FOCUS
This course covers
the grammar and usage rules we think you should know if you plan to
earn your living as a writer, an editor, or a communication specialist.
The course will provide you a basic vocabulary for talking about language
choices and the stylistic habits you observe in your own writing and
the writing of others.
Although most
successful writers wrestle with grammar and usage problems near the
end of their writing process (after they have paid plenty of attention
to more important rhetorical considerations such as audience, aim,
organization, and development), they do carefully and deliberately
attend to such matters. After all, they want their message to come
across as clearly and effectively as possible for readers.
If you hope to
succeed as a writer, an editor, or a communication specialist, you
should be able to talk with others about these language choices and
to articulate them to yourself. You will also want to be able to spot
and correct those language patterns and mechanical patterns that many
people consider errors.
We also want you,
by the end of this course, to recognize that language choices are
also social and political choices. As you gain additional control
over the structural and mechanical elements of language, you will
find yourself exercising power—in both formal and informal situations,
with family and friends, on behalf of those who have power and those
who do not. We would like you to understand this fact and encourage
you to let your humanist education influence your decisions as you
work with others on projects involving grammar and editing.
Students who enroll
in this course should be committed to learning about systems of grammar,
usage, and mechanics (both their strengths and weaknesses); to mastering
some common conventions of Standard Written English, and to conducting
original research on questions of grammar and usage.