I frequently receive email requests for force-adds from students. They may share convincing stories or sad circumstances, but I am not in the position to judge whether they should be added to a course I am teaching. I no longer reply to the cirumstances that they share. Instead, everyone gets the same response, which tells them the department procedure.

Here’s the canned response that I set up in Gmail to respond to all students who email me about force-adding the course:

The English Department funnels all force-adds for English 3764 and 3774 through one person to help balance course loads and make sure the process is fair. You can find the procedure for force-adds on the English Department website:
http://www.undergraduate.english.vt.edu/courses/force-add.html

3764: TECHNICAL WRITING

Principles and procedure of technical writing; attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as abstracts, instructions, and proposals. Junior standing required. (3H,3C)

Course Goals:

• Analyze the audience or users of the written communication, including knowledge, experience, and work environment; consider needs of global audiences and people with disabilities
• Conduct research appropriate to workplace problem solving, such as literature review, evaluation of online resources, interview, and site inspection
• Interpret research findings with understanding of ethical and human implications
• Select and apply appropriate ways of ordering information for specific effects, including hierarchical, chronological, and spatial arrangements
• Use conventions of various workplace genres, such as proposals, instructions, correspondence, reports, and slide decks, with understanding of how the genre conventions can be used as heuristics and as principles of arrangement
• Design visual representations of quantitative information to enhance accurate interpretation
• Manage writing projects by planning and completing tasks according to a schedule
• Collaborate with classmates in planning, researching, writing, revising, and presenting information
• Write accurately and clearly
• Apply principles of effective visual design for print and electronic presentation
• Present technical information orally

3774: BUSINESS WRITING

Extensive practice in forms of persuasive and informative writing such as memos, case analyses, reports, abstracts, and letters. Designed for students in all curricula. Junior standing required. (3H,3C)

Course Goals:

• Analyze the rhetorical situation and design documents according to audience needs, experience, background, and context, including the needs of global audiences and people with disabilities
• Write accurately, clearly, and concisely
• Understand the conventions of various workplace genres, such as proposals, correspondence, reports, and slide decks.
• Apply principles of effective visual design for print and electronic presentation
• Conduct research appropriate to workplace problem solving, such as case studies, surveys, interviews, and benchmark comparisons
• Interpret research findings with understanding of ethical and human implications
• Present evidence-based arguments in both written and oral form.
• Design visual representations of quantitative information to enhance accurate interpretation.
• Manage writing projects by planning and completing tasks according to a schedule.
• Collaborate with classmates in planning, researching, writing, revising, and presenting information