COM 383 .
Writing for Advertising – WED 6:00Professor: Juliet Davis
Course Syllabus, Spring 2009
University of Tampa
Office Hours: Office: CS Annex 120
M/W4:00-6:00 p.m. by appointmentMailbox #106-F
Mon 10:00 p.m. by appointmentCell: 727.418.8511 ______
EVIL GOOD GOOD
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This writing-intensive course involves strategic concept-development and writing for advertising projects, as well as a look at ethical considerations related to the practice. May not be used to satisfy general curriculum distribution requirements. This course replaces COM 382 on the old curriculum. If you have already taken COM 382, you should not be in this class.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
Upon completion of this class, students should be able to:
1) write professional-level advertising copy for print and broadcast media, demonstrating knowledge of copywriting, storyboarding, scripting, and style guidelines,
2) develop concepts for online advertising, including social media and viral marketing
3) create concepts for advertising campaigns
4) overall, use foundational advertising and marketing principles, as well as creative strategies and tactics, to solve advertising problems.
5) work individually and in teams
6) demonstrate knowledge of legal and ethical considerations relating to advertising—including copyright and FTC laws.
TEXBOOK & MATERIALS
The Copywriter’s Handbook by Robert W. Bly. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2006.
Print out Syllabus, Assignments, Handouts and Articles
(download at > class info)
Turnitin.com info:
Turnitin.com Help (how to):
Turnitin Class I.D.:3441152
Class Enrollment Password: Password1
1 Jumbo binder clip for midterm portfolio (I will not accept any papers with
regular paper clips because your pages will not remain intact and may be lost).
Use of MS Word or computer graphics programs (optional).
Access to copy machine. A photocopier is available in the library. A Kinko's at the corner of Tampa Street/Kennedy (15% off services w/ student I.D. and 50% off regular paper stock). Another Kinko’s is at the corner of Dale Mabry/Kennedy. Pearl Art Supply is on Hillsborough.
GRADING SCALE
95-100AOutstanding
90-94 A/BExcellent
85-90 BVery Good
80-84 B/CGood
75-80 CAverage
70-74 C/DBelow Average
60-69 DPassing
0-59FFailure
EVALUATION
Participation, Activities, Drafts20%
Midterm Test (take-home and in-class)30%
Print Ad Portfolio (4 ads)40%
TV Group Project10%
WORK LOAD:
This is a writing-intensive course. A major assignment or test is due in this class nearly every week. Rough drafts are for feedback only and count toward the participation/activities grade. Both rough and final drafts are uploaded to turnitin.com.
General Class Policies
OFFICE HOURS
If you would like to meet during office hours, please email me to arrange a time (). You can also contact me by cell phone at 727-418-8511. Additional Notes: I do not hold normal office hours during Thanksgiving week, Spring Break, and finals week. Please review Email Etiquette at
ATTENDANCE
While you will not be graded for “attendance” per se, attending class will be the single most important factor in determining your performance and grade in the course, so plan to attend every class. In most class meetings you will have a project, exercise, test, and/or discussion that will impact your grade.
DEADLINES
Late projects and papers will be docked 10 points per class meeting overdue. Assignments are due at the beginning of class so that we can discuss them during class. If you are late to class, your project will also be considered late. Quizzes, tests, and exercises can only be made up if a student has documentation of illness or emergency or the student has contacted me in advance to request an excused absence due to special circumstances. You are responsible for deadlines even if printers or other technologies are malfunctioning, so please do not wait for the day a project is due to print it out. In case of emergency, there is a Kinko’s on the corner of Tampa Street/Kennedy and Dale Mabry/Kennedy.
SUBMITTING YOUR WORK
These policies are for your protection. Assignments that do not adhere to these requirements may be lost and/or the grade might not be correctly recorded in the grade book. Also, remember to keep backups of all work that you hand in.
1) Submit Work By Hand.
Work is accepted in person, by hand
(not in e-mail, on disk, by mailbox, or under a door).
2) Stapled or binder-clipped (no paper clips).
