you in terms of time or materials, but the details will be offered to you in good time to complete it.
3. Grant Pitch - 20%: The next two assignments in this course will involve your ability to communicate effectively in print, through language. Language is a complex entity, as you may suspect now, but will discover just how complex and fluid it is in the weeks to come! This assignment will precede the final assignment for this course, and will involve your ability to exercise brevity. This is to say, how to use language effectively and persuasively, in brief. This will be a mock proposal for a project grant. It will be the kind of "elevator pitch" that you will frequently need to use in your life to sell others on a more elaborate idea later. 
4. Project Proposal - 25%: This will be your final assignment for this course, and will now offer you the space to propose a far more elaborate project idea. This will be based on what you proposed in your pitch assignment, and will therefore also be in the field of your choosing. You will be in charge of breaking down how you wish to present the project idea as a whole, and can dictate the terms of its presentation. That means you will be able to present it as a presentation file, as a video presentation, as a detailed written proposal, interpretive dance, or any other format you can think of and imagine to be effective. You will also decide what kinds of information you will present, such as background information, current research, how your idea will change things, etc. You will also choose how it is broken down into sections, how much or how little to offer, and more. This is going to be about how effectively you can communicate your idea in a complete form.
5. Engagement - 15%: This class, as with all of my classes, will involve a measure of your engagement with the class and the materials. While I have experimented with how much of your grade it occupies in the past, given the nature of asynchronous teaching, it now occupies a fairly small portion of your grade. This grade is sometimes called "participation", though I find that term to be misleading. To call it participation suggests that the more you ask questions or talk is what gives you a higher grade, and this is simply not the case. After all, a student asking fifty inane questions ought not to receive a higher grade than a student offering only ten good questions! I call it engagement because what I am looking for is to see how well students are absorbing the material from class, the strategies I am teaching you, as well as how much you are keeping engaged with the class as a whole. How your emails to me are written, for example. How much acumen you display in engaging with the class material and reflect that in your assignments, your discussion with me, and more. It might seem like something of an amorphous category, but it is always in my interest to ensure that students are given as much credit as I can provide them! Rest assured--I want you to succeed!

Schedule

Policies

Formatting

            Each of your written assignments should be double-spaced, in a legible 12 pt. font. Assignments should have page numbers (pagination) in the top right of the page. They should also have a byline on the first page of the assignment in the top left corner. That means that your first page should have a small, single-spaced series of lines in the top left corner that look like this:

ENGL-193

Joseph Addison

#00085941

Grant Pitch

14 March 2022

            That’s the course code, followed by your name, your student number, the title, and the date. When the essay then begins, it’s double spaced and in proper paragraph structure. I am fine with different file formats, but not google docs or another cloud editing equivalent, please. The file names must be in the following format:

Addison, Joseph - Grant Pitch.DOCX

            That’s last name, comma, first name, space-dash-space, assignment name. This might not seem like a big deal, but it is, as it helps me keep you all accounted for all of your assignments. Want to know why sometimes professors lose your assignments? When they have twelve of them all just called "Pitch.docx", or "Comm assignment.pdf". When you are submitting your assignments, please do so in the appropriate assignment dropbox on LEARN, or via email if we have made alternative arrangements.

Late Assignments

            Where it is not specified otherwise, assignments are due at 11:00 PM on the due date listed. These due dates are useful for organizational purposes, both yours and mine, but I do not assign late penalties under most circumstances, provided assignments are turned in no more than two days before my internal grade deadline at the end of term. One caveat, however, is that if assignments are turned in after the stated due date, they will generally not include feedback. Exceptions and other circumstantial issues may be discussed with me with reasonable notice and given appropriate circumstances, though I reserve the right to request proof of any such mitigating circumstances. Please don't hesitate to ask for assistance in general, I want to make sure you have the opportunity to hand in something that you're happy with, and I want you to have the freedom to do so.

