ALS 460: Advanced Writing and Editing for Professional Publications
Course Number: ALS 460
Course Name: Advanced Writing and Editing for Professional Publications
Year: Second-year
Semester: Spring
No. Units: 0.5
Faculty/Instructor(s): Ian Phillips
Description
Advanced professional writing is a skill that is useful in almost every aspect of business whether it be writing reports, public documents for marketing a company or publishing research reports in journals. Having taken such a course will be a valuable addition to the student's CV after graduation. The course will consist of tutoring, lectures, small group writing, editing, and reviewing by the faculty advisor, and between the student team participants. The course requires dedicated focus to the chosen topic and a series of deadlines that must be met. Each class begins with faculty advice or didactic lecture, followed by student participatory activity.
Learning Objectives
- Students will become familiar with different journals, standards, citations, impact factors and types of papers accepted by publications.
- Students will learn by writing, reviewing professional formats, reference bases and sources, citing references, and utilizing sources for data collection.
- Students will learn strategies in choosing journals for publication, based on reputation, acceptance rates, readership interest, editorial board bias, impact factors.
- Students will learn the subtleties of presentation in writing, beginning with the title of the article to the conclusion.
- Students will learn editing strategies for clarity of message and reducing word counts to meet publication limits.
- Students will learn the ethics and accepted standards of publishing and authorship.
At the end of the course students will have written a paper for publication, or have submitted a paper for publication.
Grading
| Homework | 30% | |
| Participation | 20% | |
| Final paper | 50% |
Required Texts