Instructor and Course Info
Matt Frye — matt.frye@oit.edu — 94I-5O4-I38O
Office Hours: Noon – 12:50pm Daily (All classes) // 3:00pm – 4:20pm T/R (see below)
WRI 410 focuses on the process of writing a proposal-style document, and it is geared specifically towards grant proposal writing and fundraising. Many of the discussions in this class are applicable for research project proposals, business proposals and crowd-funding campaigns. This course uses a combination of corpus linguistics, genre analysis and rhetorical analysis to create a set of disciplinary rules for crafting a proposal. By the end of the course, you are expected to create a proposal of your own that is appropriate for submission to its target audience—whether that be a major funding source like the National Science Foundation or a local interest group like a book club.
Due to COVID restrictions and the fact that I’m teaching an online WRI 410 and an “on-campus” WRI 410, the structure of this class will be a little odd. I’ll post lecture/overview videos each week, and I’ll ask you to engage with your peers via discussion boards. Our class time (3:00pm – 4:20pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays) will be set aside as a special set of office hours just for Grant Writing students. On Tuesday, we’ll do a general Q&A and discussion of readings and assignments. On Thursday, we’ll do a more practical look at how our readings work with real-life proposals. Attendance is not required for these sessions. As per OIT policy, these sessions will be recorded and posted to Canvas.
Learning Outcomes and Objectives
By the end of this course, you are expected to be able to do the following:
- Describe the genre conventions of RFPs (or similar documents) and proposals, both generally and within your discipline or career path
- Locate RFPs (or similar documents) appropriate to your discipline and career path
- Analyze the audience of your work using both RFP information and external research
- Clearly explain the purpose of your work to your audience
- Fully describe your audience and their needs/expectations
- Make appropriate adjustments to documents to meet the needs of your audience
- Use appropriate evidence/support to demonstrate your expertise to your audience
- Generate and work within your own schedule to meet the needs of an external deadline
- Assess and justify your own decisions in every document you create. (I can grade you for the next 10 weeks, but starting in week 11, you need to do that for yourself.)
Assignments and Grades
There are four major units in the course, each supported by a series of discussion boards. For ease of math, all assignments are entered into Canvas at their final gradebook value. If you ever want to know your current grade, just add up the total number of points you’ve received. (See Late Policy below.)
Unit 1: Getting to Know You (10%)
Annotated Resume or Biosketch: 10%
Unit 2: Solicited Proposal (35%)
Discussion 1: Move Identification: 5%
Discussion 2: Audience Analysis: 5%
Discussion 3: Move Planning: 5%
Annotated Proposal Draft: 15%
Peer Review: 2 @ 2.5% each
Unit 3: Unsolicited Proposal (35%)
Discussion 4: Audience Identification: 5%
Discussion 5: Core Appeals: 5%
Discussion 6: Buddy System: 5%
Annotated Proposal Draft: 15%
Peer Review: 2 @ 2.5% each
Unit 4: Finalized Proposal (20%)
Revised Resume or Biosketch: 5%
Annotated Proposal: 15%
Course Materials
All course materials will be made available online. I recommend using Microsoft Word (which you can get with your OIT login info at Office.com) or Open Office Writer (which you can get at OpenOffice.org). Please do not use Google Docs to create your documents for this class. Document formatting in grant proposals is very important, and Google Docs doesn’t offer a lot of power in that area.
Policies
Attendance
As noted above, I’ll be using our class time as a sort of focused office hours just for grant writing students. Tuesdays will be general Q&A, while Thursdays will include a practical walkthrough or use-case of our readings or assignments for that week.
Academic Honesty
According to OIT-14-030 (Student Academic Integrity policy):
Academic dishonesty is defined as cheating, plagiarism or otherwise obtaining grades under false pretenses. Plagiarism is defined as submitting the language, ideas, thoughts or work of another as one’s own or assisting in the act of plagiarism by allowing one’s work to be used in this fashion. Cheating is defined as, but not limited to: obtaining or providing unauthorized information during an examination through verbal, visual or unauthorized use of books, notes, text and other materials; obtaining or providing unauthorized information concerning all or part of an examination prior to that examination; taking an examination for another student or arranging for another person to take an exam in one’s place; altering test answers after submittal for grading; changing grades after grades have been awarded; or altering other official academic records.
You will use materials created by other people and organizations to do your work. I expect you to incorporate the thoughts and language of others into your work, but we will also discuss the ways of documenting this appropriately. The important qualities to pay attention to are “appropriate” and “authorized.”
While attribution style will differ according to your discipline and career path, the rhetorical move of showing what conversations you are connected to is an absolute necessity. No professional works in isolation.
Intentional plagiarism or outright cheating will result in a zero on the task. Egregious or repeated offenses will result in a referral to the Student Hearing Commission.
Classroom Conduct
On discussion boards, you are expected to act like professional. Please contribute to discussions and activities, and do not purposefully harass, intimidate, insult, bully or otherwise diminish the experience of any of your peers.
In the age of social media, this also goes for conduct outside class, but I’m not grading that.
Email/Communication
No working relationship should be completely inflexible. Any policy in this syllabus or on any assignment is up for discussion, individually or class-wide. If life throws you a curveball and you need some wiggle room, let me know. If an assignment just isn’t working for the class, we can change it. I plan these classes long before the term starts, and something is bound to need adjustment as the quarter unfolds.
I do my best to return emails as quickly as possible, but I’m old and I keep old-people hours. Please give me 24 hours to get back to emails. If it’s more urgent than that, I welcome texts and calls to the phone number at the top of the syllabus (it’s my cell, so it should stay active if Skype for Business goes down).
Accommodation
If you have a disability that requires any additional accommodations to complete work this course, please let me know. Like all professors at OIT, I rely on the Disabilities Service Office in LRC 229 to help me with this process. If you feel that you may need some accommodation in your courses, please contact this office.
In an online setting, that requirement is particularly onerous. I’m happy to make any and all accommodations necessary to help you reach our course objectives.
If you do not have a disability but you think I could do a better job of accommodating your learning style, also let me know. Seriously. I do my best to ensure that my courses create as few hurdles as possible beyond their content. If I’m not succeeding there, I want to know.
Late Policy
In the world of grant writing, there is no late policy. Anything received after a deadline (even moments after a deadline) is typically unacceptable. This is just due to the nature of grant writing: any opportunity is going to be met with dozens, hundreds or even thousands of proposals. Any restriction that a funding group can place to filter out proposals is just a matter of workload control. Please use our planning assignments to your advantage to make sure that you stay on schedule!
… Now, that said, this is a college course. I hope you’re writing these proposals for a real purpose. However, I completely, totally, 100% understand that life is going to get in the way for all of us at some point this term. That’s just due to the nature of being in college: mine is just one of four or five courses you’re taking right now.
Discussion boards can be completed late, but your posts are only worth 1 point. Proposals can be completed late at no penalty. The only hard deadline is the end of the term, as I need to have grades in by the Monday after finals week.
