Now that you’ve completed your proposals for the research project and I’ve given you feedback on your proposals, it is time to move forward with your research, which I hope will be enlightening to you and satisfying to your personal curiosity about the relationship between a technology that interests you and language (spoken and written).
All of your research papers should address the following things. Your paper might not be organized exactly in the way that I am suggesting, but it should cover the topics listed below.
As we’ve discussed on many occasions in class, your paper should make an argument about how your selected technology influences language and how language influences the technology. The unity of thought in your essay should always connects to the relationship between technology and language. By language, we are referring specifically to speech and writing, not communication in general.
All of your supporting evidence must be parenthetically cited in-text (meaning where you write your essay) and listed alphabetically in your paper’s References section at the end of the paper. For the purposes of this assignment, quotations are stronger evidence than paraphrasing. However, all quotations should be explained and contextualized by you in your own words in order to connect the meaning of the quotation to the argument that you are making.
On the due date, email your research paper as a Microsoft Word docx attachment to jellis at citytech.cuny.edu with the subject: ENG1710 Final Paper. Please write a brief, professional message to me (such as what is your paper about and the fact that it is attached to the email). Remember to attach your document. “Shared” or “Invitation to edit” documents will not be accepted. I will reply to your email confirming receipt of your submission.
Suggested Outline
Each section in the outline below might be more than one paragraph. You may use headings of your choosing as long as they are descriptive and useful to the reader.
- Title page
- Abstract [This is a brief summary of your argument, examples, and conclusion. Write this at the very end after you have completed the paper.]
- Introduction [Explicitly state your thesis or argument. This is what your paper means to prove to the reader. It responds to a research question that you wrote in your proposal or that evolved from your research]
- Definitions [Define what you plan to discuss. For your selected technology, you should explain what it is, what “type” of technology is it, what technologies are related to it, and perhaps most importantly, what are the technologies’ affordances and constraints that contact or influence language in some way?]
- Discussion [In this section of your paper, which should be the most substantial part of your paper, discuss the interaction/influence/relationship between your selected technology and language. These paragraphs should be you talking the reader through how the technology influences language and vice versa. Support your claims with evidence based on your research and observation. Each paragraph should discuss only one topic and have a good topic sentence. You may discuss other technologies that influence language in this section as long as these discussions illuminate a point that you are talking about your selected technology. Do not let digressions ruin your essay’s unity of thought!]
- Conclusion [This is where you answer the question: So what?! Explain the importance of your argument/discussion to the reader. Explain what you have just discussed in your essay might mean for folks using that tech today or in the future, or how you imagine the relationship between the technology and language to develop further in one year, two years, five years. The idea here is to give what you have said further and deeper meaning for the reader. What you do not want to do is regurgitate what you have already written!!!]
- References [On a separate page, using the Insert Page Break option in your word processing software, title it References and list under this title your cited sources listed alphabetically by the beginning of each entry. Follow APA rules for your in-text and references citations. If you did not quote or paraphrase something in your essay, do not list it in your references.]
Sample Research Paper (NB: yours will be slightly longer)
ellis-jason-eng1710-sample-paper
Research Project Presentation
In addition to writing a well-developed argument about the relationship between a technology and language in an essay, the final component of your project is an oral presentation based on your paper. Each student will have the opportunity to combine spoken words with a visual presentation that summarizes your essay’s argument, definitions, and (some) discussion. The goal is to distill the most important parts of your research paper into an oral presentation supported by images and text displayed on the overhead screen with PowerPoint. These would include your thesis, a description of your selected technology, the definitions that you rely on, one or two examples from your discussion, and your conclusion’s response to “so what.”
Use the WOVEN (written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal) modes of communication to make your presentation interesting, engaging, and memorable.
Your final project presentation should be between 5 and 10 minutes in length. You may not exceed 10 minutes.
There are two components that you should bring with you on the day of your presentation: a PowerPoint presentation file on a flash drive, and a printed, double-spaced script. I am including examples of each below.
Before coming to class to give your presentation, it is your responsibility as a professional to read your script while going through your PowerPoint to make sure that the two correspond and the time for your reading does not exceed the time limit. I will not collect these from you–your presentation grade depends on how well you present your paper using these supporting artifacts.
Presentation Script Example
SAMPLE-PRESENTATION-SCRIPTPresentation PowerPoint Example
SAMPLE-PRESENTATION-POWERPOINT
