Category: Weekly Writing Assignments

After watching this week’s lecture and reviewing the assigned reading/viewing links under the lecture video, work on your Research Presentation script.

Then, add a comment to this post in memo format (memo header with a one sentence description) with a draft of your presentation script (what you plan to say during your presentation).

For this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment, copy-and-paste a draft of your research report survey or discussion section (depending on the type of report you are writing) into a memo added as a comment to this post. Watch this week’s lecture for more details.

With the Thanksgiving Holiday coming up, I am posting this week’s lecture and writing assignment early.

After watching this week’s lecture, write a draft of your research report’s historical background and context section. In the comment box on this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment, create a memo header (TO, FROM, DATE, and SUBJECT: Draft of Background Section of Research Report) and copy-and-paste what you’ve written for your background section by next Wednesday. Include quotes with in-text citations in APA format and APA-formatted references for those quotes at the end of your draft. As I point out in the lecture, this memo is a way of showing me your work up to this point and you should not format your research report using these Weekly Writing Assignment memos. Write in the your research report document and copy-and-paste what you’ve written there into these memos which memorialize the writing that you are accomplishing in your separate research report document on Google Docs.

As discussed in this week’s lecture, post your research report’s introduction paragraph with a memo header into a comment made to this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment. Please remember that your introduction should be a single paragraph written in complete sentences and it should be between 250-500 words in length. If you use any quotes, please include a list of references. Some of the example sentences from the lecture are included below.

First sentence should establish the purpose of the report and its topic. For example:
- This report is a design review of Apple’s ARM-based M1 system on a chip (SoC).
- This report investigates the effectiveness of several different team collaboration services, including Slack, Discord, and Microsoft Teams.
- This report investigates the causes behind the personal computer video card shortage of 2021.

The next sentence or sentences should elaborate on the report’s topic--giving brief historical context, useful details, discussion, etc.

Conclude the introduction with a “road map” sentence that guides your reader through the remainder of the report. 
- In the following, the report presents a historical background of Apple’s computing architecture, Apple’s design process that led to the M1, comparisons between Apple’s M1 and other popular microprocessors, and discussion of the M1’s applications.
- This report is organized around a discussion of typical features of team collaboration services and software, comparisons of the features offered by  three popular services, namely Slack, Discord, and Microsoft Teams, and discussion of the economic considerations of each service discussed.
- This report examines the current video card shortage by first, presenting a history of personal computer graphics and video cards; then, discussing the sources of demand and constraints of supply in the video card market; and finally, concluding with suggestions about how to solve this dire problem.

After watching this week’s lecture, write a memo of at least 250-words that discusses what sections and their order in your research report. Use the Technical Background Report section in David McMurrey’s Online Technical Writing Textbook as a guide. Write your memo someplace safe and then copy-and-paste it into a comment added to this post. Use the model below to begin your memo:

TO: Prof. Ellis
FROM: Your Name
DATE: 11/17/2021
SUBJECT: Research Report Organization

Brief sentence explaining the purpose of your memo. Remember to mention your research report topic. Write complete sentences about each section and what you might discuss in relation to your topic. Arrange your sentences in the order you plan to organize your research report.

As discussed in this week’s lecture, continue your research for the Research Report and create a brief annotated bibliography for three new sources following the model below. Use APA Style for your in-text citations and references for each source. Use any source that you find through the City Tech Library, NYPL, BPL, The New York Times, or books through Archive.org. Copy-and-paste your memo into a comment posted to this Weekly Writing Assignment. Look at the Week 8 Weekly Writing Assignment for helpful links on APA Style.

TO:        Prof. Ellis
FROM:        Your Name
DATE:        11/10/2021
SUBJECT:    Second Partial Annotated Bibliography for Research Report

The first article is about fabricating fault-tolerant microprocessors. An important quote from the article is: “Besides the higher clock frequencies, such trends have made the IC more vulnerable to faults, especially those faults caused by radiation-induced effects or also electrical noise” (Bastos et al., 2009, p. 1062).

Bastos, R. P., Kastensmidt, F. L., & Reis, R. (2009). Design of a soft-error robust microprocessor. Microelectronics Journal, 40(7), 1062-1068. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mejo.2008.10.001

The second article is a literature review of nanolithography. An important quote from the article is: “Besides the higher clock frequencies, such trends have made the IC more vulnerable to faults, especially those faults caused by radiation-induced effects or also electrical noise” (Seisyan, 2011, p. 1061).

Seisyan, R. P. (2011). Nanolithography in microelectronics: a review. Technical Physics, 56(8), 1061+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A360680245/AONE?u=cuny_nytc&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=47695af8

The third article is about fabricating fault-tolerant microprocessors. An important quote from the article is: “Besides the higher clock frequencies, such trends have made the IC more vulnerable to faults, especially those faults caused by radiation-induced effects or also electrical noise” (Bastos et al., 2009, p. 1062).

