Skip to content
2025 Spring

COMPOSITION II - COM102/1 Spring 2025


Course
Stephan Delbos
For information about registration please contact our admissions.

COM 102 develops the writing skills taught in COM 101: It hones the student’s ability to think critically and originally; consolidates their ability to make appropriate stylistic choices with regard to specific purpose, register and genre, and it reiterates the stages of the writing process. Moreover, COM 102 concentrates on developing the skills required to produce a substantial academic research paper. These include: critical reading and research, formulating and supporting a thesis, incorporating credible sources and properly employing citation and bibliographic techniques.

Here is the course outline:

1. Rhetoric

Feb 7

Concision, Prewriting, Citation Styles, Prototype Semantics, Isocrates’ Didactic Approach, “Bullshit” in academic writing

2. Analytical Reading

Feb 14

Text analysis, In-Text Citations, Thesis Statements vs. Claims, Academic Ethos

3. Prewriting

Feb 21

Drafting an Extended Outline, Film Screening (to be announced)

4. Citation Styles

Feb 28

Online Databases, Boolean Operators, Types of Research, Peer Review

5. Information Literacy

Mar 7

Online Databases, The CRAAP Test, The Academy of Sciences Library

6. Referencing

Mar 14

Quoting, Text Analysis, Compiling a List of References

7. Plagiarism

Mar 21

Types of Plagiarism, Paraphrasing

8. Select a Topic

Apr 4

Thesis Statements and Claims, The Oscar Wilde Taste Test

9. Working Bibliography

Apr 11

Aphorisms about Conciseness, Citation Styles, Quotations, Editing Exercise

10. Extended Outline

Apr 18

Examining Sample Papers, Formatting, Long Quotations

11. Drafting

Apr 25

Final Paper Checklist, Editing Exercise, Peer Review

12. Peer Review

May 2

Hyphens-Italics-Capitals, In-Class Peer Evaluation

13. Final Paper Defense

May 9

Presentation and Defense of Research Papers

Back to top