ENG2575 OL83 Technical Writing, Spring 2021

Week 15

Greetings, all!

I want to wish you all the best of luck in our class, and your other classes, too!

As we close the book on this semester, I wanted to give you a few reminders to help you see things through:

All work is due by the end of the day on Wednesday, May 19.
The latest that I can receive your work is Tuesday, May 25 (email me by Wednesday, May 19 if you need this extra time).
Our last office hours will be on Wednesday from 3:00-5:00pm on Google Hangouts here.
To submit your team’s Collaborative Project:
One team member creates a Post on our OpenLab Course Site, which includes the title of your project, all contributing team members’ names, and a link to your team’s OpenLab Project Site. Make sure that you test this link after publishing your post.
- Your team’s OpenLab Project Site should include:
  - Link to Shared/Viewable Version of Research Report
  - Embed Presentation Video
  - Summarize Research Report across separate pages for Problem, Solutions, and Recommendations
  - Include an “About Us” page with bios, headshots, and links for all participating team members
Each team member has to email me your Individual Report on Collaboration (250-500 words).
Catch up on Individual Projects and email those revisions/make-ups directly.

If you have any questions, email me at jellis at citytech.cuny.edu or come to office hours this week!

Lecture, Week 14

We covered the following topics and links in this week’s lecture:

Please complete SET (now until May 14)
Wrapping Things Up
Maintain Communication, Don’t Drop the Ball, Follow Through on Commitments
Review How the Collaborative Project Fits Together
- Create Post on our OpenLab Course Site to Submit a link to your team’s OpenLab Project Site
  - Links to your OpenLab Project Site (Website)
    - Your OpenLab Project Site
      - Link to Shared/Viewable Version of Research Report
      - Embed Presentation Video
      - Summarize Research Report across separate pages for Problem, Solutions, and Recommendations
      - Include an “About Us” page with bios, headshots, and links for all participating team members
- Email Prof. Ellis your Individual Report on Collaboration (250-500 words)
Catch up on Individual Projects and email Prof. Ellis if submitted late or revised
Job Search Advice
Everything in the class is due Wednesday, May 19
Late work is accepted by Tuesday, May 25 (email Prof. Ellis by May 19 to ask for this extra time)
Prof. Ellis will have office hours Wed., May 12 and Wed., May 19

Lecture, Week 13

Material covered in this week’s lecture:

Don McMillan’s “Life After Death by Powerpoint”

Purdue OWL APA Site: Sample Paper (click on Sample Professional Paper for example)

Zoom Video Tutorials

OpenLab Help:

Reminders:

Official due date for all current and make-up work is Wednesday, May 19.
Last day that Prof. Ellis can accept late work is Tuesday, May 25 (students must email Prof. Ellis before May 19 to request this extension)
Please remember to complete the Student Evaluation of Teaching (open until May 14–check your campus email)

Lecture, Week 12

Useful links mentioned in this week’s lecture:

Weekly Writing Assignment, Week 12

This week’s Weekly Writing Assignment continues to focus on the work that you are doing within your team on the Collaborative Project.

After talking with your team (synchronously or asynchronously), write a short memo together in your Google Drive Shared Folder in a new Google Doc. Address it to Prof. Ellis and use the subject, “Delegating Point Persons.” In the body of your memo, briefly write a few sentences that identify who is taking point on the each of the main parts of the Collaborative Project: orchestrating the Research Report, organizing the presentation, and setting up your OpenLab Project Site. These point persons are only responsible for communicating with team members about meeting self-imposed deadlines and responsibilities. Point persons are not responsible for all of the work. All of the work should be shared by all team members.

After completing the memo, all team members need to copy-and-paste the memo into a comment on this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment to receive credit (i.e., if you have four team members, all four team members need to copy-and-paste the one memo into a comment each added to this post for a total of four comments).

Lecture, Week 11

Extra credit: Literary Arts Festival
Continue Collaborative, Team-Based Project
Team Communication (follow-up)
Research Report
Discuss Homework (conduct and compile research for report) and Weekly Writing Assignment (each team member should independently write a short memo describing what research they will contribute/have found so far for the team’s research report)

Weekly Writing Assignment, Week 11

This previous week, your team should have established a means of communication (e.g., text messaging, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, etc.) in addition to campus email, and your team should have discussed and selected a problem as the topic of your team’s Research Report. If you haven’t done these things yet, it’s important that you take care of them ASAP so that you have as much time as possible to focus on the project.

