Project 1: Main topic and point decision

Objective:

The main point for this assignment is for you to pick your main topic and decide what the main point is for your semester long research paper. This doesn't mean that you are forever tied to this topic or main point; but reason for change need to be great before you do change and must be approved before you can do so.

Details:

You need to choose from one of the following topic areas. The areas are broad and should provide a lot of room for you to still individualize to your particular interests. You are allowed to suggest a topic that is not on the list, but this must be done before you turn in your assignment.

Topic List:

• History of Computing
  • Overview of technology development
  • Impact of historical innovation
• Ethical Issues
  • Campus ethics
  • Community values
  • Social impact on K-12 education
  • Crime
  • Critical Thinking
  • Hacking, cracking and phreaking
  • Professional codes of practice
• Social Issues
  • Censorship
  • Disabilities
  • Freedom of Speech
  • Green machines
• Professional Topics
  • Copyrights, patents, trademarks, intellectual proprery
  • Cryptography
  • Decision making
  • Discrimination and harassment
  • Fraud and dishonesty
  • Licensing of programmer and software engineers
  • Saftety critical systems
  • Viruses
  • Whistle blowing

For the historical papers, please do not propose a simple timeline of the person or event you have choosen. That will not work. You must propose something that can be argued for or against. For example, Zuse's use of binary for his computer was one of the most important decisions made in computer history. From that point, you can discuss why binary is important. Other choices that could have been made. Other decisions that have been made since and constrast them to the choice to use binary. The list of things you can do from there is endless.

What to turn in

You are to turn in a typed document that clearly defines your topic and main point. You do not need to include any support evidence, but it might be a good idea to at least have done some preliminary research on your topic to make sure that you will eventually be able to support a paper of some length, i.e. more than a page or 2. Your document should be in doc form.

Your final paper will be graded against how closely you stayed to your topic and main point. If you need to change either your topic or main point this must be discussed with me and approved before you change it. Changing the main point of the paper will be easier to handle compared to changing topics completely.

Where to turn it in

We will be using the Curator system for archiving of our projects. Look for a project labeled "Project1"

When to turn it in

This project is due September 10 by Midnight.

How will this be graded?

Good question. The TAs and myself will read your proposal and grade it on two criteria.

1. The first will be simply mechanics of your paper.
• Is it clear?
• Does it flow?  
• Is it spelled correctly?
• Is the grammar correct? 
• etc.
2. The second criteria is how feasible is the topic.
   • Is there enought material to support the topic?
   • Is the topic too broad or narrow?
   • Is the main point defined well enough? 
   • etc.