ENGH 302-SN2, Summer 2015
Paper #2 (print and post) SLO-2, SLO-3

For Saturday June 27th, write parts 1-3 of a 4-6 page (typed and double spaced) paper with four parts.  You will do the 4th part in class.  I will return the paper at our first class after the 4th of July break and you will then have the option of rewriting it based on my comments and the feedback you have received from your fellow students.  The complete file of paper #2, parts 1-4 with transitions, is due Friday July 3rd at 11:59pm.  You can send me the complete paper as an attachment or post the attachment to the blog.  By Sunday July 5th at 11:59pm, you should comment on at least 2-3 students papers, making sure everyone gets some feedback.  Focus your comments on part 1-2, indicating what you think of your fellow students' account of and argument for their discipline/major and its possible contributions to understanding information technology.  Conclude your comment with any questions you have or clarifications you would like to see.

The first part of your paper is a factual account (like an encyclopedia entry) that should cover the following:

Cite sources for this information.  Start with Articles & More on http://library.gmu.edu, go to Databases by Subject, and then Reference Sources and look at Literati, Gale Virtual Reference Library and Oxford Reference and see what you can find.  Then go back to Databases by Subject and look for your discipline and try the Core Resources.  Then use the Mason Library Info Guides by Discipline you used for the previous assignment as well as other sources you know about.  You can consult Wikipedia or other non-peer reviewed web sites to orient yourself but do not make these sources anything more than a starting point. 

The second part of the paper is a personal and persuasive follow up to the factual account in the first part where you argue for the importance of your discipline. Why is it so important that you are spending a large chunk of your life studying it? What does your discipline offer the world and why is that important? What would be lost if people did not study your discipline? This section of the paper should aim to persuade a skeptical audience of the importance of your discipline/major. It should be at least a page and does not require outside sources.  If you chose your major for pre-professional/vocational reasons, this is the section to emphasize that point.  But as Robert Metcalfe's case illustrates (see the last links in the Rhetoric and Audience section June 13th) it is short sighted to ignore the role of research in practical as well as more academic/scholarly fields.  

The third part of the paper is your preliminary annotated bibliography of sources in your discipline(s) on information technology drawing on blog post 07a.  Make sure to identify the discipline/areas of expertise of the authors in your bibliography.  Add a tentative conclusion on the contributions your discipline has or could make to understanding development and impact of information technology and whether these contributions are central or peripheral to the discipline.  

The fourth part (to be completed in class 6-27) is the rhetorical analysis of an article from your discipline that you started last week.  Draw on blog post 07b and conclude by pointing to any connections you see between your account of the field (part 1 above) and what you found in your rhetorical analysis.   

In addition to brining a print copy to class, post your paper to the class blog, checking your name and pap2 in the category boxes.  During class work on part 4 in class and leave comments on each other's blog post accounts of your disciplines/majors, indicating what you think of your fellow students' description of and argument for their discipline/major and its contributions to understanding information technology.  Conclude your comment with any questions you have or clarifications you would like to see.