Writing Assignment 5

Due dates:

See calendar.

Learning objectives:

To help you get experience with a longer kind of writing that you will encounter as a CS professional.

Length:

Eight pages (approx. 2000 words) + Cover Sheet (for grading)

Subject:

A proposal to your workgroup about enhancing company computer security

Audience:

Your workgroup on the job as a CS professional, including your boss

Sources:

Use the general CS3604 course resource site for support material about the topic. Plus, I have a folder of source material from the literature on the topic available for limited-time checkout on a first-come, first-served basis. Beyond these you can (and should) look in the library and on the Web. This is an excellent topic for Web research (but be warned about not plagiarizing from the Web).

Honor Code statement:

The Virginia Tech honor code is in effect for all work. This means that this writing assignment is to be done alone, without help from someone else. Exceptions: Getting help in your writing from the Writing center is an important exception, and is always encouraged. Further, this application of the honor code is not intended to interfere with the free exchange of ideas and peer assistance that support learning, including general discussions about the assignment and the type of writing involved with other students, the instructor, and/or the GTA.

Plagiarism Warning:

NOTE about plagiarism: We will be especially zealous in prosecuting Honor Court cases involving plagiarism, especially those where material is taken from other students or from the Web or Internet. Plagiarism of any work from a current or former student in this course is considered to be an honor code violation. Through the use of peer evaluations and collaborative development, and the use of the WWW, there is a strong possibility that you will be exposed to concepts and ideas that you can use in your own work. Getting permission to use those ideas and concepts from the originator (except when it is already in the public domain) and/or giving appropriate acknowledgment in your own work circumvents a charge of plagiarism.

Assignment 5a, Metadocument describing outline, planning, and approach to the proposal writing process

Learning objectives:

This part of the assignment is intended to get you to think about the writing process as well as the product.

Length:

Two pages (approximatley 500 words)

Audience:

Your instructor and GTA

The Task (What to do):

Write a description of your plan for the writing process for this assignment.

Breaking it down into steps (How to do it):

Take notes on your approach to writing as you work. Since this is the first deliverable for the assignment, it is mostly about planning rather than what you have already done. Describe how you are (or plan to be) approaching the topic, doing outlining, gathering input material, took notes, etc. Include the fact that you will be doing a first draft and a final draft, with a peer review in between. Describe any other drafts or iterations you plan.

Deliverables (for meta-document):

1. Cover sheet (grading form with criteria for evaluation ), with top portion filled out. The GRADING FORM must be used as the COVER SHEET for each part of the assignment. Staple grading form as cover sheet to the front of your paper. Papers without cover sheets will get a deduction of 5 points. Fill out the top two lines.
2. A write-up (good writing here, too) of approximately two pages (approximately 500 words total) that describes how you are approaching the writing process for Assignment 5 (Proposal to work group about a professional issue).

Assignment 5b, Proposal to work group about a professional issue -- first draft

The Task (What to do):

You are to write an eight page (approximately 2000 words) proposal about the importance of enhancing company computer security. You have three objectives in writing the proposal:

• to raise awareness of the dangers,
• to educate about the forms it can take, and
• to urge a specific action to combat the dangers within your workgroup setting.

Breaking it down into steps (How to do it):

Here is how to do your assignment. Pretend you are working in some job as a CS professional and the issue of security, in the context of "malware" (e.g., viruses, hackers) has come up in your work environment. You have discussed it with your boss and he or she is concerned and has asked you to write a proposal to your workgroup, with the above three objectives.

In your proposal, you should pursue your three objectives:

• Raise awareness -- Tell about the problems with security risks and establish the importance to your workgroup.
• Educate -- Tell about the various kinds of "malware" (e.g., hacker attacks, viruses, worms, server attacks) and the potential dangers, risks, and costs. This part should be general and cover the breadth of possibilities.
• Urge action -- make plea to do something about it in your workgroup setting. This part you can keep general, addressing all kinds of security threats, or you can emphasize a particular kind of danger specific to your environment.

Here are the mechanics:

1. Write a good, solid first draft of the assignment, using your best professional writing.
2. Have two proofreaders review/proof the draft, writing their comments and suggestions in red (suggested) pen on the paper draft. I want to see the proofreaders get into it in detail and write lots of red marks on the draft (not just give it a once-over and make only a few general comments).
3. Then revise your draft based on the two proofreader reviews.

Deliverables:

IMPORTANT: This part of the assignment requires you to hand in TWO (identical) copies of your proposal. One copy should have the cover sheet per the instruction in the next paragraph. The second copy should NOT have a grading form attached. Failure to hand in two copies will result in a 10-point deduction from the paper grade for this draft and will probably delay our ability to grade it for you.

