Wired Thought Papers (10% in total)

(There are a total of five Wired Thought Papers worth 2% each)

General guidelines:

• Thought papers are certainly very simple and short assignments.
• They are two paragraphs long, and the length of the paper in total should be between a minimum of 100 words to a maximum of 150 words.
• To make certain your word count is correct (in MS Word) you can click on “Tools” and then click on “word count.
• Use the formatting guidelines established during class lectures.

Prompt:

• I simply want your thoughts on the assigned reading, which might take the form of addressing one or more of the following:

1. Do you agree that the issue discussed in this article is a worthwhile technological development?
2. Do you believe the benefits outweigh the costs and/or possible detriments?
3. What benefits might arise?
4. What problems might arise?

• The above list (1 through 4) is just an example of an approach to this assignment. If you have other thoughts then feel free to take a different approach.

Grading Criteria:

• The total number of words in your two paragraphs must be 100 to 150 words.
• Use a document header, as you should for all assignments.
• The formatting guidelines on the syllabus must be observed.
• The paper should be two paragraphs long.
• Writing must be free—or predominantly free—of typos, awkward/unclear phrasing, and sentence level errors.
• Do not use first person pronouns such as “I” “me” and “my.”
• Do not use second person pronouns such as “you” “your” and “yours.”
• Do not use contractions.
• Do not use sentences that begin with conjunctions, such as: and, but, for, so, yet, nor, so.
• Do not use personal stories of your own life experience, or the experiences of friends, family, and so on.
• Do not pose any questions in your paper.
• Use a two part title, separated by a colon, but do not use the words “wired thought paper” in your title.
• Because wired thought papers are so short, do not quote from or paraphrase the primary text.

Some Important Points:

• Remember that part of this course involves working toward higher level writing skills. To that end, your writing should sound less like a verbal conversation between friends, and more like an academic paper, which means it has a formal tone. We are all attempting to make our prose sound more scholarly.
• Engage the Assignment Calendar section of the course syllabus for due dates and “click here” links to access the assigned wired.com readings.

The Fun of These Assignments:

• The readings will come from wired.com magazine, so they will not be typical English Composition texts.
• The readings will cover newly emerging technology that is fun to read about, but because they are published in a magazine, as opposed an academic journal, the writing will be in very informal prose. As noted in the section above, you are not attempting to write in an informal prose style, but rather a style that has a more academic tone.