ENGLISH 220 / BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

GUIDELINES

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Sending Emails
File Naming
Assignment Format		 Take A Position
Assumptions
Writing Style		 Research the Topic
Don't Use I or YOU
First Names

FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS
This may be the most critical guideline of all. Since I will be receiving many papers from different students, it's important that each file be unique. (If everyone submitted the first assignment in a file named PAPER-1.DOC, I would only get one person's paper, the last one to submit it, since the computer will record each newly submitted document OVER the old one, thereby erasing it.) Therefore, it's important that you follow these directions.

The name for the file for each paper should consist of four parts:

  1. The course number (220)
  2. Your last name
  3. The assignment number
  4. Whether it's NEW or a REVISION

Each part should be separated by a hyphen: -

For example, if Julie Doe is submitting a revision of the third assignment, the WORD file would be named:

220-DOE-3-REVISION.DOC

When I return the paper I will add the word REVIEWED to the end of the file name, like so:

220-DOE-3-REVISION_Reviewed.DOC

This way, there will never be two papers that have exactly the same file name. And though it shouldn't make a difference, I prefer that file names be in UPPER CASE.

IMPORTANT NOTES: The above refers to the name you give to your WORD file and that appears when you use the 'Browse' function to upload the paper; it's not necessarily the name you type in the field labeled "Name" (See image below).

And make sure you use Send File , NOT Add File when sending the file.

Assignment Format
Papers should be submitted as a Microsoft WORD or Rich Text Format file. (In other words, the extension on the file name should be DOC or RTF.)

  • Type your name, the course number, and the paper number at the top of each assignment (before the title ). Don't put quotation marks around the title. (The only proper place for quotation marks is around the names of other authors' works.) Here's an example of how your heading should look:

      Julie Doe
      English 220
      Assignment 1: A Modest Proposal
      The Satire of Swift

  • Do not type your essay into the body of an email or on the Discussion Board.

  • Please make certain all your essays are at least the required minimum length before you submit them. (There is no maximum; assignments that do not meet the minimum will be rejected, regardless of the content.)

    SENDING E-MAILS

  • Please send all emails through the SNHU system to me at g.wilkerson@snhu.edu.edu. I will answer all of your messages and grade your assignments as quickly as possible--usually within 48 hours.

    All messages and assignments are important to me and I try to respond to them in a timely fashion. But marking messages and assignments as “high priority” does not speed up the process. Save that for emergency messages when you absolutely must have an immediate response.

  • Use only one email address throughout the entire semester. In an emergency (i.e. you cannot access the computer you usually use) make sure to put your name in the subject line of the email and address a copy of the message to yourself at your regular email address. This gives you a copy for your records and it enables me to send my reply to your regular email address. That saves time and enables me to respond to your message quicker.

  • Do not send the same email more than once unless you are sure that it didn't get through the first time. (If that happens you will usually receive a message from the server.) After a reasonable amount of time (at least 48 hours), if you are not certain I received an email, you can call me (518.346.6414) to ask about it.

  • If you change your email address during the semester, immediately send me an email from the new address and put something like this in the SUBJECT line: Email Address Change for Julie Doe. If your email address changes after you have already sent me an assignment and you haven't received an acceptance notice, send the assignment again from your new email address. It's better that I receive it twice than not at all.

    WRITING STYLE
    This is a college level writing course. You're paper should be written at that level. Conversational language is not appropriate. For example, a student wrote the following: "Honestly, I would never want to send my loved one off to war ever." You might say this when speaking to someone, a friend of relative, but it's not very scholarly. The student should have said something like: "Sending a loved one off to war is never a joyful event." (Notice that the first person [I] was removed. And conversational words and phrases like "nowadays" or " should not be used.(More on this shortly.)
          The other side of the coin here is the tendency to become overly formal. Some students, in an effort to "sound" academic introduce unnecessary verbiage that does nothing but confuse matters. (For example, saying "with regard to" instead of "about.")

    RESEARCH WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW
    Research is not required for most of the assignments; however, your position and comments will be a lot stronger if you can back them up with support from outside sources. And in no instance will broad claims and assertions be accepted without some kind of support behind them. For example, you should avoid saying things like:

    Instead, remarks like these should be supported (or not made at all), like so:
      "Fowler's History of the Irish Famine states that when the essay was first published many people were outraged at the idea. Very few thought his proposal was funny."

    SUBMISSION POLICIES
    Submit only one essay at a time unless I specifically tell you otherwise. Any essay returned for revising or rewriting must be resubmitted and accepted before you post the next essay. BUT, just as soon you finish one essay there's no reason you shouldn't begin writing the next one; you just cannot post it until I accept the previous one.

  • If you are concerned about whether I have received an assignment, you may resend it once. Please telephone rather than emailing me the same essay more than twice. If I did not receive your essay, I might not receive the follow-up email either if there is a problem with your email service.

    AVOID "I" AND "YOU"
    Remember that you are usually writing about something, something you read or an idea you've been asked to discuss. Those things are the subject of your writing. But when you use 'I', the writer becomes the subject. The focus moves away from the topic and onto the writer.

    DON'T REFER TO PEOPLE BY THEIR FIRST NAMES
    Unless you know someone personally, you should not refer to him or her by their first name. if you're writing about Shakespeare's Hamlet, you wouldn't say

    Likewise, if you're writing about Tom Cruise's performance in Mission Impossible you wouldn't say
      "Most critics panned Tom's performance in this film."
    The most commonly accepted way to reference a personage is by their last name:
      "In this play, Shakespeare raises the question of the ethics of suicide."
      "Most critics panned Cruise's performance in this film."