Course Resources

• Syllabus
• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• Grading Criteria
• The Big Seven Grammar and Mechanics Guidelines 
• Punctuation Pattern Sheet 
• Accounting Today
• American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
• Journal of Accountancy, Journal of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
• American Accounting Association
• The Accounting Reivew: A Journal of the American Accounting Association
• Loyola Notre Dame Library

Course Schedule

Project 1 :: Project 2 :: Project 3 :: Project 4

Week 1 :: Project 1 Assignment Sheet

6/30 :: Course intro.; review syllabus; rhetoric, ethics, and professional communication; in-class readings: "How to Build a Better Student"; "Many SEC Filings are Hard for Even Stock Analysts to Decipher"; "Improving Accounting Students' Writing Skills"

In-class reading: Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test

7/1 :: Reflection 1 due via email in MS Word (.doc not .docx), PDF, or rtf

Week 2

7/6 :: Introduction to Classical Rhetoric; review Greek Timeline; read Isocrates - introduction and Antidosis (from beginning to "...in error as to a course of action."); Aristotle - introduction and On Rhetoric (from the beginning to "...in ceremonial, and lastly in legal, oratory."); St. Augustine - introduction and On Christian Doctrine (1-5, 7-10, 27-34). Answer Study questions

In-class reading: Writer-Centered Cover Letter; What Not to Do When Announcing a Political Campaign; Johnson-Sheehan on Ethics; Dubinsky's "Service-Learning as a Path to Virtue" and Katz's "The Ethic of Expediency"; AICPA's professional ethics page; creating your own organization's code of ethics; Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions; U.S. Department of Justice Memo; Purdue OWL's The Rhetorical Situation

7/7 :: Read May and May chapters 1, 2, 8; read chapter 13 from Principles of Fraud Examination; work on Project 1 and bring rough draft

In-class reading: Sample Memo; the Paramedic Method; Project 1 Checklist; Luca Pacioli, the "Father of Accounting"

Week 3 :: Project 2 Assignment Sheet

7/12 :: Project is 1 due; complete Business English chapters 6, 7, and 8; read "The Effect of Annual Report Readability on Analyst Following and the Properties of Their Earnings Forecasts"; read May and May chapter 3

In-class reading: Five Principles of Readability; the Declaration of Independence

7/14 :: Read May and May chapter 6, 7 (fallacies) and Purdue OWL resources on visual rhetoric; review the Visual Literacy presentation; review 10-Ks: (SEC Form Guidelines; Berkshire and Hathaway; Apple; Reader's Digest); mid-session course evaluation

In-class reading: read Induction and Deduction and Identifying Induction and Deduction; read Identifying Fallacies 1 and Identifying Fallacies 2; Document Design Activity 1

Week 4 :: Project 3 Assignment Sheet

7/19 :: Read and choose elements of the Interview PowerPoints that you would like in our final draft for the online Archive: Presentation 1; Presentation 2; Presentation 3; Presentation 4; review the SEC Plain English Handbook; review the Purdue OWL's resource on user-centered design; work on Project 2

In-class reading: Purdue OWL audience analysis heuristics

7/21 :: Project 2 is due; read the Project 3 assignment sheet; read Business English chapter 26 and complete the worksheet; read May and May chapter 15; read Tom Jewett's page on Section 508 and W3C compliance and Smashing Magazine's pages on designing user-centered, effective web sites

In-class reading: Presentation checklist

Week 5 :: Project 4 Assignment Sheet

7/26 :: Read Project 4 assignment sheet; read May and May chapter 11; read Wikipedia's Social Media Marketing page and the social media article from Going Concern, "When Will Accounting Firms Fully Embrace Social Media?"; read the AICPA's article on social media; look at free css templates and pick one you like; work on Project 3

7/28 :: Read usability testing page; review Purdue OWL Usability Report; work on Project 4

Week 6

8/2 :: Work on your PowerPoint presentation (here's a guide to help you from the Purdue OWL); work on Project 4: please make sure that the content of your deliverables achieve a Flesch-Kincaid Readability score of 7.0-8.0 and a Flesch Reading Ease score of 60-70 (readability applications); Project 3 Outline

8/4 :: Presentations; finish and submit Projects 3 and 4; final exam; class awards! (pizza?)