After establishing team communications and picking your Research Project’s problem, your team needs to delegate how each team member should be conducting and reporting back their research contributions to the Research Report document in your Google Drive Shared Folder. As discussed in this week’s lecture, all team members might research both the problem and its solutions, or some team members might research just the problem and others the solutions. How you divide these responsibilities is up to each team as long as all team members are contributing equal amounts of research and writing to the Research Report.

For this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment, each team member should independently write a short memo of approximately 250 words and addressed to Prof. Ellis with the subject, “Research Responsibility,” that describing what research they will contribute/have found so far for the team’s research report.

Extra Credit: Literary Arts Festival video

If you couldn’t make it to the Literary Arts Festival last week but would like to earn the extra credit, you may watch the ~2 hour long event video above, write 250-words about your experience (who did you hear speak? whose work resonated with you? what did you take away from the event?), and email your response to Prof. Ellis (jellis at citytech.cuny.edu).

Lecture, Week 10

In addition the Google Drive folder detailed in this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment below, you should create a second Google Doc within that shared folder that you will use for writing your Research Report. It can also be used to collect your notes, research, and reference entries. Be sure to document all of your research so that quotes are properly quoted and given parenthetical citations and a bibliographic entry in APA format is added to the References list at the end. You can copy the following outline into this document as a guide for the general layout of your Research Report:

Introduction (topic and why your report is important) 

Objectives of the research (what were you attempting to do?) 

Method (methodology–what kinds of research did you do, how did you do it, and why is the research sound?) 

Results (what did you find in your research? facts, quotes, figures, interviews, surveys, etc.) 

Discussion (how do you interpret your results? what story does your data tell us? results and discussion can be combined, but title this section appropriately if you do so) 

Conclusions (what conclusions do you draw from your results and discussion? what is the significance of what you discovered?) 

Recommendations (what do you think should be done to solve the research problem based on your research? this section is what all of your work is leading up to.)

References

Also, here are some resources and examples that I discussed in this week’s lecture to help you with writing and designing your analytical research report.

Doodle (for finding meeting times for your team)
Explanations of report parts (look under Primary Research Report, but remember you are writing a secondary research report)
Example: Issues with Quantum Computing
Example: Research Report on 5G
Sample Research Report (note the layout and design)

Weekly Writing Assignment, Week 10

After watching this week’s lecture, your team should do the following:

Establish another communication channel for team discussion besides email (you may use email, but you should have another channel that supports easier and faster communication among the team members).
Discuss and decide amongst yourself which project your team chooses from last week’s brainstorming exercise.
Create a shared folder on Google Drive and add all team members to the folder as Editors
One team member should create a Google Doc in the shared folder. In this document, write a brief memo with TO (Prof. Ellis), FROM (all team members’ first and last names), DATE, SUBJECT (Collaborative Project Topic). In the content area, write a few sentences describing the scientific or technical problem that you will research for your collaborative project. Include any information about how your deliberations and discussion might have focused your topic from what one of your team members’ presented in the brainstorming exercise.
Each team member should copy-and-paste your completed memo into a comment made to this Weekly Writing Assignment post. This demonstrates that all team members can access your shared Google Drive folder and its files.

For this week’s homework, you should discuss how to begin your research. Perhaps delegate one resource to each team member to find a few possible sources each. For example, one team member should look in IEEExplore, one team member should look in Academic Search Complete, etc. for library-based resources, including also General OneFile (Gale), Ebook Central, and others here.

Lecture, Week 9

Instruction Manual Project

This week, you will want to reply all to the email that I send to each team for peer review of your instruction manuals. Pay attention to the names in your email, because I have reassigned some students to different teams due to some teams losing members. If you see a new name in your team, please welcome that person, and if you are a new member to a team, please introduce yourself to your new teammates.

As discussed in today’s lecture, here is an example of an instruction manual for your final layout before circulating in peer review.

Collaborative, Team-Based Project

While we are wrapping up your individual Instruction Manual projects, we are going to begin working on your Collaborative, Team-Based Project so that you have as much time as possible to complete this important set of interconnected assignments that will carry us to the end of the semester.

