Dear Students,

There are two things that I would like to do during our class session on Thursday:

1/ Have each of you present a three to four minute overview of your research project

2/ Begin drafting the research essay

The two activities are complementary.  However, I’m not certain that we will have time for both during one class session since our class is quite large.  There are 25 students in our course.  Assuming each student presents for three minutes, the presentations will take up the entire class session.  The question then is whether it might be possible to compress each presentation down to two minutes, which would then leave us (in theory if not in fact) with 25 minutes of class time for drafting.

My research is focused around an investigation of ______(name your topic or research question_______________________.

The draft title of my project is ____________(name title of your draft Overview of Sources essay)________________________.

The exam will be divided into two sections.  In the first part, you will write a three paragraph letter in which you first introduce and explain why you are writing the letter, second explain the key points you have to make related to the topic, and thirdly explain the relevance of the topic.  You will have 45 minutes to write this letter.  There will be two topics and you can choose from one:

1/ Read Neil Postman’s essay “Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change.”  After reading the essay, choose ONE of the five ideas that he presents and write to him explaining how it relates to the specific technologies that you have been doing research on.

2/ On the day of the exam, you will be given an advertisement that features the term and concept of technology prominently. Based on your analysis of this ad, you will write a letter to the organization using the advertisement in which you explain why there may be problems with how the term and conept of technology is used in the advertisement, the key issues that may arise in relation to this use, and the significance and implications of this use.  Please make sure to cite evidence in your letter from both the readings that we have done for this class and the readings you have done for your research essay.

The second part of the exam will consist of a short reading that you will be asked to answer some questions about.

To prepare for this exam, please review the following materials:

Your reading notes on the essays from _Technology: A Reader for Writers_

Your class notes

Your course assignments (completing GA8/GA9 will also help tremendously in preparing for the exam)

Writing About Texts

Introduction to Summary Writing

Understanding Sentences in SWE

Summarizing and Paraphrasing Sources

Here is _The Onion’s_ satirical take on the “promise” of geothermal engineering solutions:

http://www.theonion.com/graphic/nation-offsets-carbon-footprint-planting-single-30-50323

Synthesizing Your Research Findings

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/writing-processes/focus/1144-synthesis-notes-working-with-sources-to-create-a-first-draft

Working with Direct Quotations

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/research-methods-methodologies/integrate-evidence/incorporate-evidence/453-inserting-or-altering-words-in-a-direct-quotation

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/research-methods-methodologies/integrate-evidence/incorporate-evidence/613-omitting-words-from-a-direct-quotation-mla

Introduce / Cite / Explain

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/research-methods-methodologies/integrate-evidence/incorporate-evidence/647-connecting-source-material-to-claims

Introduction to Overview of Sources Essay

Here is a link to Charles Bazerman’s introduction to this genre of writing:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DI9i-nhMXHDwXd0xDriK-apYGLt3XtB-Rd8a17s9DZo/edit?usp=sharing

Here is a link to a SAMPLE STUDENT essay of Evaluative Comparison with a few explanatory annotations added by me to explain what is going on in each paragraph.  Feel free to use this as a model if it is helpful:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ws8arwlGb-b3CzuB9F3DU36at79MrU07MDlW8jNatBc/edit?usp=sharing

Overview of Sources Essay Assignment for Professor Rodgers’ ENG1121 course

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/research-methods-methodologies/research-primer 

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/information-literacy/library-and-internet-research

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/information-literacy/library-and-internet-research/web-search-strategies/810-web-search-strategies

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/information-literacy/library-and-internet-research/using-databases

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/information-literacy/critical-reading-practices/identifying-a-conversation

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/information-literacy/critical-reading-practices/the-guiding-idea-and-argumentative-thesis-statement

http://writingcommons.org/open-text/information-literacy/critical-reading-practices/distinguishing-between-main-points-and-sub-claims

Above, is a screen shot of a recent advertisement from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.  You can access another ad related to this one here:  http://www.mhi-global.com/index.html

