Course Requirements and Evaluation

Reading Assignments: The reading assignments for this course are listed below. It is important that you come to class prepared. You should complete the week’s reading assignment prior to the start of the week (usually Monday). Failure to read the assignments will hamper your ability to follow class discussions, and will ultimately affect your ability to do well in the class. Some of the lectures will follow the reading assignment fairly closely. Others may have a different emphasis, or may include related material that is not found in the textbook.

Weekly Assignments: 30% of your grade will be based on 10 of the 12 weekly assignments that are due most Fridays. You need only complete 10 of the 12 assignments!!! Friday’s assignment will be given out in class on the previous Wednesday, and will be discussed in class on the subsequent Monday. I’m afraid that I cannot accept late assignments, or assignments from students who are not in class on the day they are due, unless there is an exceptional circumstance. If you wish, you may e-mail the assignment to me as an attachment in a MS Word or Rich Text format. If you wish to have comments sent back to you via e-mail, indicate that desire in the text of your message. Assignments submitted via e-mail from students who are not in class that Friday will not be counted!

Attendance/Participation: I expect you to attend class and to participate in class sessions. Presentations, verbal explanation, class exercises, and question and answer sessions greatly enhance one’s understanding of the material. These activities take place in the classroom so your attendance at class meetings is important. Regular attendance is not, however, sufficient to do well in this course. Feel free to use class time to ask any lingering questions you may have about the material. If you find something to be difficult or confusing, chances are that other students do as well.

Optional Assignment: You may choose to drop your lowest weekly assignment grade by bringing in a real-life example to share with the class one week. The example can be from an advertising or political campaign, from the newspaper, or from another class. I will solicit volunteers for the real-life examples on Mondays, and the examples will be due in class on the following Wednesdays. The examples should be copied onto overhead transparencies so that they are clearly readable by the rest of the class.

Midterms and Final: There will be one midterm exam, worth 30% of your grade, and one final exam, worth 40% of your grade, on the regularly scheduled exam date. The format for the midterm and the final will be short-essay questions and at least two longer problems on material covered in class and in the text. The final exam will be cumulative, though three-fourths of it will focus on material covered after the midterm. Make-up exams will be given only under exceptional circumstances and when the student makes arrangements with me in advance whenever possible.

Note that you are responsible for any missed class announcements, assignments, and notes.