Dear Online English Students,
Taking this English class online was one of the smartest things I have done. It freed up my schedule, allowed me to work at my own pace, and made it more enjoyable than sitting through another class. However, there are several things to keep in mind.
First, you have to be self-motivated. You will miss assignments if you don’t pay careful attention to when they are due. It is important to check the website often and make note of what your assignments are. I found it useful to set aside a certain time each week to do English work that way I didn’t forget or decide to do other things. I also made a list of when everything was due at the beginning of the semester and kept it on my computer with reminders. It was really hard to ignore the class when a little reminder box popped up every few days or hours.
Another thing to keep in mind is that even though this is an online course, you still have a teacher. If you have any questions or don’t understand an assignment, you can email her instead of just floundering around. I forgot that for most of the course and ended up struggling when I didn’t have to.
It is also important to always save your work. It saves a lot of stress if something messes up and gives you an easy way to reference earlier assignments. Along with this, take a few minutes after posting each assignment to make sure everything went right. A few times I tried to post things and something messed up half way through.
Regarding assignments, it is really important to fully work out what your topic is going to be before you do the assignment or start doing research. You might change part of the way through, but having a clear idea saves hours of sorting though information you don’t really need. Be sure to use scholarly sources and be sure that they are latter than 2000. I suggest using the ASU library’s online article search. I like jstor and it have an advanced search that saved me a lot of time and stress. If you are using an article, be sure to download it and save the citation. This will keep you from trying to find that article again later.
I actually found this course fun. Just be sure to remember about the class and do all the work.
Good Luck,
Crystal Parrack-Wert
Dear Student,
One, congratulations on taking this as on online class. SMART MOVE! This class set up is very well organized and your new instructor is always willing to help.
The key to success in this class is time management. Your professor gives plenty of time throughout the entire semester to complete assignments, so if you run out it’s your fault.
This being an internet class, it will force you to practice a little organization. You will have a schedule of the entire semester (just like a normal syllabus) at your disposal. The tricky part here is you have no one to remind you that there is a paper due at noon next Thursday that is 20% of your grade, oops! And while this class spends a lot of time preparing for papers, the writer’s journals will sneak up on you real quick! So read the schedule because sometimes it will change.
As for the research in this section, if nothing else, spend enough time researching your topic to get quality research. Believe me, when it comes time to write a paper and you realize only half of your sources are of true academic quality, you will not be in a good mood.
Another thing I realized about papers. Between when the bibliography (research) is due, and the actual rough draft is due, don’t stop working on the paper. I made the mistake of wasting the extra time given between assignments and was left in a tight spot when it came time to write my paper. The smartest thing to do here is after completing the research, start your paper! The facts are in your head and you have plenty of time to get a good layout of it.
Overall, if you do what you need to do, you will be just fine in this class. It is easy to manage and the assignments are interesting to do. Plus you have the added bonus of not having to attend class. Your Professor is always willing to provide extra help as needed and is readily available to do so. Good Luck!
Heather Missimer
Dear future English 102 Online Students:
Taking an online English course is a wonderful idea. Throughout the semester, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience in this class. I loved not having to attend a class three times a week and being able to work at my own pace.
The instructor for this course is very friendly and helpful. She clearly outlines what is expected of you and makes sure you are aware of due dates. As long as you follow the policies she lays out and do all of the work, the class should not be too difficult. If you are ever unsure of anything, just email her and she will be there to help you out.
The hardest part about taking a class online is that you do not have anyone motivating you to get your work done. It can be easy to wait until the last minute to do things or to forget you have something due completely. The best advice I have is to make yourself a schedule and spread out your work so you are not trying to do everything at once. I found that if I spread the assignments out such as the writer’s journal and papers and did certain parts of them on separate days I felt a lot less stressed out.
What I found to be the hardest part of this course was having to find ten scholarly sources for all of my papers. Make sure to choose your paper topics wisely because if you pick a topic that is hard to find information on then you will have problems. I picked a bad topic one time and after doing some research I realized I needed to change the topic. If I took the class again I would have tried to pick better paper topics the first time around so I did not have to waste my time doing research that I wasn’t going to use. Although it is a pain to find so many sources, I did learn a lot about research and now I feel more confident in my abilities to gather information.
Overall I gained a lot from my experience in this class. As long as you manage your time well and do the required parts to all the assignments you will without a doubt be successful in this class. Good luck and have a great semester!
Sincerely,
Lindsey Hilmer
Dear online English 102 students,
English isn’t such a difficult course if you remember a few simple words of advice on what you should do for an online English course. There are several areas in which an online course differs from a normal course. Due dates are important, emails are crucial, and knowledge of formatting and backing-up data are crucial. It pays to have Microsoft Word and know how to use it well. I hope going over a few of the problems and successes I had will ease your own semester in this online course you’re taking.
I think my biggest problem in any course, not just online, is time management. English can be less demanding than something like physics, but if you don’t keep on top of assignments, it affects the papers overall quality. Keeping a calendar of deadlines and working on your pieces a few days in advance can make all the difference. If you’re truly ambitious, do them ahead of time with plenty of time to spare.
Email contact with your instructor is critical in order to clarify assignments, problems, and progress. Normally I’m a bit squeamish about contacting my professors, but it helped to keep in contact with Professor Murphy for advice and helpful comments. You also need to check your email consistently in order to keep track of changes in assignments and deadlines as well as helpful comments and reminders. I know that keeping on top of my email was a struggle, but checking it at least a couple times a week is very beneficial.
