Summary: Working in groups of three, write a ten-to-fifteen
page paper about a technology not explored in depth in class. Present
your findings to the class.
Contents:
You have now studied a number of technologies and, as importantly, a variety of perspectives on the role and purposes of technology. It is time to apply your knowledge to a new technology. You will apply this knowledge in two ways: You will write a paper about the technology and you will present the technology to your class.
Your paper will have at least three parts:
- a historical overview of the technology,
- a discussion of the positive aspects of the technology that draws
upon the perspectives of at least two primary authors we have read
this semester; and
- a discussion of the negative aspects of the technology that also draws
upon the perspectives of at least two primary authors we have read
this semester.
Note that by primary authors
, I mean Norman, Petroski, anyone who
appears in Teich, and McGaw & Rothschild.
You should begin by selecting a team of three (no more, no less)
students to work together on the project. You may not work with people you
worked with on subject stewardship. If you have trouble finding a team,
let me know by Wednesday, 7 April 2010, and I will do my best to assign
you to a team by Friday, 9 April 2010.
The team should then work together to identify a topic of interest. Your
initial topics can be fairly broad. You might study recent technologies
(e.g., the Internet, PCR), 50's technologies (e.g., silly putty),
industrial-age technologies (e.g., the railroad), or even older
technologies (e.g., the development of agriculture). If you found Petroski
interesting, you might look at his other books for ideas (for example,
he has written a whole book on the evolution of the Pencil).
If you have a technology you use regularly with in your major (if you have a major), you may certainly write about that technology.
By Wednesday, 14 April 2010, you should inform me of the members of your
team and the topic you have selected.
Once you have selected a topic, you should gather sources that will help
you study the topic. I recommend that you make an appointment with a
reference librarian for help identifying sources.
At least three of your sources should describe the history or evolution
of the technology: What problem did the technology solve? What approaches
did people take? And so on and so forth.
At least three of your sources should be more critical papers that
reflect carefully on the benefits or drawbacks of the technology.
Compile your sources into an annotated bibliography. You need only
annotate the six basic sources in that bibliography. See the
appendix to this assignment for information on annotated bibliographies.
This bibliography is due Wednesday, 21 April 2010.
As you read and reflect upon your sources, think carefully about claims you can make about the technology. Your claims will likely synthesize the positive and negative aspects of the technology. If you have trouble writing theses, you may want to reflect on Erik Simpson's "Developing a Thesis", available on the Web at http://www.math.grinnell.edu/~simpsone/Connections/Writing/Thesis/index.html.
Turn in a draft thesis to me by Wednesday, 21 April 2010. You need only
turn in the thesis, but you may find it more helpful to situate the
thesis in an introductory paragraph or section.
As you have probably heard many times at Grinnell, experience shows that
papers are significantly better when they are written in multiple phases,
with at least one draft before the final version. To remind you of the
importance of drafting, I require a smooth draft
for this paper.
By smooth draft
, I mean a draft that has many of the problems
worked out. Smooth drafts are spelled correctly and employ the rules
of English grammar. Smooth drafts include most or all of the expected
content of the paper, although perhaps not stated as perfectly as you
might like. Smooth drafts can also include a few gaps (e.g., We need
to fill in more detail here
) or metacomments (e.g., We need to
refine this argument
). A smooth draft should be something you would
hope would earn at least a C once you fill in the gaps and metacomments.
I expect to distribute copies of your drafts to the class.
Turn in your smooth draft by Friday, 30 April 2010.
Each student will be responsible for preparing brief comments on a
draft paper from another team. Those comments are due Wednesday, 5 May
2010. Please send your comments in the BODY of an email to me and to
the three members of the other team.
As you read, you should consider questions such as the following:
- Can you identify the thesis?
- Is there adequate evidence for the thesis?
- Does the introduction give you a sense of the flow of the paper?
- Does the paper have a clear and logical flow? Are there parts that are difficult to follow?
- Are claims supported by appropriate citations?
- Are there tangents into topics not related to the thesis?
- How the paper consider history, benefits, and drawbacks?
- How does the paper draw on our foundational texts?
- Are you left with any questions?
At a minimum, you should report back what you thought was the thesis
and identify any parts you found unclear or unconvincing.
You are not required to proofread the paper. However, if you are a
compulsive proofreader like me, you are welcome to give your marked-up
copy of the paper back to the authors.