Cover sheet (grading form with criteria for evaluation ), with top portion filled out must be used as the COVER SHEET for the first copy (only) of this part of the assignment. Staple grading form as cover sheet to the front of your paper. Papers without cover sheets on the first copy will get a deduction of 5 points. Fill out the top two lines and get your proofreaders to sign at the bottom (for both drafts, this time). It is important that you understand that the term "first draft" here does NOT mean "rough draft". In fact, it is the opposite, the first draft is expected to be the very best writing you can do. The iterative writing process is designed to make your final draft even better.

Summary of deliverables for Assignment 5b:

1. Your own clean copy of Assignment 5b, the first draft of the proposal as revised based on the two proofreader reviews, with cover sheet for us to use in grading
2. One clean copy of the same, without cover sheet, for us to give to someone else in class to do a peer review of your paper
3. Two copies of the early version marked up by proof-readers
   

Assignment 5c, Proposal to work group about professional issue -- peer review of someone else's proposal

The Task (What to do):

After you hand in your first draft, we will randomly assign a peer reviewer from the class to each paper. This means that you will get someone else's paper to review. This part of the assignment is your peer review of that other student's proposal.

Breaking it down into steps (How to do it):

Your peer review should have at least these parts:

• detailed marked up in text
• high-level comments about the overall style, content, and readability
• your attached peer grading form

The detailed corrections and other suggested changes should be marked up in the text using the simple editing techniques (e.g., for insertion and deletion) that we used in class and that you receive on your other writing assignments. Mark it up by hand and write insertions and explanatory comments in the margins.

Your high level comments about the overall style, content, and readability should be separate from the text. Your suggestions should be constructive and helpful (i.e., understandable in terms of directions for revising the writing. Consult our course material about doing a peer review. Another useful set of questions, originating from the Department of English, Virginia Tech, may be helpful.

To convey your peer review comments back to the author, you should use the peer grading form, which contains the same categories that we use for grading the assignment. The peer review form is different only in that it ignores numeric grades, since the purpose of a peer review is to give constructive feedback. Use this form to write specific comments and suggestions in the various categories of evaluation criteria.

Deliverables:

Summary of deliverables for Assignment 5c, all stapled together in this order:

1. A form to grade your peer review by instructor/GTA
2. A peer review form for you to "grade" your peer's proposal
3. Your copy of your peer's proposal, marked up with review suggestions and high-level comments

Assignment 5d, Proposal to work group about professional issue, plus metadocument describing -- final draft

This part of the assignment represents the iteration of your writing. In a one-semester course like this, we have to compress the process from what it would be in the real world, where it is not uncommon for a journal article, for example, to undergo 20 iterations over a period of six months! A proposal like this would surely benefit from at least a half-dozen thorough iterations. At least this will follow the spirit of that kind of iterative writing.

Separate proof readers outside class are not required for this final draft.

Deliverables:

Cover sheet (grading form with criteria for evaluation ), with top portion filled out. The GRADING FORM must be used as the COVER SHEET for each part of the assignment. Staple grading form as cover sheet to the front of your paper. Papers without cover sheets will get a deduction of 5 points. Fill out the top two lines.

Special deliverable requirement for multiple draft assignments

For all assignments with multiple drafts (including this one), always hand in all previous drafts (the marked up copy with the cover sheet, not a newly printed one), including the one marked up by the GTA nd the one marked up by your peer reviewer. Put the latest version on top, with successively older versions behind. We need this to grade you on how you improved with the iteration. Failure to hand in any previous versions with the final draft will result in a 10-point deduction from the paper grade for this draft and will probably delay our ability to grade it for you.

Summary of deliverables for Assignment 5d (in this order, please):

1. Cover sheet (grading form) for Assignment 5d, attached to item 2, your final draft.
2. Your final draft of this proposal assignment, revised per the peer review.
3. A one-page "review response" statement by you, giving the specifics of how you responded to the points of the peer review.
4. Your first draft of this assignment, the copy graded by us. (We want to be able to see any marks we made on it).
5. The peer review of your first draft of this assignment, from someone in class (with attached form for grading peer review on top and peer reviewer's grading form just under that).

Please NOTE: You can staple the first 4 items together, or clip them together with a good spring clip (not just a regular paper clip, which comes off easily). Whichever way you treat the first four items, please just clip item 5 (the peer review) to the rest. We have to remove that and hand it back to the peer reviewer.