If you click on this ad, you are taken to this site:

http://www.mhi-global.com/discover/advertisement/newspaper/changer/index.html?sscd=gamechanger2

I was interested in both the ad and in the advertising site itself.  However, you are only required to write a one-page rhetorical analysis of the ad itself.  Visit the site offering additional information about the project being advertised only if you find it helpful.  In terms of analyzing the ad, please consider the following questions:

What does this ad imply about technology?  How?  Why?  Rhetorically, how is the advertisement functioning, both visually and with respect to the text included in it?  What assumptions are being made about technology, the readers of the ad, and the readers’ understanding of technology?  How does the use of the word “technology” and the visual depiction of the “technology” being advertised relate to one or more points made by Thomas Hughes and Eric Schatzberg in their essays?

Here is some additional guidance for your one page rhetorical analysis of this ad:

Review the ad. Write out what you think is the ad’s purpose and what it implies about its intended audience. The following questions should help you generate this information.

• Purpose: What does the ad appear to persuade viewers to think, feel, or decide after seeing it? What visual cues does the ad provide viewers to allow them to undertsand the overall “message” of the ad?
• Audience: Who are the intended readers? What does the text imply about readers’ knowledge or feelings about the subject of technology?

For anyone interested in learning more about Interdisciplinary Studies and Interdisciplinary Research methods, I hope you will consider joining the Interdisciplinary Studies Committee’s Race, Gender, and Culture Workshop for a talk on “Staging Migrations Across Disciplinary Boundaries” given by African American Studies Professor Marta Effinger-Crichlow.  Her talk will address issues related to interdisciplinary studies and research based on her work on her recent book book Staging Migrations toward an American West: From Ida B. Wells to Rhodessa Jones. 

3-4:30 pm

March 23

N119

All City Tech students and faculty are invited to attend.

Questions:

What is EasyBib?

Reliability of Wikipedia: anyone can edit it; may not be credible or reliable

What makes a research source reliable?  The author, the date, the publisher, citations, references.

information networks

research strategies

using different library information resources

searching on Google: “communications technology,” i.e., clay tablets (antiquity) to embedded chips (near future)

Kenrick: Architecture and Technology :  WHAT ARE YOUR SEARCH TERMS??????

Open Internet

Library Databases

Search Fields: Author, Title, Abstract, Keywords, etc.

Boolean Search Terms: Most databases don’t understand natural language, i.e., “how are stairs designed?”, the database will not understand the question.  I must make the question legible to the database, i.e., “stairs and design and history” or “stairs and architecture” or “stairs and usability and architecture”, the database can “read” the question

Google Books:

The Staircase: Studies of Hazards, Falls, and Safer Design By John Templer, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992.  

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tfQJAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=%22john+templar%22+staircase&ots=d4hDhMNkUa&sig=7lxoXHTxvcOHWaC14r7bXxk1Ipc#v=onepage&q=%22john%20templar%22%20staircase&f=false

Open Internet Results:

http://articles.philly.com/1993-07-23/living/25975541_1_staircases-riser-handrails

http://articles.latimes.com/1994-01-23/news/mn-14599_1_stair-safety

Subjects:  staircases, culture and technology, history of technology

Google Scholar:

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tech/summary/v044/44.1dalley.html

Other Books:

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=DV8IGo88aTQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=staircase+architecture+%22history+of+technology%22&ots=DC6SE3Ov08&sig=wJSs1YV4T4G07q005U7KIABCgaI#v=onepage&q&f=false

General Databases:

Gale Virtual Reference Library

EBSCO

Applied Science and Technology

 One Search

Lexis/Nexis

After you have finished reading your drafts aloud,

1/ Write down any questions or suggestions you have FOR YOURSELF and YOUR ESSAY

2/ Turn over the Peer Editing Worksheet and complete the POST-WORKSHEET CONFERENCE

Jolina/Oula

Li Yan/Evelyn

Miryam/Nasim

Christopher/Immanuel

Muhammed/Sarah

Brian/Jose

Erica/David

Jennifer/Ricky

Ilyos/Magelyn

Jonathan/Jehan

Kenrick/Syed