Frequently Asked Questions:

Course Policies
I can’t make the final exam time. How should I make it up?
I need to miss/have missed a midterm. How should I make it up?
I need to miss class because of _____. Is that ok?
I have another test/review session/special lecture during class time. Can I miss class for this?
If I have a disability and need special test-taking provisions, what should I do?
I want to make an appointment. What are your guidelines for that?

Assignments
Can I email you my draft for comments?
I'm going to miss class but I want to turn in the assignment. Can I email it to you?
If I come to your office hours, will you read my draft and correct it?
Why do we have to make a copy of our paper sources for the speech?
If I find a paper source online, like the New York Times, can I just use a printout? What counts as a paper source?
What exactly do you want us to copy to show we did paper research?
How should I format my papers?
What’s the deal with turning in multiple copies of certain assignments?
Why do I need to tape my speeches? Can I record over them after I’m done?
What are the exams like?
How should I cite a web page?

Grading
How much did you take off of my speech grade because I did _____?
How many A’s do you give per class? Is there a curve? Is it easy to get an A in this class?
Isn’t the grading in a class like this arbitrary and subjective? 
I think that my speech this time was much better than my last speech, and I worked really hard on it...why didn't my grade improve?
What is most likely to ruin my grade in this class?
Do you offer any extra credit assignments? What can I do to improve my grade aside from the normal work?

Answers:
I can’t make the final exam time. How should I make it up?
Unfortunately, you can’t. The final is given to several hundred students simultaneously. If you have any conflict with the final exam, drop the course and take it another semester.

I need to miss/have missed a midterm. How should I make it up?
The only way that you can make up a missed midterm is if you have a VERY WELL DOCUMENTED emergency, such as an illness or injury that required hospitalization. If you know that you are going to miss a midterm, you are more likely to be able to make it up if you contact me BEFORE you miss it.

I need to miss class because of _____. Is that ok? Will it count towards my total misses?
Students are allowed to miss 3 classes for any reason, whether a funeral, a concert, a religious function, a missed bus, or a hangover. After 3, you will lose 20 points for each miss, for any reason. I recommend that you not skip any classes because you may be forced to miss later on, due to illness or other circumstances, and you will be penalized after 3. If you cannot avoid missing more than 3 classes, see me.

If you know that you are going to miss a class, please contact me BEFORE class to let me know. If an assignment is due that day, give it to another student to turn in so you can get credit for it.

I have another test/review session/special lecture during class time. Can I miss class for this?
Missing because of another class is not considered any different from missing for any other reason. This class is scheduled and if you have another class that conflicts heavily with our meetings than you should not take both during the same semester.

If I have a disability and need special test-taking provisions; what should I do?
The McBurney Center offers resources to students with disabilities. They can authorize your instructors to offer you extra time or special test-taking conditions. Bring me a McBurney Center form signed by your counselor there for this type of thing.

I want to make an appointment. What are your guidelines for that?
I am happy to meet with you individually, and I’ll offer you as much help as I can on the assignments. I have office hours to meet with students and you should make every effort to meet me during those times.If you are unable to come to my office hours because you have another class scheduled during that time, I will try hard to make an appointment with you. If you want to make an appointment with me, you have a much better chance if you set it up several days in advance. If you email me and ask me to meet you tomorrow, it is not very likely that I'll be able to do that. Just before and after class are good times to ask me quick questions. You can also ask me short questions over email.

Please plan ahead. Get started on your assignments early enough that you can come to my scheduled office hours with your questions rather than hoping that we will be able to find another time at the last minute.

Can I email you my draft for comments?
I am happy to answer any specific questions you have about your drafts. It usually takes at least 30 minutes to correct a draft. If I allowed students to email me drafts for me to correct in my free time, and if each student sent me only one draft, that is 15 hours a week extra work on top of my normal teaching and classes. As you can see, that would be impossible for me to do. See me in office hours for help on drafts. Feel free to email me with short questions, like "Which of these 3 topics do you think is best?"

I'm going to miss class but I want to turn in the assignment. Can I email it to you?
If you are going to miss class, you should print out your assignments and find a friend or classmate to turn it in for you. I do not have a printer and for me to print out your assignments requires me to save it on a disk at home, go to campus, and print it out myself. This is too inconvenient for me to do.

