INTD 105 09 — Writing Seminar: Secrets and Secret Codes

Time and Place: TR 8:30 - 9:45, Monroe 123

Final Meeting: Tuesday, December 20, 12:00 Noon

Instructor: Doug Baldwin
Office: South 307
Phone: 245-5659
Email: baldwin@geneseo.edu
Office Hours: Any time Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, when I’m not committed to something else. See my Calendar for details and to make appointments electronically. You don’t need to make appointments to see me, but may if you want to be sure I’ll be available.

Web Pages:
Lecture Notes: http://www.geneseo.edu/~baldwin/intd105/fall2016/lectures.php
Exercises: http://www.geneseo.edu/~baldwin/intd105/fall2016/exercises.php

Books and Other Resources

Books

We will read the following works in this course. Some are available online, and others in print. I have given URLs for the online readings below. The print ones are available from the College bookstore and other sources.

Edgar Allan Poe, The Gold Bug Available online in The Works of Edgar Allan Poe at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2147 (easiest to read) or http://www.archive.org/details/worksedgarallan00markgoog (greater variety of formats)

Robert Harris, Enigma Available in print

Hugh Whitemore, Breaking the Code Available in print

The (required) writing style guide and manual are

Graff & Birkenstein, They Say, I Say (2nd ed.)

Bullock, Brody, & Weinberg, The Little Seagull Handbook (2nd ed.)

Both are available in print from the College bookstore and other sources.

Supplemental Materials

You may also find these supplemental readings helpful, and I will probably assign at least parts of them:

Descriptions and demonstrations of many classical cryptosystems:

http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Chamber/chamberguide.html

An account of the portrayal of African-Americans in American media:

http://black-face.com/

A technical description of the German Enigma cipher and techniques used to break it

http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/enigma/index.htm

A short biography of Alan Turing

http://www.turing.org.uk/bio/part1.html

Other Resources

I will record notes during classes on a Google document, to which you can also contribute at

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ixBE_hLZZHebB9Y-LWvHukNpRmAyWtMGCZoIRMwiNkA/edit

You are welcome to use the class mailing list, intd105-09-fal16-googlegroup@geneseo.edu, if you want to email everyone in this course

Lecture notes and exercises from last time I taught this course are online at

http://www.geneseo.edu/~baldwin/intd105/spring2014/syllabus.html

Course Schedule

The following dates are best estimates. They may well change as students’ actual needs become apparent. Refer to the Web version of this syllabus for the most current information, I will keep it as up-to-date as possible:

Grades and Such

Your grade for this course will be calculated from your grades on exercises, exams, etc. as follows:

In determining numeric grades for individual assignments, questions, etc., I start with the idea that meeting my expectations for a solution is worth 80% of the grade. I award the other 20% for exceeding my expectations in various ways (e.g., having an unusually elegant or insightful solution, or expressing it particularly clearly, or doing unrequested out-of-class research to develop it, etc.); I usually award 10 percentage points for almost anything that somehow exceeds expectations, and the last 10 for having a solution that is truly perfect. I deliberately make the last 10 percentage points extremely hard to get, on the grounds that in any course there will be some students who routinely earn 90% on everything, and I want even them to have something to strive for. I grade work that falls below my expectations as either meeting about half of them, three quarters, one quarter, or none, and assign numeric grades accordingly: 60% for work that meets three quarters of my expectations, 40% for work that meets half of my expectations, etc. This relatively coarse grading scheme is fairer, more consistent, and easier to implement than one that tries to make finer distinctions.

This grading scheme produces numeric grades noticeably lower than traditional grading does. I take this into account when I convert numeric grades to letter grades. The general guideline I use for letter grades is that meeting my expectations throughout a course earns a B or B+. Noticeably exceeding my expectations earns some sort of A (i.e., A- or A), meeting most but clearly not all some sort of C, trying but failing to meet most expectations some sort of D, and apparently not even trying earns an E. I set the exact numeric cut-offs for letter grades at the end of the course, when I have an overall sense of how realistic my expectations were for a class as a whole. This syllabus thus cannot tell you exactly what percentage grade will count as an A, a B, etc. However, in my past courses the B+ to A- cutoff has typically fallen somewhere in the mid to upper 80s, the C+ to B- cutoff somewhere around 60, and the D to C- cutoff in the mid-40s to mid-50s. I will be delighted to talk with you at any time during the semester about your individual grades and give you my estimate of how they will eventually translate into a letter grade.

The Writing Learning Center

The Writing Learning Center (WLC) provides confidential consultations on all stages of the writing process for all kinds of writing assignment. Consultations last half an hour, and are available by appointment throughout most afternoons and evenings. The WLC is an invaluable resource for this course, and I encourage you to visit them during the course and after. They are based in the Center for Academic Excellence in Milne Library room 218B. See their web site at https://www.geneseo.edu/english/writing_center for more information or to schedule an appointment.

Policy on Late and Missed Work

I will accept exercise solutions that are turned in late, but with a 10% per day compound late penalty. For example, homework turned in 1 day late gets 10% taken off its grade; homework turned in 2 days late gets 10% taken off for the first day, then 10% of what’s left gets taken off for the second day. Similarly for 3 days, 4 days, and so forth. I round grades to the nearest whole number, so it is possible for something to be so late that its grade rounds to 0.

I do not normally give make-up exams.

I may allow make-up exams or extensions on exercises if (1) the make-up or extension is necessitated by circumstances truly beyond your control, and (2) you ask for it as early as possible. At my discretion, I may require proof of the “circumstances beyond your control” before granting a make-up exam or extension.

Policy on Collaboration

Writing assignments in this course are learning exercises, not tests of what you know. You are therefore welcome (and in some cases even required) to discuss them with each other. However, the draft and finished works that you turn in must represent your own ideas and must be written in your own words, even if you got or gave help on them.

If you use sources other than this class’s texts in an essay, you must cite them. All quotations or paraphrases must be cited, regardless of the source. I don’t insist on a specific citation style, but if you are don’t have a preference of your own APA style is a good choice. There is a good summary of it in The Little Seagull Handbook.

Please note that tests are tests of what you know, and working together on them is explicitly forbidden.

I will penalize violations of this policy. The severity of the penalty will depend on the severity of the violation.

Accommodations

SUNY Geneseo will make reasonable accommodations for persons with documented physical, emotional, or cognitive disabilities. Accommodations will be made for medical conditions related to pregnancy or parenting. Students should contact Dean Buggie-Hunt in the Office of Disability Services (tbuggieh@geneseo.edu or 585-245-5112) and their faculty to discuss needed accommodations as early as possible in the semester.