Engineering Faculty Document No. 5-02

January 22, 2003

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TO:                 The Engineering Faculty

FROM:           The Faculty of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

RE:                 New Graduate-Level Course

            The faculty of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering has approved the following new course. This action is now submitted to the Engineering Faculty with a recommendation for approval.

ECE 677   Communication Aspects of Academic Research

Sem. 1 & 2. Class 1, cr. 0.

Prerequisite: ECE graduate standing

Topics relevant to oral and written communication needs of Ph.D. students. Three papers are written: a journal article review, a literature review, and the choice of a thesis proposal, conference paper, or a journal article.  Library and Internet research strategies and resources; research/writing ethics; citing sources; citation styles; and academic language. Oral presentations based on the written projects. Extensive peer revision and editing and out-of-class writing conferences with the instructor.

Reason:    Currently, no course exists in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, for this purpose. Therefore, the information about how to write various documents or give a conference presentation has been disseminated by individual professors. Offering a course seems to be a more efficient and effective way of teaching students the same material. In addition, as this course is conceptualized, students will also receive extensive feedback on their writing from both their peers and the instructor. This course was offered as ECE 694C in the Spring 2001 and Fall 2001 semesters with an enrollment of 22 and 10 students, respectively.

Mark J. T. Smith

Professor and Head

Engineering Faculty Document No. 5-02

January 22, 2003

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Supporting Documentation:

1.         Course Objective:  The purpose of this course is to initiate Ph.D. students into the engineering discourse community by teaching them to write several key documents and practice delivering a conference paper. Students will learn the essential components of a literature review, a journal article review, and a thesis proposal, conference paper, or journal article.

2          Level:  Graduate Level

3.         Person-In-Charge: Joanne Lax

4.         Course Outline:

            Topics                                                                                                                 Lectures

1.         Introduction                                                                                                        1

2.         Research strategies/ethics                                                                                    1

3.         Writing up research I                                                                                          1

4.         Documentation                                                                                       1

5.         Writing article reviews                                                                             1

6.         Revising workshop                                                                                             1

7.         Editing workshop                                                                                                1

8.         Review of the literature                                                                           1

9.         Revising workshop                                                                                             1

10.       Editing workshop                                                                                                1

11.       Writing up research II                                                                                         1

12.       Giving oral presentations                                                                                     1

13.       Revising workshop                                                                                             1

14.       Class evaluation                                                                                                  1

            Total                                                                                                                14

Note:  This course will meet for one hour a week.                                             

5.                  Text:  Instructor-prepared coursepack containing book chapters, journal articles, and handouts on writing topics.

6.         Grading:  The course will be graded on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory basis.