English 1301

Dr. Danika Brown

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Project 2

Engl 1301 – Dr. Danika Brown

Technology Analysis: Essay 2

Due: Tues Oct 5, Wednesday Oct 6

For this unit, we have been exploring issues around technology. You have read a number articles and watched several videos that make claims about the way technologies shape our lives or reflect social values and beliefs. Now, it’s your turn to analyze a technology.

You should have identified a specific technology and narrowed your focus to an aspect of that technology to analyze. You will have done initial research and data collection that would include finding out about the history, development, and statistical facts about the technology. Additionally, you will have collected data through observation and participation in using the technology and reflection on your own (or others’) experiences around that technology.

You will have analyzed that data by looking for patterns and connections, asking questions about what impact the technology has (beyond its intended “use-value”) on social relationships or values and beliefs. After your analysis of the data, you should be at a point where you can make an interpretive claim about the technology. Then you are ready to write a formal essay (though you may be drafting throughout all of this process).

For your formal essay, you will be writing to support your interpretive claim, using your data as detailed evidence to allow your reader to see how you can interpret the technology in the way you do (even if they don’t necessarily interpret it the same way). Your essay needs to be in the structure of a formal academic essay, written to your peers (not just to me). You should assume whomever reads the essay does not know the assignment or much about your technology.

Additional requirements:

• The essay should be fully developed; that will likely mean around 5pages in length.
• The essay should be typed, double spaced with indented paragraphs, 12 point font, and 1 inch margins.
• The essay should have an appropriate title that reflects your main idea. The reader should have a pretty good sense of what to expect or be intrigued just from having read your title. In no case, should the reader be confused about your title after having read the essay. Your title cannot be my title (“Technology Analysis: Essay 2”), nor should it just be the name of your technology.
• The essay should include an introduction with a solid interpretation claim. Claims that merely state the obvious are not interpretive/analytical claims.
• The essay should include a thorough description of the technology that reflects your research on its history and development.
• The essay needs as much evidence and examples to support your interpretation to make your claim make sense. The more specific, detailed, and descriptive your “data” examples, the better.
• The conclusion of the essay should make a claim to significance for your interpretation. What does the reader gain from having seen this perspective? How are you and the reader in a different “place” from your analysis?

For the final essay, you will turn in the following:

*reading summaries and responses and draft materials from class and your own work

*extra-credit: note-taking evidence from other aspects of the class

*final essay: typed, proofread, edited, and read by another reader (reader should sign the bottom of your essay).