If I come to your office hours, will you read my draft and correct it?
I will be happy to talk with you about the draft, but I’m there to answer your questions and help you improve your own work. I’m not there to ‘fix’ your draft for you. If you have questions about the assignment, see me. If you have questions on improving your writing, I’m happy to answer them. If you want someone to proofread your work, the UW writing center may be more appropriate.

Why do we have to make a copy of our paper sources for the speech?
Beginning researchers often falsely believe that most useful information is currently available full-text over the internet or on online databases. Although these sources are very useful, in fact the great majority of research material is not online, and much of the best material is not online. An important part of this course is learning how to do research in the library. You need to know how to find a paper magazine or book on your topic, get it out of the library stacks, and copy the information in it. It’s not as easy to do this as it might seem. I ask you to do this so that you will have this skill for the rest of your college career.

If I find a paper source online, like the New York Times, can I just use a printout? What counts as a paper source?
No. Since part of the assignment is learning how to get a paper source out of the library, you need to do that even if you first find the source online.

Any document that you have to print out does not count as a paper source. If the text is stored on a computer, it does not count as a paper source. Your sources only count as paper sources if you physically hold the printed paper magazine or newspaper or microfilm in your hand. (I know microfilm’s not paper, but the point is that it’s a hard copy rather than a computer copy).

What exactly do you want us to copy to show we did paper research?
You should have one one-page copy for each of the paper (not internet) sources in your bibliography. For books, copy the inside title page, with the copyright information. For paper articles and microfilm, copy only the first page of the article (NOT the whole article). For internet sources, do not attach any printouts.

For an assignment with 3 sources minimum, you will attach a minimum of 3 copies attached to the assignment. Do not attach whole articles!

How should I format my assignments?
Assignments must be typed, double-spaced, and stapled. Please put your name, my name, the correct date, and the assignment name in the left-hand corner. Finally, use a normal 12 point font (i.e., don’t use one that looks like script writing).

What’s the deal with turning in multiple copies of certain assignments?
At the end of the semester, you will have to turn in a portfolio of all major assignments, including revisions and my comments. The SCR sometimes tells you to turn in multiple copies so I can keep one for the portfolio and can return one to you. Rather than doing this, I trust you to keep paper and electronic copies of all of your assignments. Thus, you should only turn in one copy of each assignment. EXCEPTION: you need to bring in multiple copies of assignments on days that we review each other's speeches (writing workshops).

Why do I need to videotape my speeches? Can I record over them after I’m done?
You need to videotape your speeches so you can do self-evaluations, and so I can look at all your speeches at the end of the semester to see your improvement. You should therefore use one tape for all of your speeches and you shouldn’t tape over any of your speeches.  

What are the exams like?
The two midterms are about half multiple choice and about half short answer/essay. Although we will talk about other elements of speaking in class, for the tests you should focus on the textbook material. The multiple choice questions are difficult. They are very specific and demand that you know the textbook material very well. Often the answers will be similar to the following:

A. incremental
B. patchwork
C. global
D. A & B
E. All of the above

As you can see, to answer this question correctly, you need to know whether A, B, and C are each correct, not just pick the one that is most likely. Some of the questions will be easier, but to get an A on the multiple choice sections, you will need to read and have very good command of the assigned reading in the textbook.

The short answer sections are harder than the multiple choice questions in that you will be expected to reiterate and explain parts of the textbook without the answers in front of you. This means that to do well, you may have to not only remember the information, but be able to give a good explanation of the reasoning behind the information in essay form. To do this, you will have to be very familiar with the textbook. Example short answer questions are:

For the answer to this last question, for an A you would be expected to not only list the types of supporting materials, but to give reasons WHY each is useful for specific purposes.

The midterms are 50 minutes long each. There is a useful review sheet for the first midterm on pgs. 88-89 of SCR. There is a useful review sheet for the second midterm on pg. 129 of SCR. The second midterm is not cumulative. You will not be asked about material that was specifically covered only in the first part of the course, although some areas on the second midterm will build generally on earlier material.