Below, I have mapped out the Collaborative, Team-Based Project diagrammatically.

The Collaborative, Team-Based Project is comprised of these assignments:

Collaborative: 4000-6000-Word Analytical Research Report, 15%
- Each team member contributes 1000-1500-word contribution to a 4000-6000-word analytical research report on a scientific or technological problem that demonstrates: 1) knowledge of the history and context of the problem, 2) knowledge of the causes and nature of the problem, 3) ideas for solving the problem, 4) the ability to explain the problem and offer possible solutions to a general audience, 5) the ability to integrate written work with the written work of a partner or partners in a coherent report, and 6) knowledge of proper research report format. At least six library-sourced citations must be included (non-library-sourced citations are encouraged, but they do not count toward the six library-sourced sources). Any outside sources cited should be documented according to APA format.
Collaborative: Seven-to-Ten-Minute Oral Analytical Research Report on a Scientific or Technological Problem, 10%
- The goal of this part of the project is to transform your written report into an spoken presentation anchored by a PowerPoint or other visual presentation supplement. As a team, adapt and present your analytical research report as an oral presentation that demonstrates: 1) knowledge of oral presentation techniques and conventions, 2) the ability to organize a presentation effectively, 3) the ability to incorporate various media into the presentation, including appropriate computer software, 4) awareness of audience, 5) the ability to communicate the value of the product or service in clear spoken English, 6) the ability to answer audience questions, 7) the ability to collaborate productively with a partner or partners, and 8) the ability to explain the problem and offer possible solutions to a general audience.
Collaborative: Website Advertising a Product or Service Responding to the Analytical Research Report and Oral Presentation, 10%
- The goal of this part of the collaborative project is to imagine a service or product that your team can offer that is related to your research report and oral presentation, both of which will be featured on the website in some way. The website should demonstrate: 1) knowledge of the product or service offered, of pertinent market forces, and of the potential customer base, 2) basic knowledge of web page design and composition, including appropriate software. The website will be based on your presentation and it is encouraged to be integrated into your presentation (perhaps to demonstrate how your team is promoting your product or service). All graphics, logos, design, and text must be created by your team.
Individual: 250-500-Word Reflection on Collaboration, 5%
- At the end of the collaborative project, each student will have an opportunity to submit their own 250-500-word Reflection on Collaboration directly to Prof. Ellis via email. This document should include a discussion of challenges faced and overcome (or not) by the team, their contribution to the project, and the contribution of their teammates to the project. The instructor will consider these documents when assigning grades on the collaborative project.

The main part of the collaborative project is the research report. It anchors everything else. It should be completed first and adapted or transformed for use in the other deliverables: the website and the presentation. The report, website, and presentation will be submitted on our OpenLab Course Site. You will find the work done on earlier projects, such as article summarization, defining terms, and using proper citation formats, will all be in play on this project.

Each team member should keep a log in their notebook about the work that they contribute to the project as well as their observations about other team members’ contributions. These notes will inform an individual report that each team member will submit directly to Prof. Ellis via email as the Reflection on Collaboration.

Think of each of the following projects as part of an interconnected larger project. Each team member should contribute to each part, but individual team members may take the lead on one part versus the others depending on their skill set and interests. For example, one team member may take the lead on the research report and collect contributions from the other team members for the first draft, and another team member may take the lead on the presentation or the website.

Weekly Writing Assignment, Week 9

For this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment, I would like you to brainstorm some possible scientific or technical problems that you can discuss with your team. Specifically, I would like you to focus on scientific or technical problems related to your major and career goals. Perhaps it will involve problems relating to computing hardware or software, networking, electrical engineering challenges, applications of computing and networking to other real world problems (such as, smart power grids, driverless cars, Bitcoin energy use, etc.). There are many, many problems out there for you to think about, discuss, and choose among for your team’s project.

So, the Weekly Writing Assignment is to write at least 250-words in a memo format addressed to Prof. Ellis with the subject, “Team Project Brainstorming,” and discussing three possible technical or scientific problems relating in some way to your major and career goals. For each problem, clearly state what the problem is, who or what industry it affects, and some of your own thoughts about how the problem might be solvable. After you’ve written this memo, copy-and-paste it into a comment on this blog post AND circulate it via email (reply all) to the email that I will send to each team for peer review (on the Instruction Manual project).

