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.
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:
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
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.
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.,
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:
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.
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
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
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).
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).
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Sunday, 4 April 2010
I usually create these pages
on the fly, which means that I rarely
proofread them and they may contain bad grammar and incorrect details.
It also means that I tend to update them regularly (see the history for
more details). Feel free to contact me with any suggestions for changes.
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