In this online course, there are several ways you can get your writing assignments to your instructor:Also included here is information on:
- Uploading
- Attaching to e-mail
- Sending the URL of your project (written as a web page)
- Delivering projects by hand to the Instructor
The following describes four ways you can deliver your writing projects in online TCM1603 to your instructor. This document also contains suggestions on handling graphics for your writing projects.
- File-reading problems: What to do if you can't read the files your instructor sends back.
- Graphics: What to do about graphics in the files you send.
- RTF files: How to save your writing project as an RTF file.
Students, please send your writing projects to your instructor as e-mail attachments. Thanks! You can use the upload facility—you can upload your writing projects by clicking on the web page, selecting your file from your directory or folder system, and then "submitting" it. (And don't forget to e-mail your instructor that you've uploaded a file.) This is the preferred way to get your files to your instructor, but it may not work with Microsoft Internet Explorer. (You can either get the free upload plug-in from the Microsoft web site, or just use Netscape.)
Note: If you can't use the upload facility, just use e-mail attachments.
If the file-upload facility doesn't work, send your writing assignments to your instructor by e-mail attachments.
- If you're not sure how to attach files to e-mail, contact your instructor's office for a quick demonstration.
- Use whichever word-processing software you prefer. Your instructor may ask you to do a Save As to an application or a version that is compatible.
- Make sure you name your file using your "handle," the assignment number, draft level, and extension. See the information on file naming for details.
- Make sure you receive a confirmation note from your instructor. If you haven't heard from your instructor after two or three days, send e-mail asking whether your file made it. Also, check your e-mail to ensure that your instructor doesn't have problems reading the file you sent.
- If you have trouble reading the files your instructor sends back to you, first try decoding them. Get a program such as WinZip (demonstration version downloadable from the web) and use it to decode (or extract) the file. If that doesn'tr work, get in touch with your instructor.
- Don't attach files over 2 megabytes in size. Files grow to this because of embedded graphics. You can print out your graphics version and send it to your instructor by one of the ways mentioned. E-mail a non-graphics version in which you take out the graphics and put a brief description in their place.
- If your e-mail program doesn't permit e-mail attachment, see the other options in the following.
If you write your assignments as web pages (in HTML tagging), you can send e-mail to your instructor indicating the web address (or URL) of the assignments. (See creating web pages for more on this aproach.
You can also print out hardcopy of your writing projects and hand-deliver them to your instructor's campus mailbox or send them through ACC campus mail from any ACC campus. David McMurrey's mailbox is in the Faculty Mail and Duplication Room in Building 1000 at the Northridge campus of ACC.
Some of the writing projects in this couerse include graphics. In classroom-based version of this course, students typically photocopy graphics or draw them freehand and then incorporate them into their papers using tape and scissors. Some students are able to scan images into their papers or use graphics software (such as CorelDRAW or AutoCAD) to draw the images themselves.In this online course where we send writing assignments by e-mail, things are different. You can scan the images you want, find clipart of the images you want, or use software (PaintShop Pro, CorelDraw, PaintBrush, MacDraw, etc.) to hand-draw your images.
However, graphics embedded into files increase the size of those files enormously, making it difficult to work with them over the Internet.
To overcome this problem of file size:
- Create a non-graphics version of your file, pull the graphics out, and in their place put brief descriptions of them.
- Print out your graphics version and send it by U.S. mail, campus mail, or hand-deliver it.
- By far the best solution for graphics is to create your own web page with link to your graphics. All you have to do then is send your instruction the URL.
One of the best ways to overcome the problem of different versions of software is to save your file as an RTF file. This is a kind of universally readable format. If you use Word, WordPerfect, Works, and other such software, you can save your file in RTF. Here's how to do it:
- Open your file in the software you normally use.
- Click on File and then on Save As in the drop-down menu.
- In the box labelled Save as File Type:, select Rich Text Format (.RTF).
- Make sure the new file end with the .rtf extension, and save it.
Note: Open this RTF file in a plain text editor such as NotePad or WordPad: notice how it's just code beginning and ending with curly braces { }. When you receive an RTF file, you may have to delete material above and below these curly braces in order to read the file properly.
The code is 4412