Extra Credit: Literary Arts Festival

If you’d like to earn extra credit to apply toward a Weekly Writing Assignment or points to another assignment as needed, you can attend the Literary Arts Festival next week, write at least 250 words describing your experience of the event (naming the people you listened to, what you learned and liked, etc.), and email your event write-up to me at jellis at citytech.cuny.edu.

To attend the event, you will need to register at this website in advance to receive the Zoom Webinar link.

Lecture, Week 8

Some reminders for Week 8:

Spring Recess is next week, so there is no lecture or assignments next week. Keep working on your Instruction Manual and be prepared for peer review when we return to class on Wed., April 7.
I have a meeting time conflict this week during our regular office hour time, so I am accepting appointments for office hours this week. Email me with your availability if you’d like to talk about anything relating to the class.
Also, if you have any questions about the class or assignments, don’t hesitate to reach out by email at jellis at citytech.cuny.edu.

Weekly Writing Assignment, Week 8

For this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment, write a memo addressed to Prof. Ellis with the subject, “Instruction Manual Challenges and Solutions,” and about 250 words in length. In the body of your memo, discuss challenges that you faced while drafting your instruction manual and explain how you overcame those challenges. The challenges can come from any part of the writing process so far or any aspect of the project. After you’ve drafted your memo some place safe, copy-and-paste it into a comment added to this post on our OpenLab site.

Remember that next week is Spring Recess, so you have two weeks to work on this. It is due Wed., April 7.

Lecture, Week 7

Remember to watch this week’s lecture completely for instructions on submitting your Expanded Definition Project by Friday, Mar. 26 and for details on this week’s homework and Weekly Writing Assignment.

Links discussed this week:

Weekly Writing Assignment, Week 7

You might find it beneficial to reflect on your experiences with a given type of document–including those you have made and those made by others that you have used. Let’s do this with instructions.

After watching this week’s lecture, I would like you to write a brief memo of at least 250 words reflecting on instructions. There are two main things that I would like you to respond to in your reflection: (1) Discuss a good set of instructions that you’ve used before, (2) Discuss a bad set of instructions that you’ve used before, and (3) Write some ideas that you have about how to make technical instructions useful and engaging.

When you have completed your memo, copy-and-paste it into a comment added to this post on our OpenLab Course Site.

Submit Your 750-1,000-Word Expanded Definition Project, Week 7

Last week, I sent around the “Reply All” starter email for each team’s peer review on the second major project in our class: the Expanded Definition Essay project.

Since peer review didn’t begin until Friday, Mar. 12, you have until Friday, Mar. 19 to complete peer review on your Expanded Definition Project.

This gives you until Friday, Mar. 26 to submit your Expanded Definition Project on OpenLab (though, you are welcome to submit it earlier when you are ready).

Below, I am including the model for the Expanded Definition Project with a few notes to pay attention to regarding publishing your Expanded Definition Project as a post on our OpenLab Course Site. Watch this week’s lecture for detailed instructions on posting your work to OpenLab.

Your Name's Expanded Definition of YOUR TERM

TO: Prof. Jason Ellis
FROM: Your Name
DATE: Due Date
SUBJECT: Expanded Definition of YOUR TERM

Introduction [Heading Level 2]
What is the purpose of this document? What term are you defining? How are you discussing the way it is defined and the way it is used in context? Describe a road map for what follows (definitions and context). This content should be published as paragraphs, unlike the heading for this section, which is a level 2 heading.

Definitions [Heading Level 2]
Quote several definitions of the term that you selected. Provide quotes and parenthetical citations for each definition, and include your sources in the References section at the end of the document. Each definition that you include deserves discussion in your words about what it means and how it relates to the other definitions that you include. Consider how they are alike, how are they different, who might use one versus another, etc.

Context [Heading Level 2]
Quote several sentences from a variety of sources that use the term in context. A range of sources would provide the best source material for your discussion of how the term is used in these contexts. For example, a quote from an academic journal or two, a quote from a newspaper or magazine, a quote from a blog, and a quote from social media would give you a range of uses that might have different audiences. For each quote, you should devote at least as much space as the quote discussing what it means in that context and how it relates to the other quotes in context. Each quote should be in quotes, have a parenthetical citation, and a bibliographic entry in your references at the end of your document.

