Class Attendance and Participation
Weight: 20% of final grade

This course mixes different parts of the practice of literary study and the business world. This includes:

1. close reading proficiency, which is essential to handling the technological apparatus.
2. familiarity with and application of the "quantitative world"
3. Teamwork
4. Developing and advocating definite positions

Although you will not be called on during each class meeting, you may be called on at any time. More than two unexcused absences will result in the loss of this component of your grade. More than two failures to respond, when called on, will have the same result.

Reading Journal
Weight: 20% of final grade

Five entries, each due on Thursday of weeks 1-5. Each entry should be about 200 words (the Tom Frank entry for April 4 is 187 words). Questions will be announced each Tuesday.

Final Debate

1. debate journal and
2. 4-5 page debate review.

The debate journal will begin in week 6 and continue through week 9. The guidelines for the debate will be posted and discussed.

Mid-term Project: Business Interview
Weight: 20% of final grade


You will conduct and transcribe an interview or conversation with someone in business around one of the course topics that interests you. You will need to add a short introduction and draw a few provisional conclusions from your discussion. You may not interview a member of your immediate family, although you can certainly use them as leads to other people. You will also be putting your interview online. Only the most basic web publishing will be required, although more advanced users are welcome to experiment. You will need a UMail account on the university's student server, which also comes with UWeb space to publish materials on the Web. See the Uweb site for instructions and help -- http://uweb.ucsb.edu/. UWeb also offers technical support limited to assistance with uploading your pages to their Web server, though they do not assist in HTML editing or page design. This course is part of the Transcriptions Project, and a Transcriptions person will be available at particular times in the quarter to offer help. If you are unfamiliar with basic web authoring, please read Transcription's guide at http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/resources/web-authoring-basics.html.