Online Primer on Grammar, Punctuation and Usage Case Study
Victoria Mikelonis, a professor in the Department of Rhetoric on the Twin Cities campus, is developing online materials for students in Rhet 3470: Primer in Grammar, Punctuation and Usage, a three-week May term skills-oriented course. Students in Rhet 1001 and Rhet 3562 also will have to master at least 80 percent of these materials before they can enroll in Rhet 4561: Editing and Style in Technical Writing, a required course for undergraduate scientific and technical communication majors.
Instructional Goals
Many students who enroll in Rhet 4561 are not adequately prepared for the course, and so seven out of fifteen weeks of the term is usually devoted to grammar, punctuation, and usage review. After the course, some students still have not learned the skills needed to work as professional copyeditors.
Mikelonis wanted students to learn the following before they take the editing and style course:
- the rules of grammar, puncutation, and usage according to the Chicago Manual of Style;
- copyediting marks;
- single sentence editing skills;
- contextual editing skills.
To demonstrate mastery, she wanted students to answer at least 80 percent of the questions on a series of editing quizzes correctly.
Technology Strategies
Mikelonis and her assistant Lenna Constantinides decided to develop a series of progressively more complex editing tutorials and accompanying review examples, exercises, and quizzes based on paper "cheat sheets" used in the editing course.
The data will be stored in a Microsoft Access database and accessed through separate Web-based interfaces for students and instructors. Students will be able to read the tutorials and review examples and complete the exercises and quizzes online, and will have to achieve scores of 80 percent or higher before moving on to the next tutorial. The instructors will be able to edit and add data online.
Learning Outcomes
Mikelonis and Constantinides tested a pilot version of the online materials in Rhet 1001 and Rhet 3562 during fall term 2003. Students were given a diagnostic test at the beginning and end of the course. Their first scores were 40-50 percent and their later scores 80-94 percent.
Mikelonis and Constantinides plan to help other instructors teach an online version of Rhet 3470 based on the primer in May 2004. An evaluator from the Center for Teaching and Learning Services, Connie Tzenis, will then assess the course materials, delivery efficacy, students' satisfaction, and students' mastery levels.