Working Definition [Heading Level 2]
Based on the definitions that you quoted and discussed, and the contextual uses of the term that you quoted and discussed, write a working definition of the term that's relevant to your career field or major, which you will need to identify (this is the specific context for your working definition).

References [Heading Level 2]
Order your APA-formatted bibliographic references by the author's last name, alphabetically. In your posted version, they do not need a hanging indent. And, they should not be in a bulleted list.

Submission Notes:

For APA citations, refer to the Purdue OWL’s APA guide and if you do any indirect quotes, use this guide on the Simon Fraser Library’s website.
Remember to remove the bracketed headings information before publishing your work–this is only a guide to help you choose the correct heading levels while creating your post.

Midterm Grades

I wanted to give you all a heads-up that your midterm grades are now available on our OpenLab Course Site. Click on the Gradebook link on the left side to see your midterm grade. This is only an indication of how you are doing in the class. It doesn’t average into your final grade. I looked at your participation on the Weekly Writing Assignments and other work so far this semester. Midterm grades are: Passing, Borderline, and Unsatisfactory. If you received Borderline or Unsatisfactory, there’s still plenty of time to turn that around and earn a good grade in the class. If you have any questions or need some extra support, remember to email me or come to my office hours on Wednesdays from 3-5pm.

Lecture, Week 6

During this week’s lecture, I discussed peer review for the Expanded Definition Project, and I introduced the Instruction Manual Project.

After watching the lecture, scroll down for the Weekly Writing Assignment, and watch for the team emails for peer review (remember to click “Reply All”).

Below are example instruction manuals that you can refer for examples and ideas about how to approach your own instruction manual project.

Examples by Prof. Ellis:

Examples from other sources:

Weekly Writing Assignment, Week 6

To begin your thinking for the Instruction Manual Project, use this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment to brainstorm three possible topics relating to your studies and future career for your instruction manual.

For this assignment, create a memo addressed to Prof. Ellis with the subject line of Instruction Manual Options. In the body of the memo, briefly discuss the pros and cons of each of your three options for the instruction manual. The pros would be the things that would support your success on the project (e.g., knowing a lot about the topic, having access to what your instructions would be about, etc.) and the cons would be the things that would make the project difficult (e.g., having to learn more about the topic, not having access, etc.). After weighing the pros and cons for each of your three options, state in the last sentence which topic you have selected for your instruction manual.

Write your memo in your word processor of choice, and then copy-and-paste it into a comment added to this post.

For your additional homework this week, engage in peer review on the Expanded Definition Project after Prof. Ellis sends emails to each team, and create a Google Doc using the Instruction Project outline below and begin writing the directions portion of your document. The lecture next week will go over more details for the other sections. And, your own review of instruction manuals will help you think through what information you should include in these sections.

1.0 Introduction
1.1 Purpose
1.2 Intended Audience
1.3 Scope
1.4 Organization Description
1.5 Conventions (abbreviations, left/right)
1.6 Motivation (answers the “so what” question)
1.7 Safety and Disclaimers
2.0 Description of the Equipment
2.1 Illustration of the Equipment
2.2 Description of the Equipment’s Parts
3.0 List of Materials and Equipment Needed
3.1 Illustration of the Parts Needed to Carry Out the Instructions
3.2 Tools needed
3.3 Table of the parts with description of each
4.0 Directions
4.1 The Task These Directions Are Designed to Show
4.1.1 Step 1 (don’t write Step 1--write a brief statement on what the first step is)
4.1.2 Step 2
4.1.n …Step n being some number (write as many steps--briefly--as you can think of--you can fill this list out later)
5.0 Troubleshooting
6.0 Glossary
7.0 Reference List

Lecture, Week 5

In this week’s lecture, I continue discussing the Expanded Definition project, set out the goals for the project over the coming weeks, mention the Job Search Advice OpenLab site, and go over the Weekly Writing Assignment.

Weekly Writing Assignment, Week 5

This Weekly Writing Assignment is meant to help you vet or evaluate where some of your research comes from and report back what you find. Watch this week’s lecture before performing this assignment so that you learn more about the process that I suggest for discovering the information requested below.

