Murray State College’s General Education Commitment:

Murray State College has structured its  curriculum  to provide students a general education that will produce literate, informed, and involved citizens who can function in the modern world.  This curriculum:

1. Promotes the development of oral and written communication skills and emphasizes writing-across-the-curriculum.

2. Exposes students to literature and to the visual and performing art.

3. Requires a general knowledge of the history and political system of the United States.

4. Encourages students to understand the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

5. Fosters human understanding and social and civic responsibility.

6. Encourages the development of a mature work ethic.

7. Promotes recognition and acceptance of human diversities.

8. Encourages the development of critical thinking skills and/or problem solving skills in each course.

9. Provides grounding in the basic content and methods of the various disciplines of the arts and the sciences.

10. Builds student competencies in the use of quantitative and scientific reasoning.

11. Instructs students in the use of technological resources.

While no one course will accomplish all of the goals listed above, every course at Murray should contribute to that educational process.  The goals for this course are to provide students an overview of the world's geographical, social, political, and economic regions. It will focus primarily on  MSC's General Education Goal #7:  "promoting the recognition and acceptance of human diversities " although some of the other general education goals will be touched upon in the course.

Course Description:

Prerequisite: None.

World Regional Geography focuses on the world’s major cultural regions with emphasis on the geographic aspects of contemporary economic, social, and political relationships with the physical environment.  Three lecture hours a week.  Credit:  Three semester hours.

ADA Statement         

Murray State College is committed to providing equal access to College Programs and services for students.  Under College policy and federal and state laws, students with documented disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations to ensure the student has an equal opportunity to perform in class.  If any member of the class has such a disability and needs special academic accommodation, please notify the Counseling Center at MSC or the Ardmore Higher Education Center, before the end of Week One of the semester.  Reasonable accommodation may be arranged after verification of your situation.  Do not hesitate to contact me [your instructor] if any assistance is needed in this process.
 

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Course Outline

    Unit I:     Introduction to  Regional Geography.
    Unit II:  Europe, Russia, and Neighboring Countries 
   Unit III: Asia: East Asia,  Southeast Asia and South Pacific, South Asia
   Unit IV:  Africa
    Unit V:   The Americas and Globalization

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Class Activities

      Class discussion, lecture, group exercises, and field trips.

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 Learning Resources

Michael Bradshaw, George W. White, and Joseph Dymond, Contemporary World Regional Geography: Global Connections, Local Voices.  1^st edition. McGraw Hill, 2004.

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E-Mails and Phone Messages

Students enrolled in this course may contact me at my MSC e-mail address rmorrell@mscok.edu ; at my home e-mail address mailto:morrellr@swbell.net   or by phone: at Murray (580) 371-2371, ext. 253,  8-5 M-F, FAX (580)371-9844, or at home, (580) 371-3358.

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Attendance/Late Assignments Policies

Attendance-The attendance policy in this course is based on the guidelines in the Student Handbook.  Since this is a three-hour credit course and each class session is seventy-five minutes, students may miss two class sessions (150 minutes without penalty.  More than two absences may result in a reduced grade or being administratively dismissed from the course.

  Late assignments-Any assignment submitted past the due date can only receive a maximum of 70% credit on that assignment.

·         Work submitted more than a week late will not be accepted and students will receive a zero on that assignment.

·         Students who fall more than two weeks behind on submitting assignments may be dropped from the course.

·         Student who because, of work, family obligations, or other factors beyond their control, find they are not going to make normal progress in the course should contact me so that arrangements can be made for them to delay completion of the course. You must have talked with me personally, or have e-mailed me and received a personal response from me acknowledging I have received your e-mail, and that I am giving you permission to submit assignments past their due date.

·         It is the student's responsibility to notify me as soon as they are having, or are anticipating, difficulties that will require an assignment to be submitted late or by some alternate method.  Notifying me after the assignment deadline that you had difficulty is not acceptable.

·         No attendance verification forms for Financial Aid will be signed for any student until all work currently due is turned in and graded.  No one except myself is authorized to sign your attendance verification without my permission.

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Grading Policy

Examinations:

The five unit exams will be worth 100 points each.  The student's semester grade will be based on their accumulated points from these exams and from any extra-credit assignments they have submitted. The examinations will be a combination of objective questions and an occasional essay [see Appendix A: of this Syllabus on how to write essay exams and on how essay exams will be graded.]  Any essay questions assigned will be take-home questions. 

