English 130 is a writing course that, in the words of the course catalog, "[t]eaches formal and psychological aspects of business correspondence." To pursue this goal, we'll focus on the process of producing successful business correspondence and on using the tools and methods of business to produce written documents.

Business writing is specialized writing in at least three ways. First, business documents serve a very practical purpose. They are meant to be used by someone to do something or to help someone make a decision. For instance, a cover letter and resume are designed to get an applicant a personal interview. Second, business documents use recognizable conventions to highlight and reinforce that practical purpose. For example, the formatting conventions of a memo define it as an informal document.

Third, businesses are economic, cultural, and social environments populated by people pursuing a common goal: namely, the business of the corporation, be it profit or non-profit, governmental, regulatory, or whatever. Thus, successful business writers write documents that respond foremost to the needs of their audiences while also representing themselves and their companies favorably. This means that business writers must consider carefully the contextual aspects of each document they write. Finally, businesses increasingly use collaborative, team-based, and internet-enabled approaches to project work. We, too, will use these approaches. The fact that this is an online class provides us with a good opportunity to investigate the way professionals collaborate in electronic environments. Likewise, in this online class you will gain experience with some of the technology tools used by professional writers.

This particular section of English 130 at Harper is an online, or internet-based, section. In practice, this means that Internet technology will be the primary delivery vehicle for the content of the course, instead of, say, lecture and discussion in a classroom. This means that students will complete their classwork by using computer and internet technologies, such as word processors, e-mail, e-mail file attachments, discussion forums, chat applications, and so on. More abstractly, it means that Internet technology will mediate the work of the class: the technology will enable your work, but it will also affect it in significant ways.

Yet--and in regards to student success this is very important for students in this course to understand--this is not a self-paced, correspondence course. While all writing is in many ways an independent activity, it is just as much a collaborative, social, rhetorical activity, especially in professional contexts. So, for instance, students will be asked regularly to contribute substantively to asynchronous (that is, not in real time) discussion conferences about assignment topics and to respond to classmates' observations. If this sounds a lot like the instructional method of an academic class, you're right, because it is. The goals and objectives of academic instruction are desirable and practical; neither technology nor the goals of professional writing instruction give us reason to abandon them.

Please keep in mind, though, that English 130 Online is not a computer course. We must not let the technology co-opt the course. In other words, the goal is to use the technology to make learning more flexible, not to make learning the technology the focus of the course. Of course, many students will need to spend a little time getting used to those technologies. But everyone should all be aware that no technology, not even pencil and paper, is without limitations. Information technology is no different; and it often creates problems seemingly out of thin air.

So, please expect to be frustrated with and by the technology at one time or another. And more importantly, please never be afraid to ask for help with technology-related problems as well as with writing-related problems.