For this assignment, refer to two journal articles from different journals that you came across in your research (or, search for your Expanded Definition term again in IEEExplore and/or Academic Search Complete to find two examples for this assignment).

Using the built-in tools in the databases where you found the article and search sites like Google, DuckDuckgo, or Bing, learn more about the specialization of the journal and the kinds of research that it publishes and find out the name of the editor-in-chief and their professional background (degrees, affiliation, and research specializations).

Then, type a short paragraph in your word process of choice that identifies the name of the two journals that you investigated for this assignment and describe in your own words what each journal specializes in. And, identify each journal’s editor-in-chief and describe their professional details, such as degrees and where they were earned, their affiliation (where they work/teach), and their research specializations (if possible to find).

Finally, copy-and-paste your paragraph into a comment added to this post.

This assignment should not take very long. Focus most of your time this week on completing a draft of your Expanded Definition essay.

Job Search Advice, Week 5

As discussed in this week’s lecture, I built an OpenLab Site called Job Search Advice. It offers help with preparing your resume, cover letter, and other materials for your job search. It includes a video lecture, sample documents, and useful links. It’s meant to be a useful resource for you all. If you know other City Tech students not in our class who might want to check it out, please feel free to share!

Lecture, Week 4

Remember to watch this week’s lecture and take notes on it before proceeding with the work described in the posts below, which cover the Expanded Definition project, the Weekly Writing Assignment, and submitting your 500-Word Summary project.

Stop by my office hours on Wednesday from 3:00-5:00pm with your questions, or email me at jellis at citytech.cuny.edu.

Outline for Expanded Definition Project, Week 4

During this week’s lecture, I discussed the following outline as a good model for you to follow while creating your own Expanded Definition essay. A good rule of thumb for your quoted material would be at least 2 cited definitions and 3 cited contextual sentences, but you might find having more definitions and more contextual sentences strengthen your essay. Remember to discuss, explain, and compare/contrast the quotes that you find to help your reader understand how these all relate to one another before endeavoring to write your working definition at the end of your essay.

Your Name's Expanded Definition of YOUR TERM

TO: Prof. Jason Ellis
FROM: Your Name
DATE: Due Date
SUBJECT: Expanded Definition of YOUR TERM

Weekly Writing Assignment, Week 4

For this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment, compose a short memo (remember the memo header of TO, FROM, DATE, and SUBJECT) to Prof. Ellis with the subject, “Expanded Definition Research.” In the body of your memo, write and reflect on how and where you are finding sources for your Expanded Definition project. What databases and research websites are you using? Are you using The New York Times (signup for a free pass here) and Archive.org? No more than 250 words are needed. The main thing is to communicate to me that you are performing your due diligence to find useful definitions and contextual quotes of the term that you selected. Write your memo in your preferred word processor and then copy-and-paste your memo into a comment added to this post.

How to Submit Your 500-Word Summary, Week 4

Refer to this week’s lecture for more details on how to post your 500-Word Summary project to our OpenLab Course Site.

Below, I am including some screenshots to guide you through the process of creating a post for your 500-Word Summary.

To begin your own Post, login to OpenLab, navigate to our Course Site, mouseover the “+” icon, and click “Post.”

Before typing anything, look under Categories on the right and add a check next to “500-Word Summary.”

Click in the “Add Title” section to enter your title (e.g., Summary of Lin’s “3D Layering of Integrated Circuits”). Then, click in the “Start Writing” area and copy-and-paste your 500-Word Summary memo from your word processor into this area.

After copyediting your work to ensure everything is as you want it to be, click on “Publish” and then click “Publish” on the next screen. Verify that your post is live on the site by clicking on “ENG2575 Technical Writing” at the top center to return to our Course Site and then click on the down arrow next to Student Projects in the left menu and 500-Word Summary beneath it to see your project posted.

Lecture, Week 3

In Week 3’s lecture, we cover: Announcements/Housekeeping, Peer Review for the 500-Word Summary, the 750-1000-Word Expanded Definition Project, and this week’s homework (peer review) and Weekly Writing Assignment (beginning research for the Expanded Definition Project). Remember to watch the entire lecture and make notes before responding to Peer Review or the Weekly Writing Assignment. Also, office hours on Wednesday from 3:00-5:00pm via the link on the syllabus, or you can email me at jellis at citytech.cuny.edu with your questions.