The final exam is two hours long. The final exam will not have multiple choice questions. You will get a speech to analyze and will have a number of short questions to answer about the speech.

How should I cite a web page?

You can find information on this here.

How much did you take off of my speech grade because I did _____?
Grading doesn’t work this way. You don’t start with 100% and lose points for specific errors. Rather, if you meet the basic assignment requirements, you earn a C. To get an A or a B, you must really excel in meeting assignment criteria. More specifically, if you do the assignment, turn in all parts on time, meet all basic criteria, and get through the speech without a lot of problems, you have earned a C. If you choose a more challenging topic, meet the basic criteria very strongly, have few to no logical errors, have good support for your claims, have strong language use, and have strong delivery with few to no distracting elements, you have earned a B. If you do all of this and also have great and compelling evidence and examples, speak with almost no pauses and with a convincing tone, have no logical or argumentative problems, and show a very good control of vocal variety and other aspects of speaking, you have earned an A. It will take some work to get even a C, and it is hard to get an A.

How many A’s do you give per class? Is there a curve? Is it easy to get an A in this class?
There is no curve in the class. The speeches are each graded on their own merit and the exams are not curved. I do not have a quota for grades. In my sections, it is possible for no students to get A’s or for half of the students get A’s. A class of 15 will likely yield 1 to 4 A’s (this does not include AB’s). Thus, it is not easy to get an A in this course. If you were told that it is easy to get an A, you were misinformed. If you do the required assignments on time, it is not hard to get a C. Many people that work quite hard in this course will get a B. To get an A requires hard work, lots of speech practice, and improvement over the semester. To give you some idea, students have reported to me that they spent between 10-20 hours on their major speeches. If you are planning on getting a grade of higher than BC with minimal work, you should consider whether you are a naturally extraordinary speaker and speechwriter. If you are willing to work hard, an A is definitely possible.

You should know that you will likely get your worst grades at the beginning of the semester, and your grades will go up as you improve. Also, at the end of the semester you can get small grade bonuses for participation and improvement. THIS MEANS that you should not give up on the class if you get some lower grades early--if you continue to improve you may be able to get a final grade that is technically mathematically impossible. These possible bonuses are not large enough that you should count on them, but they can push you over if you are near a grade border.

Isn’t the grading in a class like this arbitrary and subjective?
On speeches, I grade according to how well the speech meets the assignment. Obviously, there is some judgment involved, because I am the one that decides whether the speech met those criteria. But grading isn't arbitrary (i.e., random) -- it's based on criteria that I try to clearly explain in class. If at any point, you are unclear on why you got the grade you did, see me for clarification. On tests, you are graded on how well you understand the material in the textbook. Tests are objective to the extent that anyone can look in the book and see the best answer for a given question.

I think that my speech this time was much better than my last speech, and I worked really hard on it...why didn't my grade improve?
It is expected that you will improve as the semester goes on and you get more practice. Since almost everyone improves, the expectations for each speech also go up. Each speech is more difficult than the last and has new challenges. Since it is expected that you will improve, your grade staying the same means that you DID improve. If you work hard and your speech exceeds expectations, your grade will go up. People have been know to change as much as 2 letter grades from speech to speech, so take each speech seriously.

Isn't it true that some people are just good speakers and some aren't?
It is true that, at the beginning of the semester, some people will have more public speaking ability than others. The same is true of any class you will take. Some people have more writing, math, or music ability than others. The important thing to realize is that almost all people have the ability  to be effective public speakers, and all students can tremendously improve their public speaking ability. Improvement is an important part of your grade.

What is most likely to ruin my grade in this class?
The students that do worst in this class are those that plagiarize, fail to turn in assignments in on time, or miss too many classes.

Do you offer any extra credit assignments? What can I do to improve my grade aside from the normal work?
If you have shown a lot of effort in the course by seeing me in office hours, participating in class, and spending a lot of time improving your prep outlines so the final outlines are much better, and/or you dramatically improve during the course, I offer extra points on the final grade. If you are near the border between two grades, this can bump you to the higher one. Outside of that, there is no extra credit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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