Since each class and each semester is unique, the grading policy may be altered if the circumstances warrant.  Students will be notified in advance of any changes.

Cheating or plagiarizing:

Students in this course, as in any college course are required to do their own work. A student caught cheating or plagiarizing will automatically receive a zero on the work involved and may be dismissed from the course with a failing grade.  

• On any chapter assignments students may copy the textbook or other sources in their homework.
• On unit exams and extra-credit work nothing may be copied or paraphrased from any source.  Everything must be in your own words. To verify that student work has not been copied from other sources, Murray State College subscribes to http://www.turnitin.com/  a national Internet search and database company designed to detect plagiarism.  Any essays or extra-credit work will be submitted by the student to Turnitin.com and I'll grade it after Turnitin.com has checked it for originality.  I'll explain to you in class how to send any work to Turnitin.com.

1. Plagiarism means nothing may be copied verbatim from the text or any other source.  The work  must be in your own words.
2. Nothing can be closely paraphrased from your text or any other source.  [Facts and information from your text and other sources may be used in your essays but you cannot, by substituting your own words, use the thesis (the author's argument) or the organizational structure of  anyone else in your essay without clearly acknowledging your source.]
3. Any quote of more than one sentence, or excessive quoting should be avoided in outside class writings.  In fact, the safest route is to avoid quotes.  Read it, digest it, write it, without referring back to your source.  After you have finished the first draft of your version, go back and check your original source only to verify factual accuracy.  
4. If you are still not sure what constitutes plagiarizing, contact the instructor for further clarification or consult http://www.turnitin.com/research_site/e_home.html.  This is a good explanation of what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it in your writing that Turnitin.com has created.

Tardiness on Submitting Exams:         

Any students who submit a take-home exam after the assigned due date can only receive a grade of seventy or less on that exam unless the student has received prior permission to turn in an exam late. Exams submitted more than a week after the due date will not be accepted for credit.

Retests:

Those who score below 70% on an unit exams may request to take one retest, within a week after the exam was returned to them, to bring their grade on that unit up to 70%.  If they fail to request the retest within one week, or fail to improve their grade on the retest, they will retain their original grade for that unit.    Contact the instructor for further information on retests.

Other Grades:

Since each class and each semester is unique, the instructor may make the decision to add, delete, or alter assignments.  Any such changes will be made in a timely manner allowing students ample time to complete the assignment.  The points possible on those assignments and how they will be calculated on the semester grade will be announced at the time the assignment is made.

Spelling, grammatical, and typing errors:

Society, employers in particular, expect a college-educated person to have  reasonable spelling, grammatical, and typing competencies.  Students with more than ten misspellings, grammatical or typing errors on any assignment will have that assignment returned to them for correction and resubmittal before they receive a grade on that assignment.

Grading System:

Grades are based on "percentage of mastery."  A student who scores 90% or better on an exam will receive an "A" on that exam.  

B= 80-89%
C=70-79%
D=60-69%
F=below 60%

No grades are dropped, or curved.

Every student is required to be familiar with the Grading Policy.

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 Extra-Credit Work

Students may do any of the following work to aid their grades.  Usually this outside work has the effect of boosting the student's point average but badly done work could do just the opposite. All extra work must be typewritten.

Outside Reading:

Books, articles, and videos on geographical topics may be reviewed for extra-credit but the student must obtain instructor approval to do so. Use the format suggested in Appendix B. of  the Grading Policy to write your book, article, or video review.

Extra-Credit points:

    non-fiction book (minimum 250 pages-100 points)
    fiction (50 points)
    professional journal articles (40 points)
    Videos and filmstrips (35 points)

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Appendix:

Grading Policy
Appendix A:

The Components of an Essay

I.    Introduction-the introductory paragraph to a history essay should include three elements:

    A.    A time (when)/place setting (where) sentence or two that tells who or what,
             where, when, etc.
    B.    Statement of the essay thesis-state the theme or identify the position you are
            taking in this essay. A good approach is to rephrase the question into a
            statement, e.g., The question: "Identify and discuss the various theories about global warming?"  Your thesis
            sentence: "There are several theories about why and if global warming is occurring.  These include..."
    C.    Identify somewhere in your Introduction the main points you are going to use to
           support your thesis.   You would then discuss each of these points in your essay.
          