Weekly Writing Assignment, Week 3

After watching this week’s lecture above, use this week’s Weekly Writing Assignment to begin your initial research on the next project: 750-1000-Word Expanded Definition Project. This is the second individually-based project in the class. The goal is to write 750-1000 words that provide an extended definition of a term relevant to your field of studies and/or future career. Below is the synopsis of the assignment from the syllabus:

Individual: 750-1000-Word Expanded Definition, 15%

Individually, you will write a 750-1000 word expanded definition of a technical or scientific term, with cover memo, which demonstrates: 1. correct memorandum format. 2. knowledge of the etymology and historical development of the term. 3. examples of the term’s use in various written contexts. 4. ability to compare and contrast various uses of the term. 5. use and citation of sources with proper attribution. 6. awareness of audience. At least three library-sourced citations are required and should be cited following APA format.

As detailed and explained in this week’s lecture, your Weekly Writing Assignment this week is an opportunity to begin your research, settle on a term to focus on, and find three quotes that you might use in your project. With that in mind, add a comment to this post with the following before next week:

Begin with a short paragraph that begins with a statement about three possible terms that you considered and performed cursory research on for your project and concludes with the one term out of the three candidates that you ultimately decided to focus your expanded definition project on.
After using the library’s databases and reference guide shown in this week’s lecture, perform more focused research on the single term that you selected and copy-and-paste three quotes–each quote must come from a different source (e.g., one from a dictionary, one from an encyclopedia, and one from an ebook, or all three from different dictionaries, or all three from three different encyclopedias, or all three from journal articles, etc. All combinations will yield quotes that you might use in your expanded definition essay).
After each quote, write an APA bibliographic reference for your selection.
As always, write your Weekly Writing Assignment in a word processor, save your work, and then copy-and-paste it into a comment added to this post.
Remember to rely on the Purdue Owl APA Guide (and its sections listed on the left menu), and the APA Style Guide’s Dictionary References Guide.

Continuing 500-Word Summary Project, Peer Review, Week 3

As we begin to wrap up the 500-Word Summary Project, we will use peer review to request and receive feedback from your peers in the class. This serves two purposes: 1) you get experience working with the writing of others, which improves your writing ability through this critical engagement, and 2) you receive invaluable feedback and suggestions on how to improve your own writing from others.

To perform peer review on this assignment, do the following after watching this week’s lecture above:

Watch for an email on Wednesday from Prof. Ellis to you and your teammates.
- Choose to “Reply All” to this email. This will send a single reply message to all recipients of the original email, which includes your teammates and Prof. Ellis.
- Open with a salutation to everyone.
- Introduce yourself to your team (major, career goals, hobbies).
- Write a message to your team–ask for feedback and offer to provide feedback.
- Copy-and-paste your 500-summary below your message.
- Give a closing and signature (Best, Your Name or Cheers, Your Name).
As you receive emails from your team:
- Read their 500-Word Summary
- Click “Reply All” to their message
- Write a brief email (Salutation, Body, Closing)
- In the body:
  - What works best
  - What needs improvement
  - Quote one random sentence and rewrite
    it as a suggestion
Remember to be polite, understanding, work through problems, be considerate, be the bigger person if there are any misunderstandings.
Feel free to use your emails for discussion about the project and your team, but keep all discussion professional and appropriate.
Reach out to Prof. Ellis if there are any unsolvable problems within your team at any point during the semester.

Pavel Hlinin’s Instruction Manual for How to Troubleshoot A/C

For this project, I wrote an instructional manual for how to troubleshoot A/C.

Research Report on The Unused and Inefficient Use of Energy

You can find the website for the Research Report on The Unused and Inefficient Use of Energy. It was written by Mamadou Diallo, Pavel Hlinin and Benson Huang.

Tarin Sultana’s Instruction Manual for How to set up VMware in Windows and install CentOS Linux on VMware

For this project, I wrote an instruction manual for windows VMware and CentOS Linux.

