Fifth Writing Assignment
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Draft Due: Tuesday, December 2
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Critiques Due: Thursday, December 4
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Presentations: December 9 and 11
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Final Paper Due: Thursday, December 11
This tutorial has discussed five aspects of computing: artificial
intelligence, expert systems, parallel algorithms, distributed systems, and
the limitations of computing. In the final paper, you are to investigate
in more depth one aspect of one of these topics. The paper may explore an
area you have already considered briefly in a previous paper, or you may
explore a new topic. In any case, you will need to do library research
covering at least five sources (with at least three from a printed source),
and you will need to organize your ideas and findings in a 5-7 page
paper.
For this paper, class deadlines will be somewhat different than for
previous assignments. In particular, you can learn a great deal about
writing and about subject matter by reading other papers. Thus, for this
paper, the writing process will be divided into several steps as follows:
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On Tuesday, December 2, you must bring to class 4 copies of a draft
of your paper.
Note: Failure to meet this deadline will automatically drop your grade for
the course by two-thirds of a full letter grade e.g., from A- to B
or from B+ to B-. Only a verified medical excuse or a statement from
Student Affairs concerning extraordinary circumstances will be considered
in changing this penalty.
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During the first part of class on December 2, the tutorial will break into
four groups (4 students in 2 groups, 5 students in the third group).
Within each group, students will exchange papers and perhaps make some
introductory comments about their papers. A copy of the draft will also be
handed to the instructor. (This copy will not be graded, but the
instructor will check that the paper is in a form appropriate for review by
others.)
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As an assignment for the next class, each student should read carefully the
three papers by the other students in the group and then write out some
constructive comments about each paper. For example, comments might
be made on your overall impression of the paper, the paper's good points,
and on the one or two things you might suggest to improve the paper.
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During the first part of class on December 4, students will meet again in
the groups to give the annotated papers back and to make any final comments.
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On the basis of this feedback, you may want to make revisions in your
paper, although that is not required. (If you want to rewrite the paper
completely, that is allowed. On the other hand, you may decide to ignore
all of the comments.) In any case, the final version of the paper is due
on Thursday, December 11. As with paper 4, you should submit two
copies of your final paper.
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Finally, two days (December 9 and December 11) will be devoted to
presentations (about 10 minutes each) when students have the opportunity to
highlight those parts of their research that they found most interesting.
As with the previous presentations, it is permissible to write out your
entire talk, although less formal presentations also are allowed. The
specific schedule for these presentations will be determined during the
first week of December.
This document is available on the World Wide Web as
http://www.math.grin.edu/~walker/courses/tutorial/writing/paper5.html
created August 18, 1997
last revised November 12, 1997