Instructor:     Bruce WEber

When:            TTh 11:30 - 12:45

Where:           MH-501

E-mail:           bhweber@fullerton.edu

Phone:             x3885

Office hours:   MW 2:30 - 3:30 PM; TTh 1:30 - 2:30 PM; F 10-11AM

Web Site:         http://chemsrvr2.fullerton.edu/DeptWebsite/Weber.html

Teaching Assistant: Scott Hsieh

Course Schedule is located here. 

Primary textbooks:

 Additional resources: 

Chemistry 340, Writing for the Chemical Sciences, is a junior level course required of all Chemistry and Biochemistry majors, and it meets the university upper division writing requirement. This course emphasizes practice in writing, American Chemical Society guidelines, peer-review and critical analysis of scientific literature. The course is often team taught by several faculty representing different emphases in chemistry, as well as from the English and Communications departments. The goals for student learning in this course are:

1. To practice writing scientific communication in its accepted forms and the critical thinking skills that underlie good scientific writing.
2. To develop skills necessary to present clearly written scientific communications, such as abstracts, journal manuscripts, grant proposals, records of invention, electronic publications, posters and seminar presentations in English, which is the universally accepted language of science.
3. To organize chemical and biochemical data and communicate them clearly and effectively and according to the fields of chemistry and biochemistry, as outlined by the American Chemical Society.
4. To learn to recognize, formulate, critically evaluate and convey with insight chemical and biochemical research results and hypotheses.
5. To become competent in critical assessment of one's own scientific writing and the scientific writing of others using calibrated peer-review.

Reading: You are responsible for reviewing the appropriate sections of the textbook(s) as the topics are discussed in class. References for assigned scientific texts and papers will be provided, or the text will be available for download from the course website in pdf format. You will need Adobe Acrobat ReaderÔ to open the pdf files.

Assignments: Five major writing assignments will be given per semester, the last being a poster and short seminar presentation. One to two minor writing assignments will be given weekly as homework, and there will be at least one in-class assignment during each class period.   Major writing assignments include a review article, grant proposal, journal article and poster. Minor writing assignments include sections of laboratory report or a poster, a meeting abstract, a record of invention, a written component of an oral presentation and discussion of ethics in science . Written drafts will be peer-reviewed by students, discussed by students and faculty, revised by students, and submitted to faculty for assessment. Minor assignments will develop skills and processes for use in major assignments. MS Word ® reviewing tools will be utilized to facilitate writing practice, peer review and assessment of learning objectives.

Grading: Weekly in-class assignments and homework assignments will be worth 35% of your grade in this course. Major assignments will be worth 65% of your grade for this course. Unless otherwise noted, homework assignments will be due one week after being assigned at the beginning of the next class period for peer-review. Revised documents will be turned in at the beginning of the next class period. All documents will be transferred between students and instructors electronically. Because this course relies heavily on in-class peer-review and discussion, you will not be able to make up missed in-class assignments, and you must notify the professor if you will be absent. Late assignments will not be accepted except under extenuating circumstances, such as illness, for which you have proper documentation.

Plagiarism: All work must be your own. Plagiarism will result in a failing grade for the assignment and a warning. A repeat offense will result in a failing grade for the course, and you will be reported to the department chair and to the Vice President for Student Affairs for disciplinary action. These procedures are described in your Student Handbook http://www.fullerton.edu/handbook/policy/polbody2.htm as per UPS 300.021. All original writing assignments will be checked using Turnitin http://www.turnitin.com, whose web site can also be used for confidential peer-review. Your instructor has established a course account, where you can upload documents yourself to check/comment on. Login information will be provided during the first class sessions.

Preparing written materials: Microsoft Word® will be used to prepare all written assignments, and it is assumed that you have sufficient basic experience with MS Word®. You will gain experience with tracking changes, adding comments and editting with multiple authors. We will also use Endnote® for creating bibliographic libraries, tracking references and figures within documents, creating citation lists, figure captions and tables of contents. You will use MS PowerPoint® for preparing seminar and poster materials.

Computer accounts: Recent policies have been implemented on campus to increase network security and prevent virus and hacking attacks. You will be able to log onto workstations in MH 501 using the account provided to you by the University. This will prevent others from copying or overwriting your work. Because computer hard drives are no longer normally shared, the instructor will not be able to access your folders directly to check assignments or do intermediate file backups, nor will you be able to ftp to/from this account. However, the computers in MH-501 have been recently upgraded to Windows 2K, and you will be able to utilize your plug 'n play USB flash drives (yeah!).  Thus, if you don't have one of these convenient devices, buy one (about $30 or less for 64-512MB), and bring it class regularly to transfer and backup your files. You should also email yourself work you have completed, to have a second copy somewhere else, as storage devices (drives and disks) fail quite often, and as per Murphy's Law, exactly when your manuscript is due. ALL ASSIGNMENTS TO BE GRADED WILL BE TURNED IN BY EMAILING THEM TO THE INSTRUCTOR OR USB FLASH TRANSFER.  You should have several copies of your work backed up, because zip and floppy disks routinely fail. It is your responsibility to have your worked saved and turned in on time. Hardware failures are not uncommon, and except for extreme circumstances, this will not be accepted as an excuse for a late assignment. You should have at least the previous draft of your worked saved as proof of your progress, and in more than one place. If files seem too large to email, they can be compressed.