Research Report on The Spread of Misinformation

You can find the website for the Research Report on The Spread of Misinformation. It was written by Ralph Ayala, Remonda Mikhael, Zeela Rafija, and Richard Rivera Urgiles

Tarin Sultana’s Expanded Definition of Network Security

To: Professor Ellis
From: Tarin Sultana
Date: March 17, 2021
Subject: Expanded Definition of Network Security

Table of Contents

Introduction

The purpose of my 750-1,000-Word Expanded Definition Project is to explore the term “network security” as a general introduction for undergraduates that are studying computer information technology, and which is also associated with my college major. I decided to focus on network security because it is a global issue in technology right now. While writing this document, I will expand the term of network security. I will use different quotes to discover the differences or similarities uses in separate sections or purposes in the context. At the end of this project, in the working definition section, I will provide my practical explanation that I learned during the research of my project.

Definitions

If we look at the word “network security,” it is two words; there are two different definitions of each term. Such as according to the Oxford English dictionary, “network” means “A group of people who exchange information, contacts, and experience for professional or social purposes.” And “security” means “A group of people who exchange information, contacts, and experience for professional or social purposes.” The term “network” has changed over time and continues to change as emerging technology such as cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) grow faster. As a result, new and diverse network detection tools need to protect this widening presence. If we connect with the term of network and security, in technology this the same word and the definition of the term is, network security is a system of principles and configurations that use both software and hardware to protect the integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility of computer networks and data.

Context

A researcher at a NASA center in California is generally known for creating the first firewall. They developed a network protection method that was a virtual version of the “firewall” used in physical structures to prevent fires from spreading to other areas of a building or complex after being targeted by a virus in 1988. “Protecting the confidentiality of corporate information, preventing unauthorized access and defending the network against attacks remain primary concerns of network security professionals today.” (Crowcombe, 2004). The context uses the Intitle “network security” that is critical for both personal and business networks. Data loss, fraud, and sabotage can all reduce with a sound network security system. The purpose of network protection is to protect the network from cyberattacks and hacking attempts.

The term network security uses in different sections. It can also improve network traffic, improve network performance, ensure secure data sharing between employees and data sources, and protect assets and data integrity from external exploits. The protection given to a network against unauthorized access and threats is known as network security. Network administrators must take preventative steps to safeguard their networks against future security threats. Daily transactions and correspondence within the government, individuals, or businesses necessitate secure computer networks. Assigning a unique name and corresponding password to a network resource is the most common and easy way of protecting it.

Working Definitions

Network security is critical for both personal and business networks. Most homes with high-speed internet have one or more wireless routers, which can be a hack if not adequately protected. Data loss, hacking, and sabotage are all risks that can reduce with a network security system. It did not take much to realize that businesses had to have such basic safety protective measures when they began connecting their internal/trusted networks to external/untrusted internet. Network architectures have developed that create protection layers between the most sensitive parts, usually where the mainframes or databases reside on the internet, which is untrusted and external.

References

J. Reuvid (Ed.).(2004). Secure Online Business Handbook (3rd ed., pp.226). Kogan Page. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3471300002/GVRL?u=cuny_nytc&sid=GVRL&xid=ae2ace0a

Z. Chen, W. Dong, H. Li, P. Zhang, X. Chen and J. Cao. (Feb. 2014). Collaborative network security in multi-tenant data center for cloud computing. Tsinghua Science and Technology, 19(1), 82-94. https://doi.org/10.1109/TST.2014.6733211

NATO, A. S. I. O. N., North, A. T. O., NATO, S. F. P. A. S. (2008). Aspects of network and information security. E. Kranakis, et al’s. (Ed.). IOS press.

Crowcombe, Peter. “Network Vulnerabilities.” Secure Online Business Handbook, edited by Jonathan Reuvid, 3rd ed., Kogan Page, 2004, pp. 63-66. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3471300019/GVRL?u=cuny_nytc&sid=GVRL&xid=bba83999..

Research Report on The Technical Problem of Cybersecurity

You can find the website for the Research Report on The Technical Problem of Cybersecurity here. It was written by Md Jahirul Hasan, Angela Hernandez, Motahear Hossain, Matthew Rupchand, and Tarin Sultana.

Instruction Manual Project

Collaborative, Team-Based Project

Introduction

Definitions

Context

Working Definitions

References

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