All regular written assignments (this does not include artwork or portfolios) must be stapled or clamped with binder-clipped when submitted in hard copy (no paper clips, binders, plastic spines, etc.).
3) Info.
All assignments should feature the student’s name, project title, assignment type (most important), class, section day/time, and submission date. When CD’s or DVD’s are part of the assignment, this info must be written in marker on the disk (please do not use dry-erase markers for this purpose, as they can damage media). The word MAKEUP WORK or REVISION must appear in bold if applicable, and a note should be included with a reminder of the circumstances of such submissions.
4) Turnitin.com.
Any work that is to be uploaded to turnitin.com must have a turnitin.com receipt stapled on top of the hard copy (a one-page receipt, please, rather than multiple pages). Please do not wait until the day a paper is due to learn how to use this system (see for help). NOTE: To upload a project with multiple parts, you must copy and paste all text into one document (turnitin.com only accepts one document per assignment).
PROJECT DRAFTS
To receive feedback at any time on your work before submission, feel free to come to office hours. When a course requires that rough drafts be submitted for feedback, those submissions count as participation only—not toward the grade itself.
SAUNDERS WRITING CENTER
If you have difficulty with basic writing skills, please see the Saunders writing center for free tutoring.
”WHY DID I RECEIVE THIS GRADE?”
If you are unclear about why you received a particular grade, feel free to discuss it with me during office hours. If you believe you do understand the evaluation but disagree with it and want to make a case for having a grade changed, please fill out the self-evaluation form at so that you can articulate clear reasons for your position. If you believe I have made an error in a grade or evaluation comments, let me know. Please do not wait until finals week to raise questions about grades.
REVISING YOUR WORK
If you are unhappy with your performance on a project that has been graded, you may request to revise work and resubmit for a new grade. If a revision opportunity is granted, the deadline for the revision is two weeks after the date the assignment was returned to the student, or the Thursday before finals week, whichever comes first. Opportunities to revise are considered on individual bases to students with substantive ideas for improvement. They are usually not granted for assignments that primarily show mechanical/grammatical weaknesses, or to students who have had excessive absences or have failed to complete previous homework or drafts associated with the assignment, or to students who have already had opportunity to revise from a draft that received feedback.
LAST DATE FOR ACCEPTING ALL WORK
All work, including any regular work, makeup work, and revision work, must be submitted by hand on or before the Thursday before finals week. Regular office hours are not held during finals week.
USING TOPICS
Unless a student has special permission, a topic can only be used once in the class. For example, if you have written about Steven Spielberg in one assignment, you would not be permitted to select him as a topic of another assignment, without special permission. Students are also not permitted to use topics that have been featured in class as examples.
YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO REPORT GRADE BOOK DISCREPANCIES
The electronic grade book is updated periodically throughout the semester, and you will receive announcements about those updates. Towards the end of finals week (usually Friday or Saturday), you will receive a message in your U.T. email account asking you to check your final grades in the grade book. At that time, it is your responsibility to review it and report any grade book errors before Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Final grades are submitted to the registrar Sunday night.
BACKING UP YOUR WORK
It is your responsibility to be able to provide a backup copy of your work in the event that a submission is lost. In addition, you should keep all digital work for your portfolio.
1) Digital Work.
Remember that lost work is not a valid excuse for late work. You will need to make sure your digital work (MS Word documents; graphics files; etc.) is saved in TWO places other than school grounds. These two locations might include a home hard drive and/or external media, or two hard drives. Remember that the school server is not a reliable storage space because other students have access to it and can accidentally delete your work. Also, having one storage space of your own is not enough because it can be lost or become damaged. Disks and drives are not magical immortal media—sooner or later, they all die horrible deaths. Some students opt to transport files on a jump drive to a home hard drive, where the files are then backed up. Others “mirror” their C drive so that the files are automatically backed up to a D drive.
NOTE ABOUT CD-BURNING: The CAS lab is not currently set up for rewriting CD’s, so CD-burning is not recommended unless you are creating a read-only disk.
2) Non-digital Work.
