T340--Electronic Media Advertising

Summer Session I 2012
Section 6604

Class Requirements

Exams (20% each, total of 40% of your final grade):

There are two exams scheduled. They will be worth 100 points each. Sixty points will be available for responses to objective questions (multiple choice, true or false, etc.). Forty points will be available for your responses to short answer/calculations.

Exams will be given in class on the dates scheduled. Alternate days and/or times for taking the test will be made in the case of documented emergency, personal illness, as indicated by Student Disability Services, or for absences required for documented IU-sponsored activities (i.e., athletics, performing arts, etc.).

Easy extra points on exams:

The textbook contains a lot of valuable information from experts in advertising. And, in order to encourage you to read it, to think about it, and try to apply it to other things you know or encounter, "top up" points will be awarded on your exams for blog entries that you post on Oncourse. The blog can be made private (just between you and Dr. Potter) or public (for all students in the class).

You can earn a point for each chapter assigned. BUT you must complete your annotations by the Friday of each week in order to receive credit. So, for example, Chapters 1-3 are assigned for week one. In order to receive reading points on Exam 1 for these chapters your three different blog posts must be completed by 5pm on Friday. You will not receive credit for late blogs.

Blog posts can be short or long. They should be your original comments spurred by the assigned chapter, addition of information (either supportive or contradictory) that you learned in other courses, links to websites or examples of ads, or comments on another student's posting. They can also be specific questions that you want Dr. Potter to address in class.

Mini Writings (20%):

Four times during the semester there will be opportunities to submit short papers to me expressing your thoughts surrounding advertising issues that we are currently dealing with in class. On the course schedule links will be provided to questions or topics that you may want to respond to in these papers. Or you may find something in the textbook that you want to write about. Although these are not formal papers, part of the grade you receive on them will be based upon basics of writing (spelling, sentence structure, syntax, argument development, etc.).

It is best to view these as an email to your boss at an advertising agency about the topic at hand rather than an email (or text or tweet) to your friend.

These should be 2 pages, double-spaced.

You must do two of the four. If you write more than that, your highest two grades will each be worth 10% of your final grade.

Term Paper (20%):

You will be required to write a research paper in this class addressing a current topic in the advertising industry. I will provide you with a list of topics to select from, but will also let you propose one of your own if you wish. More details will be coming on this requirement. The paper will be double-spaced, typed, contain at least 2 sources other than your textbook, and 5-8 pages in length excluding bibliography.

Reading Quizzes (10%):

Each assigned chapter of the textbook will have an online quiz associated with it through Oncourse.
These quizzes can be accessed via the course Oncourse site, and the moment you begin a quiz you will have 30 minutes to complete it.
You should therefore read the chapter BEFORE you take the quiz.
Each quiz "closes" 30 minutes prior to the first lecture on the associated chapter, and a missed quiz constitutes a "0."
You are encouraged to keep on the readings as the semester goes along.

The average of your top 10 reading quizzes will count toward 10% of your final grade.

Attendance (5%):

Six of the class meetings will be randomly selected as attendance days. If you are in class for all 6 of those days, you'll receive 100% for this grade category. If you are here for 5 of those days, you'll receive 95%. If you are here for 4 of them, 85% and so on. I will do my best to make this a course you want to come to. If I succeed, then this should not be an issue. My suggestion to you, however, is that if you are out of class for an "excusable" reason, find out from a classmate if you missed an attendance day. If you did, please bring your written excuse to me.

Electronic Media/Advertising Research Experience (5%):

One of the ways that more is learned about the impact of advertising (and other forms of electronic media) is through careful research on how people process it. A lot of that research is conducted right here in this department. Part of your grade in this course will require you to have experience in the research process. I think the easiest way for you to do this is to participate in a research study conducted in the department. Occasionally, graduate students or other professors will come into class and ask for volunteers. Do this once, and you've fulfilled this requirement for this class.

You may not use an experiment that you participate in for another class to fulfill this requirement for T340.

Other ways to fulfill this requirement include attending a research lecture somewhere on campus and writing a 2-page (non-graded) paper discussing what you learned or reading a published research article from an academic journal (Journal of Advertising, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Advertising Research, Media Psychology, etc.) and writing a 2-page summary. If you choose either of these options, the lecture or the article must be pre-approved by the instructor.

Extra Credit:

You may then complete one more research experiences as extra credit. You will receive receive 5% worth of extra credit on your lowest exam score. Again, the article/lecture summary option is available as an alternative for this extra credit option.

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