I cannot stress the importance of format and back-ups enough. When you’re working on an English paper, you really need to keep a back-up copy saved and saved frequently. I learned my lesson the hard way in high school and I’ve since applied it to my online course because more often than naught, I’ll lose internet connection or time-out of a session while I’m answering questions online. It’s important to write answers in word and save them. If you don’t have Word, I highly recommend picking it up for this course or using a machine that does have it. There are some assignments that utilize the comments and change tracking features that Word offers.
That’s pretty much my advice for incoming English 102 students, just keep on top of your assignments and you’ll do well. Good luck in the coming semester.
Sincerely,
Marc MacLeod
Dear future ENG 102 online students,
This online course, along with most online courses, offers a multitude of advantages including a flexible schedule and more independent learning. Students can log in and complete work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, online courses require more focus and drive. The burden falls on the student to log in to Blackboard and complete their work.
The freedom of an online course brings with it a demand for excellent time management skills. In a student world seemingly dominated by procrastination, finishing online work on time may be more difficult than facing a teacher without an assignment face to face. I found that establishing a set time every week to tackle online class work helps to ensure that the work gets done consistently, week after week. The great thing is that you can work at anytime you wish. Be aware that this course does have weekly deadlines that you must meet. Don’t register with the impression that you can wait to the end of the semester to do all of the work for the class. Missing weekly deadlines will mean missed attendance points, lowered grades and falling behind. So, set time aside at a certain time every week to do your ENG 102 online work.
In this course, you will have to use ten or more sources in each of your papers. This means that you will have to do some digging and research. I strongly recommend utilizing ASU’s library website (www.asu.edu/lib) and its links to electronic journals to find material for your papers. There are so many journals on so many topics that you will certainly find material.
When you begin to plan your papers, I found it helpful to print out most of my sources so that I could read and take notes on them. This made planning my papers easier. On that note, make a rough outline of your papers before you begin writing. This, at least for me, eased the process.
Finally, when you turn in your draft, turn in a paper that shows some effort. It will help you and your group members to see what needs improvement.
Good luck and have a wonderful semester.
Sincerely,
Dennis Mitchell
Dear Future Writers of America,
Taking my English course online this semester has been an absolute pleasure. Since I took a 17 credit hour schedule it was very difficult to find an English class time that would be convenient. Not only did I solve my scheduling problem by signing up for the online version, but it was just one less class to have to go to. This was, however, my first online class I have taken and there were several things that took time to become familiar and comfortable with.
Overall, I found that the course site was very well organized and easy to navigate. Assignments were posted in the announcements section with very clear directions and were generally fairly easy to complete. The problem that I ran into at first, was that I found it somewhat difficult to communicate with the professor when I had questions. Since I was not in a classroom, I could not interact directly with the teacher and was at the mercy of the posted assignment directions only. This was very stressful for me until I finally figured out how to use the ASU emma webmail service to send messages. Once I could send messages directly to the Professor, I found that she consistently replied quickly, and it was almost like being in a classroom as far as interaction goes. I HIGHLY recommend becoming familiar with the emma webmail service.
The most important thing to keep in mind, is that this is an internet course, and that the internet can sometimes act fruity and be an absolute nightmare should there be any complications. ALWAYS SAVE YOUR WORK IN A WORD DOCUMENT TO PREVENT THE COMPLETE LOSS OF AN ASSIGNMENT YOU HAVE PUT EFFORT INTO! I had to learn this one the hard way and it almost cost me my life.
As far as time management goes, I found it helpful to keep a planner specifically for this class so that I had all the due dates written down and could plan my week accordingly. Waiting to do things at the last minute is ok if you want to go crazy and end up in a mental institution. Assignments are due at either midnight or noon, so there isn't much you can do if you start an assignment a half hour before the due date.
Make sure you exercise regularly, get enough sleep, eat nutritious foods like granola, and you will do just fine in this class.
Cheers,
David Ganz
Dear Future ENG online students,
I feel that it was a great opportunity to be able to take this course online rather than in a classroom. It allows you a little more freedom to set your own pace to work.
In order to be successful in this course it is important to keep on top of the work. The activities are relatively easy but they will seem even easier if you plan on doing at least one a week. Or else, do what I did. When you have a couple hours of free time, just sit down and get most of them done. That way, you don’t have to worry about them and it prevents unneeded stress at the end of the semester.
Another important tip is to utilize EBSCO host. You will need search engines such as this one in order to find good scholarly sources when writing your papers. EBSCO host is extremely user friendly and includes numerous scholarly journals that are good sources for papers and assignments for this course a long with other courses.
Another thing to keep in mind while doing the assignments is to make sure all of the requirements are fulfilled. If you don’t pay close attention to the requirements of the assignment you will most likely not receive full credit. Be sure to understand the assignment completely before you begin. Also, be sure to understand MLA format because this is the format required for citations throughout all of the ENG 102 papers. Understanding MLA format before you begin helps so that you do not have to make as many changes as your trying to submit your final draft.
If I were to take this course over again I would probably not do very much differently. I feel that for the most part, I managed my time wisely and was able to put a lot of effort into all of my assignments. As long as you manage your time well and frequently check the due dates of assignments you should be able to do just as well if not better in this online course rather than one that meets regularly in a classroom.
Good Luck!
Kristen Fogg