Contact

            I am always available to field any questions or concerns you may have via email. I maintain a schedule policy about emails. I generally only check email no more than once a day, and typically not during weekends or holidays. This is a policy I maintain based on principle. There is a big difference between being 'on call' and 'off the clock', and the constant pressure to monitor email effectively puts both you and me into a state of stressful hyper vigilance. I believe it is unreasonable to ask this of you or of myself. I encourage you to do the same! This may result in your experiencing some issue with your assignments, class, etc. that occur during times that I am unavailable. In those instances, go ahead and email me as usual, and I will retroactively accommodate you in any way I can. Just do your best to respect my time and attention, and I will endeavour to do the same, and do all I can to help make things easier--this policy will not impede your ability to succeed in this course.

Marking and Feedback

Assignments in the arts do not often possess a concretized idea of a perfect score in which you have done all that is theoretically required, and made no errors. There are frequently criteria, about which we attempt to be clear as instructors, but it can rarely be easily said that a student has or has not embodied them perfectly. This means that as we grade, we build upward, observing what you've accomplished and assign a grade based on how much and how well you have developed that which you have been working on. This means that in this class, an 85% on a paper is an excellent grade, and a 95% is rarer still. Strive to do as well as you can, but temper your expectations accordingly! Like chess, you can learn to write well, but mastering it takes a lifetime, and even then, you will likely never master it fully. It means you might not have the perfect scores you can more easily achieve in more procedural disciplines, but also provided you have made an honest effort, you are also insulated against similar, perilously low grades.

            It is my natural inclination to write a great deal, and given both space and free time, I would write extended monologues to each of you as feedback for your assignments, but this is tremendously taxing and inefficient, so I must be measured. Assignments submitted on or before the deadline will be issued limited individual feedback, as well as more detailed general feedback in a public forum on LEARN detailing where many of the common errors and successes are in the class' submissions, though I am more than happy to explicate more fully each individual grade with an email request. I do ask that students wait 24 hours after receiving grades to inquire further, and to do so with specific questions in mind when you do.

University Policies

Cross-listed courses

Please note that a cross-listed course will count in all respective averages no matter under which rubric it has been taken. For example, a PHIL/PSCI cross-list will count in a Philosophy major average, even if the course was taken under the Political Science rubric.

Academic Integrity

Academic Integrity: In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. See the UWaterloo Academic Integrity webpage for more information.

Discipline: A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity, to avoid committing academic offences, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course professor, academic advisor, or the Undergraduate Associate Dean. When misconduct has been found to have occurred, disciplinary penalties will be imposed under Policy 71 – Student Discipline. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71 - Student Discipline. For typical penalties check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.

Grievance: A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4. When in doubt, please be certain to contact the department’s administrative assistant who will provide further assistance.

Appeals: A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances (other than a petition) or Policy 71 - Student Discipline may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes he/she has a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72 - Student Appeals.

Accommodation for Students with Disabilities

Note for students with disabilities: The AccessAbility Services office, located on the first floor of the Needles Hall extension (1401), collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with the AS office at the beginning of each academic term.

Mental Health Support

All of us need a support system. The faculty and staff in Arts encourage students to seek out mental health support if they are needed.

Note: Due to COVID-19 and campus closures, services are available only online or by phone.

On Campus

• Counselling Services: counselling.services@uwaterloo.ca / 519-888-4567 ext. 32655
• MATES: one-to-one peer support program offered by Federation of Students (FEDS) and Counselling Services
• Health Services Emergency service: located across the creek form Student Life Centre

Off campus, 24/7

• Good2Talk: Free confidential help line for post-secondary students. Phone: 1-866-925-5454
• Grand River Hospital: Emergency care for mental health crisis. Phone: 519-749-4300 ext. 6880
• Here 24/7: Mental Health and Crisis Service Team. Phone: 1-844-437-3247
• OK2BME: set of support services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning teens in Waterloo. Phone: 519-884-0000 extension 213

Full details can be found online on the Faculty of Arts website

Download UWaterloo and regional mental health resources (PDF)

Download the WatSafe app to your phone to quickly access mental health support information

Territorial Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that we are living and working on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron (also known as Neutral), Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes ten kilometres on each side of the Grand River.

For more information about the purpose of territorial acknowledgements, please see the CAUT Guide to Acknowledging Traditional Territory (PDF).