Your group will present its findings in class during the final week of the
semester. I will assign the day and order of presentations. You should
plan to present for ten minutes on your subject and allow five minutes
for questions and answers. As we near the time of presentations, I will
distribute suggestions on preparing presentations.
Finally, you will draw upon the comments from your proofreaders and
your experience in preparing a presentation to develop a final paper.
Your final papers are due Friday, 14 May 2010.
- Wednesday, 14 April 2010: Teams and Topics
- Wednesday, 21 April 2010: Annotated Bibliographies
- Wednesday, 21 April 2010: Thesis Statements
- Friday, 30 April 2010: Drafts
- Wednesday, 5 May 2010: Edits
- Monday and Wednesday, 10 and 12 May 2010: Presentations
- Friday, 14 May 2010: Final Papers Due
Bibliographies serve many purposes. They ground your work in a broader
community. They tell your readers that you've read widely on your
subject matter. They remind you to read widely on a subject matter.
They can even provide reading lists for those interested in a subject.
Those who use bibliographies as reading lists appreciate more than a
simple citation as they decide where to read further. In particular,
they benefit from your comments. When you add short comments to
a bibliography, you produce a work we might call an annotated
bibliography.
On the subject of annotated bibliographies, the Chicago Manual of
Style says
When a bibliography is intended to direct the reader to other works for further reading and study, an annotated bibliography is useful. This is a list of books (sometimes articles as well) in alphabetical order with comments appended to some or all of the entries. The comments may be run in ... or set on separate lines. [University of Chicago Press, 1993]
In order to prepare an annotated bibliography you first read each source
carefully. (In a group project, each member of the group should make sure
to read each source carefully.)
The annotation for a source is usually one or two moderate-length paragraphs
that discuss
- the type of source (e.g., is it a journal article, newspaper article, opinion piece, something else?),
- the point of the source,
- the authority of the source (why we should consider it appropriately informative for the topic at hand),
- limitations of the source, and
- any other potentially interesting aspects of the source.
This assignment is based closely on an assignment I wrote for a previous
offering of TEC 154.
Rebelsky, S. A. (2004). TEC 154 2004S: Final Paper and Presentation. Retrieved 3 April 2010 from http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~rebelsky/Courses/TEC154/2004S/Handouts/paper.html.
I borrowed some extensions to that assignment from Janet Davis's variant
of that assignment. The section on peer review is based closely on Prof.
Davis's work.
Davis, J. (2007). TEC 154 2007: Research Project. Online resource available
at http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~davisjan/tec/154/2007S/project.html
(last modified 4 May 2007; visited 3 April 2010).
The appendix on annotated bibliographies is based on
Rebelsky, S.A. (2004). TEC 154 2004S: Stewardship: Annotated Bibliographies. Online resource available at http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~rebelsky/Courses/TEC154/2004S/Stewardship/annotated.html (last modified 22 February 2004; visited 3 April 2010).
and
Rebelsky, Samuel (2003). Writing Assignment 4: Annotated Bibliography. Tutorial: Owning Bits. Online resource available at http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~rebelsky/Courses/Tutorial/2003F/Homework/writing.04.html (last modified 30 September 2003, visited 3 April 2010).
Those two documents draw upon a variety of sources, including the following.
Fischer, Gayle V. (2000). Web Project: Why Do Women and Men Wear Different Clothes? A World History Sourcebook: Annotated Bibliography. Online resource available at (last modified 29 August 2002; visited 24 September 2003).
University of Chicago Press (1993). The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers, 14th Edition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Williams, Owen (n.d.). Writing an Annotated Bibliography. Crookston Library, University of Minnesota, Crookston. Online resource available at http://www.crk.umn.edu/library/links/annotate.htm (last modified 7 March 2003; visited 24 September 2003).
- Who is the audience for this paper?
- Students in a section of TEC 154. You can assume that your audience reads at the college level, has thought about technology, and has read and discussed many of the readings we've considered.
- Why are we working in groups?
- I expect that you will consider the technology in more depth if you work on it with peers.
- Can we talk to other members of the class, too?
- Certainly.
- Do you prefer a particular citation format?
- I prefer APA-style references, but I don't require you to follow the exact format.
- We'd like to use a wide variety of sources for the paper. Do we need to write an annotation for every source?
- No. You need only write six annotations.
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Sunday, 4 April 2010
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