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

This week’s Weekly Writing Assignment will give you some practice with using APA style for in-text citations (after quotes) and bibliographic references that correspond with your in-text citations (at the end of your research report). The research and writing that you do on this assignment can be recycled into your research report, and it should also be in your research database file that we discussed in the Week 7 lecture (use your research database file as your record of everything you want to quote, references for quotes, and your own notes, thoughts, and discussion, which you can copy-and-paste and edit into your research report document.

For this assignment, you will write a partial annotated bibliography of three library-based sources that you might use in your research report. Format it as a memo according to the model below. Find three sources (books and/or journal articles). Write one sentence about each saying what it is about, and write one sentence including a useful quote followed by an in-text citation. Then, write a bibliographic reference entry for the source. Do this for the three sources that you find.

Make sure you listen to this week’s lecture before proceeding.

Use the Purdue OWL’s APA Guide (in-text citations, book references, and periodical references) as templates and models for how to cite your research.

TO:        Prof. Ellis
FROM:        Your Name
DATE:        11/3/2021
SUBJECT:    Partial Annotated Bibliography for Research Report

The first article is about fabricating fault-tolerant microprocessors. An important quote from the article is: “Besides the higher clock frequencies, such trends have made the IC more vulnerable to faults, especially those faults caused by radiation-induced effects or also electrical noise” (Bastos et al., 2009, p. 1062).

Bastos, R. P., Kastensmidt, F. L., & Reis, R. (2009). Design of a soft-error robust microprocessor. Microelectronics Journal, 40(7), 1062-1068. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mejo.2008.10.001

The second article is a literature review of nanolithography. An important quote from the article is: “Besides the higher clock frequencies, such trends have made the IC more vulnerable to faults, especially those faults caused by radiation-induced effects or also electrical noise” (Seisyan, 2011, p. 1061).

Seisyan, R. P. (2011). Nanolithography in microelectronics: a review. Technical Physics, 56(8), 1061+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A360680245/AONE?u=cuny_nytc&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=47695af8

The third article is about fabricating fault-tolerant microprocessors. An important quote from the article is: “Besides the higher clock frequencies, such trends have made the IC more vulnerable to faults, especially those faults caused by radiation-induced effects or also electrical noise” (Bastos et al., 2009, p. 1062).

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Read and take notes about your topic primarily focusing on the “learning sources” (e.g., wikipedia.org, wired.com, arstechnica.com, Google searches, and social media) discussed in this week’s lecture, but you may use “vetted sources,” too (e.g., ebooks and articles from library.citytech.cuny.edu, ebooks available through archive.org, and nytimes.com, which we will discuss in more detail next week).

Then, in your “ENG1133 Technical Report Research Database” Google Doc, write a 250-word memo (remember the memo header at the top: TO, FROM, SUBJECT: Brief History of X–replace X with your topic, DATE) in your own words discussing the background and history of your selected topic.

While you should have taken notes on your reading, don’t look at them during this writing exercise. Focus on what you remember. Conclude your memo with a list of at least five keywords that you will use in your ongoing research. 

Copy-and-paste your memo into a Comment on this Weekly Writing Assignment post (click the title above, scroll down to the comment area, click “Post Comment”).

After watching this week’s lecture and making notes on it, write a memo following the basic model shown below. The first part is a discussion of possible topics for your Research-Based Technical Report, and the second part is a list of 10 potential sources that you find using Academic Source Complete (EBSCO) via the City Tech Library.

TO: Prof. Ellis
FROM: Your Name
SUBJECT: Research Expedition Memo
DATE: 10/20/2021

[Part 1 text:] 250 words discussing your possible three terms and conclude with your final choice and why you chose it.

[Part 2 text:] The ten following sources form the beginning of my research on [state your selected topic again]. [Use the “Cite > APA” tool on each article page on Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) to find the citation and then copy-and-paste it below. And, remember to organize them alphabetically according to the first author’s last name as demonstrated below.]

Altintas, T., Gunes, A., & Sayan, H. (2016). A peer-assisted learning experience in computer programming language learning and developing computer programming skills. Innovations in Education & Teaching International, 53(3), 329–337. https://doi-org.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1080/14703297.2014.993418

Lagravière, J., Langguth, J., Prugger, M., Einkemmer, L., Ha, P. H., & Cai, X. (2019). Performance Optimization and Modeling of Fine-Grained Irregular Communication in UPC. Scientific Programming, 1–20. https://doi-org.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1155/2019/6825728

Logan, W. (2008). Is C Dead? EE: Evaluation Engineering, 47(5), 44–49. 

For this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment, we are going to do some work to prime our thinking for the next major project in the class–the Technical Report–which we will discuss in depth next week. To prepare, I would like you to read the introduction and first section (“Technical Background Reports”) on this page and skim this page on Report Design of David McMurrey’s Online Technical Writing Textbook. Then, write a memo (remember to add a memo header with a subject of “Technical Background Report Info”) of at least 250-words in your own words discussing what a technical background report is, what kinds of information goes into it, what sections/layout should it have, and how technical reports relate to other things that you’ve read or seen before (e.g., other technical reports, examples in films or video games, other types of documents, etc.). Write your memo in your word processor of choice, save it someplace safe, and copy-and-paste it into a comment made to this post.