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URBP 213

Course Learning Objectives

The department has approved official course learning objectives for this course. Learning objectives support the overall goal of each course and describe what information students should know, or what skills students should have learned by the end of the course.

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

  1. Articulate the qualities that make for excellent, effective writing and public speaking in a professional U.S. planning context.
  2. Identify and prioritize aspects of their writing and public speaking skills that they want to improve over time, and plan strategies for achieving these goals.
  3. Create documents and presentations that communicate a clear message to readers and listeners. For example, students will be able to:
    • Organize material logically and clearly, so that a reader or listener can easily understand the ideas presented.
    • Use headings, internal previews, and summaries to help readers or listeners easily identify the main points.
    • Design tables and figures that highlight the specific message they are meant to convey.
  4. Create documents and presentations that are strategically designed to persuade resistant audiences.
  5. Create documents and presentations that are professional in appearance and style. For example, students will be able to:
    • Apply simple design principles to create documents that are easy for readers to understand.
    • Develop and apply consistent formatting styles throughout a document or presentation.
    • Prepare professional-looking tables and figures with a table or figure number, title, and complete source citation and notes properly located just below the table or figure.
    • Properly format sources footnotes and bibliographies in Turabian A style.
    • Create PowerPoint presentations that use font sizes, colors, and images that will be easy for an audience to see and understand from a distance.
  6. Decide when they need to include source citations in their writing, such as when they incorporate or refer to another author's intellectual property, such as exact language, data, theories, or illustrations.
  7. Identify and apply techniques that will help them to deliver a professional presentation with a speaking style that is easy to understand, sounds natural, and stimulates audience interest and comprehension.
  8. Design strategies to elicit useful feedback from colleagues and friends on their writing and public speaking.
  9. Prepare useful, tactful feedback to help colleagues improve their writing and public speaking.