The instructor is not responsible for lost or damaged projects, so please copy any original non-digital artwork and submit only copies (for example, drawings, paintings, collage elements, original photos, historical newspaper clippings, handwritten text used in artwork, etc.).
LAB RULES
If you use the computer lab, you are expected to adhere to the lab rules and procedures posted to Blackboard and to exercise courtesy and professionalism at all times.
GROUP PROJECT GUIDELINES
If the course involves group work, a group report is submitted with the project, indicating the percentage of work each member contributed, and grades are prorated based on that percentage (see group work report template). Members may switch groups, but must make up their percentage of work. Any members who are not pulling their weight may be “dismissed” by their groups. Dismissed group members must complete the entire project by themselves or find another group that will take them in. Dismissals and group switches must be coordinated with me.
ACADEMIC HONESTY & AVOIDING PLAGIARISM
Original ideas are the foundation of meaningful discussion, critical thinking, creativity and productivity. I am primarily interested in your ideas. Even when we read outside sources, I am interested in your ideas about them. Properly citing sources allows us to make distinctions between your ideas and those of others. By accepting this syllabus, you are agreeing that you have read and understood all information about plagiarism posted at >Class Info>Plagiarism, including 1) the University of Tampa’s provisions regarding academic integrity as spelled out in the student handbook and 2) information about how to cite sources in MLA style. Written work must be submitted solely for this course, and collaboration with other students is only permitted when it is approved by the instructor.
In the event that a student violates any of these provisions, or any additional individual class policies regarding original authorship, the professor reserves the right to assign whatever grade for the course the professor judges to be appropriate, including a grade of F, without regard to the student’s accumulated points. Plagiarism (whether intentional or unintentional) will be reported.
CHECKING YOUR U.T. EMAIL
Students will be contacted regularly through their U.T. email addresses, so you will need to check your U.T. email boxes daily and are responsible for all information that is emailed to you. For convenience, you might want to have your U.T. mail forwarded automatically to another account (e.g., yahoo, aol or hotmail account). Contact the I.T. Help Desk at (813) 253-6293 or ext. 6293.
SPECIAL NEEDS
If you are a student who has special needs because of any disability, please go to Ms. Linda Ashburn in the Office of Student Disability Services in PH 415 (x3302), to self-disclose and provide supporting documentation. Please feel free to discuss your disability with me in private.
ADVERSE CONDITIONS
In case of any adverse condition or situation which could interrupt the schedule of classes, each student is asked to access for information about the status of the campus and class meetings. In addition, please refer to ut.blackboard.com for announcements and other important information, and check your U.T. email for messages from your instructor. You are responsible for accessing this information.
Schedule
(bold) = Work Due That Day
(blue) = Support Discussion, Worksheet, Activity, Resources, etc.
(orange) = Power Point Presentation
Readings are in the textbook Copywriter’s Handbook, unless otherwise indicated.
Bold text indicates what is due for that day.
Schedule may change at instructor’s discretion. Additional assignments may be given any time.
1) Print out all materials for this class at > Class Info, and place them in a ring binder (See “Syllabus and Assignments” & “Handouts and Articles.”)
2) Review all information about plagiarism (make sure you understand what plagiarism is, according to U.T. policy, and how to avoid it).
3) Create a profile at
(Use instructions at as well as the class I.D. and login that are listed on the first page of your syllabus)
Date / Topics/Assignments
1 / WED 9/1
/ Intro to Class, Personal Introductions, Syllabus
Lesson: Chapter 1 Intro to Copywriting
Lesson: Chapter 4 (USP info)
2 / WED 9/8
/ NO CLASS
3 / WED 9/15 / Class Preps Due
Reading Due: CH 1, 2
Lesson: Chapter 2 Headlines
Intro to “Words to Avoid” Worksheet: Group Work
Headline Worksheet: Group Work
4 / WED 9/22 / Headline Worksheet Due – Share in Class
Reading Due: CH 3, 4, 6
Lesson: Chapters 3, 4, 6 (Writing Print Ads)
Lesson: Descriptive Ads
Intro to Ad #1 Assignment: Group Work
Mention Ad Writing Checklist and Copy Platform Worksheet (optional)
Examples of Past Student Work
Group Work: Descriptive Ad Concepts
For Next Class
1) Descriptive Ad Draft (see assignment sheet and template) and remember to include turnitin.com upload receipt (stapled)
This is for participation only. Late assignments will not be accepted for feedback. NOTE: Copy platform worksheet is to help you (optional), not for credit.
