Course Objectives

Course Objectives

To develop effective communication skills for various audiences.

    In striving to achieve this objective, the course uses

  1. Lectures on various aspects of writing and speaking.
  2. Two papers and two talks by each class member.
    • Audience of papers is non-science peers.
    • Audience of talks is students in Physics 596.
  3. Policy papers with science level of class members.
  4. Proof you can write a resume.
  5. Peer assessment: solely of the talks and partially of the paper drafts.
  6. Detailed instructor comments on all assignments.

Strive to view all comments not as personal attacks but instead as serious, constructive suggestions for improvement.

Desired Skills: For Papers and Talks

Skill Comment
Can define topic for particular audience Find a limited subject.
Develop a point of view.
Can find useful references/illustrations In library and on web.
Can write sentence outline Each sentence is a topic sentence.
This approach can greatly speed up writing process.

 

 

Honing Skills Separately for Papers and Talks

TS = topic sentence
For Papers
For Talks
TS is point of paragraph. Each TS is point of one viewgraph.
Can write paragraph to develop TS's point. Can organize viewgraph to explain viewgraph's point.
Can use criticism to improve the draft. By practicing the talk can learn to improve it.
Can effectively critique others: improving flaws with constructive ideas. Can see how criticism of others
could be applied to own talk.
To cite this page:
Course Objective
<http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/writing/Handouts/VGs/objective.html>
[Tuesday, 14-Feb-2012 13:54:34 EST]
Edited by: wilkins@mps.ohio-state.edu on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2008 08:57:49 EDT