On a personal note, while I think on balance it is better to include such statements than it is to keep silent about critical Canadian history, particularly for the sake of those students that might otherwise be unaware of the lasting cultural tensions in this country, it is also possible that, for the above peoples, this statement might be seen as adding insult to injury. I’m afraid I have no resolution to offer, other than to acknowledge this Catch-22, and to encourage that students seek out more information on the ongoing epidemic of MMIW in particular for themselves.

Academic freedom at the University of Waterloo

Policy 33, Ethical Behaviour states, as one of its general principles (Section 1), “The University supports academic freedom for all members of the University community. Academic freedom carries with it the duty to use that freedom in a manner consistent with the scholarly obligation to base teaching and research on an honest and ethical quest for knowledge. In the context of this policy, 'academic freedom' refers to academic activities, including teaching and scholarship, as is articulated in the principles set out in the Memorandum of Agreement between the FAUW and the University of Waterloo, 1998 (Article 6). The academic environment which fosters free debate may from time to time include the presentation or discussion of unpopular opinions or controversial material. Such material shall be dealt with as openly, respectfully and sensitively as possible.” This definition is repeated in Policies 70 and 71, and in the Memorandum of Agreement, Section 6.

About Me

            I am a PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo. I have been a TA and adopted various roles in teaching for ten years now, and have taught several courses in Shakespeare, Business Communications, and Introductory English Writing as well. I have taught Introduction to Game Studies several times in the past, and I have also taught Fantasy Literature and Science Fiction Literature as well. My areas of study include Discourse and Text Analysis, Games, Folklore, Shakespeare, and American Literature. I am thirty-six years old (updating this paragraph every year feels like watching grains of sand in my life's hourglass and is mildly terrifying), and am native to Southern Ontario, born and raised in Whitby, having completed my undergraduate degree and my MA at Trent University in Peterborough. I am usually longwinded, though I consider it respectful to be as candid and clear as I can be. Foremost as an instructor I try to be respectful, polite, and endeavour to possess and to demonstrate integrity as much as possible. My interests include reading and writing, of course, on all kinds of subjects, but I also enjoy fine dining and like to experiment with cooking. I like trying interesting scotch and beer, painting, and I very much enjoy games of all kinds as well.

            While I consider myself left-leaning politically, and a bit of a kook from time to time, to the best of my ability my views will not influence how I assess what you write about, positively or negatively. It is about how you argue, not what you argue for, and I encourage you to keep this in mind, as I try to keep my teaching and scholarly ambitions largely apolitical. Your position on something doesn't earn or deduct you anything, only your argumentation. My pedagogical philosophy is built upon embracing both the online classroom and my interactions with you as a contact zone for you--a place in which you will likely encounter new concepts and ideas and in which you must work with others that may or may not agree with you to develop your understanding. This means I consider this online space a classroom, and a challenging environment. I expect that anything you do not understand you will ask about, or use what resources are at your disposal to try to understand. I will also always take your questions seriously and treat them with respect, as nothing should make you look or feel stupid in a classroom--only challenged. Classrooms are mediated spaces, but they are not "safe" spaces, per se. They are places to challenge and adapt, because that is what it means to learn.

            As a final note, I tend to design courses with a physical classroom in mind as I find it is usually better to have students in support of one another as they learn. Our recent need to adapt to ever-more online formats will have an impact in diminishing our level of contact with one another. Keep in mind that this kind of asymmetric communication removes access to three critical aspects of engaging with others: body language, tone, and most importantly, time. What people say in one moment is a product of that moment--it reflects their relative fatigue, hunger, emotional state, etc., and this can influence how we interact. Mitigating these limitations will likely be the work of a lifetime for those of us coming of age with the Internet, and we all have yet to fully adapt, much less to understand what these impacts will even look like. I can't present perfect solutions to these challenges, but I will be doing everything I can to restore and maintain as much of our communicative capacity as possible, for instance, by responding to emails with audio files that I have recorded so that you might hear tone and intuit body language. Remember, we need others, not just as voices or images, but as bodies with whom we share space, and it is my hope that we will get to where we have more of that again!

Back to top