5 / WED 9/29 / Ad #1 Draft Due: Descriptive
(with turnitin.com receipt stapled to the top)
“Killing Your Darlings”
(or “Nobody Changes the Headline, Nobody Dies”)
Intro to Ad #2: Target Audience Shift
and Discussion of Narrative Ads
Examples of Past Student Work
Discuss Interview Notes (to hand in with ad)
Building Desire with Target Audience
Mention Chapter 5: Getting Ready to Write
Screen Documentary: “Merchants of Cool” online at
Group Work: Target Audiences, Ad Concepts
Preview: Conduct some “ethnographic research” of your target audience for Ad #2—include at least one person who is not family or friends. Write up your interview, commenting about the person or people you interviewed and your findings. Be thorough. Give us an insightful profiles. Tell us the unexpected things about these people that perhaps defy stereotypes you previously held. You will hand in your interview notes with your ad later.
6 / WED 10/6
/ Ethnographic Research Due (draft to share with class)
Discuss Graded Assignment #1 (examples on projector to discuss)
Hand back worksheets
Group Work and Feedback on Ad #2
Pre-reading: “Shock’s Next Wave”by Bruce Griersonat Bring an ad to the next class that represents one of the kinds of “shock” Grierson discusses and be prepared to explain how it meets his criteria. Do you think the ad erodes people's values, as Grierson suggests? Explain.
7 / WED 10/13
/ Ad #2 Draft Due: Target Audience Shift
(with turnitin.com receipt stapled to top – no need to upload your research notes but hand them in)
Reading Due: “Shock’s Next Wave” (Discuss)
Lesson: Risky Ads (tie in w/ article)
Intro Ad #3 Assignment (does not necessarily have to be shock)
Examples of Past Student Work
Group Work and Feedback on Ad #3
8 / WED 10/20 / Ad #3 Humorous Ad Due
Discuss Graded Assignments #2 (examples on projector)
Discussion of Intro to Ad #4: Produced Ad Assignment
How to Use MS Word for Ad Layout (production tips)
Lesson: Ethics & Legalities of Advertising
Test Review and Take-Home Part Distributed
Questions to Ponder: Is there any such thing as “ethical advertising,” or is that a contradiction in terms? What factors determine what is ethical or unethical to you? Is all manipulation unethical? Why or why not? How might someone have an ethical advertising practice? Is it possible? Explain your views.
9 / WED 10/27 / TAKE-HOME PART of Test #1 Due
TEST #1 In-Class Part Given
NOTE: LAST DAY TO WITHDRAW IS 3/30 (Monday)
Sign up for Consultation Times
Reminder for Consultation--Due:
Ads 1 and 2 for discussion, and ideas for Ad 4
(Ad 3 will be returned to you with feedback)
10 / WED 11/3
/ NO REGULAR CLASS - Group Consultations in my office
CASS Annex (Trailer) Rm 120
For directions to my office, see > Contact. Bring revised ads 1 and 2 for discussion, and ideas for Ad 4
(Ad 3 will be returned to you with feedback)
11 / WED11/10 / MIDTERM AD PORTFOLIO DUE (final) – including Ad 4
(copy and paste all documents into one to upload to turnitin.com, and staple or clamp receipt into packet)
Copyright Law (PPT)
Reminder For Next Class
Read CH 10 (pp. 208-224): TV Commercials
12 / WED11/17 / Read CH 10 (pp. 208-224): TV Commercials
Lesson: TV Commercials and PSA’s, Part 1
Introduce Assignment: TV Storyboard, Script, Research
Mention Script Formatting(see textbook)