II.    Body of the Essay-The body of the essay consists of the paragraphs that explain
         or elaborate on the main points that support the thesis.

    A.    There should be at least one paragraph for each point.
    B.    Every point mentioned in the Introduction needs to be discussed in the essay
            body.
    C.    These supporting paragraphs need to be written in some sort of logical
            sequence.  It is a good idea to always write chronologically [from the past forward] if that is appropriate for the topic
            you are writing about.
    D.    The supporting paragraphs need to be tied together.  There need to be transition
            sentences from one paragraph to the next.

III.    Conclusion of the Essay-When all the supporting evidence has been presented, the writer should conclude the essay with a paragraph that includes these three elements:

    A.    A restatement of the thesis for the reader.
    B.    A summary of the supporting evidence.
    C.    An explanation of the significance of the topic.

There is nothing magical about a good essay.  It is a logical, orderly approach for providing information to a reader.  Anyone who understands the procedure can, with a little practice, be a competent essay writer.

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Practical Hints for Writing an In-class Essay Exam

1.    Read quickly through the entire test-

·         This will help you gauge how much time to spend on each question.

·         Answer the questions you are most familiar with first.

·         This prevents running out of time with "easy" questions still unanswered.

2.    Make sure you understand the question.  If you do not, ask the instructor for
       clarification.

3.    Think of the main points you need to make to answer that question.

·         Time period (when)/place (where)

·         Main characters and events

·         Causes

·         Results

4.    Quickly jot down the main points in outline form.  (Don't spend too much time on the
          outline; just get down the main points so they won't slip your mind during the heat of
          writing.)

5.    Develop your essay in three parts:

        A.    Introduction-Lay out or explain your discussion topic for the reader.

        B.    Main Body-Logically progress from one point to the next in your argument or
               discussion.  Keep in mind the main points you want to make and don't be
               distracted into putting down time-consuming trivia.  Also, as you write, keep
               in mind the transitions you need to make from one point to the next and
               structure your essay so that you make them smoothly.  Write chronologically
               whenever possible.

        C.    Conclusion-Pull together your arguments into several general statements
                which arrive at a conclusion consistent with the line of arguments you have
                developed in the body of your essay.

Other Helpful Hints:

1.    Write simply and carefully-there is no substitute for clear orderly writing.

2.    Avoid padding-never mistake quantity for quality.

3.    Pace yourself/relax occasionally-The faster you drive yourself the easier it is to
       make mistakes.  Use the clock to time yourself and set a pace as a distance runner
       does. Occasionally, take time to relax for a few seconds.  You cannot do your best
       when your fingers are cramped and your back is tired from bending over the paper. 

                                                                             -Adapted from an Unknown Author.

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Grading Policy
Appendix B:

Format for Book, Article, and Video Reviews

General Instructions:

a.       Students must have prior approval to review books, articles, and videos.

b.      Reviews have to typewritten or submitted in a computer word file.

c.       Bibliographical information is to be single-spaced.

d.      Double-space the report itself.

Bibliographical Information:

    Books-List the author(s) or editor(s)
                The book's complete title
                The place of publication
                The copyright date
                The publishing date

    Articles-List the author(s) or editor(s)
                  The title of the article
                  The title of the Journal
                  The volume number of the journal
                  The journal's date of publication
                  The article's number of pages, e.g., pp. 22-37.

    Videos-Identify the organization that produced the video.
                 List the narrator if they are identified.
                 List the title of the video.
                 List the date of production if that is known.

Review Format:  The review needs to have the following elements in it:

    Thesis-In four or five sentences explain the point the author was trying to make in this book, article or video.

    Scope-In two or three sentences tell what this book, article, or tape is about.
               E.g., "This book was a history of map making" or "This tape describes how satellite imagery is helping everyone
               from geographers to farmers to city governments."

    Summary of Content-Depending on the source you are writing about, in two-to-ten pages identify and discuss the main
                                        points of this book, article, or video.

    Evaluation-In a paragraph or more make an assessment of this book, article, or video.  In your evaluation try to answer
                       such questions as: 
                                       How clearly did the author explain their thesis? 
                                       How well did their main points support or defend that thesis? 
                                       How informative was this writing for you? 
                                       What kind of impact did it have on your thinking about this topic?

[Note:  Students may send or bring by rough drafts of their reviews for suggestions before they submit their final versions.]

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