Final Paper assignment

Due: In class, April 4 2002. Lateness penalty: 1/3 grade (e.g. from B+ to B) for each day late. Lateness penalties begin accruing as of 2pm April 4.

Length: 12-15 double-spaced typed pages (3000 to 3750 words)

Description: The final paper assignment is flexible. You may write on any topic related to the Internet and politics. The choice of topic is up to you. A list of possibilities is attached, but these are just suggestions; feel free to come up with a topic on your own. If it is not on the list, please e-mail me your topic for approval before March 21. If your topic is based on your web guide, no more than 1 of the web sites you reviewed in your web guide may be used as a case study in your final paper.

Your paper should include all of the following:

Introduction and thesis statement: Your paper should have a strong central argument, clearly stated on the first page of the paper. This argument can be phrased as the answer to a question, in which case both the question and your proposed answer should be explicitly stated in the introduction of your paper. The tone of your paper should be argumentative, not descriptive; you are presenting and supporting a central argument.

Organization: Your paper should have a clear organizational structure, outlined at the beginning of the paper. If you are planning to detail your argument, and then support it with evidence from specific examples, state that clearly, and name the examples you will be discussing.

Evidence: You should use evidence to support your main argument, such as examples or quotations. Any evidence you use should be clearly linked to your central argument. If you are using a web site as evidence in support of your argument, don’t just describe the site; explain how its particular characteristics are evidence of your main argument.

Note that you may be more successful in focusing on a small number of examples (perhaps 3-4 web sites or groups), and analyzing them in some depth. Your analysis can drawn on additional sources (such as articles or web commentaries on your topic) in discussing these examples.

Research: Your paper should draw on sources beyond the course reading list (although you may also refer to or cite readings from the course). Your paper should demonstrate some knowledge of secondary research on your topic; i.e. you should look for articles, books, and papers that other people have already written on your topic or on related topics. In addition, you may conduct primary research by directly examining web sites, reading and analyzing e-mail lists or newsgroup messages, or conducting interviews.

Citations: Make sure you cite any source you use, including online sources, and include all these sources in your bibliography. For information on how to cite online sources, see http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/ Remember that you must cite all your sources, even if you do not quote them directly.

Conclusion: At the end of the paper, you should restate your argument, and summarize how the evidence you have presented proves your argument. You can also use your conclusion to (briefly) speculate on the broader implications of your research, or to raise interesting questions for further study.

Format: You have several options for the format of your final paper.

1. A traditional printed paper.

2. An annotated web guide: essentially a paper formatted as an html file, with hyperlinks to each of the web sources you cite. You can also include graphic elements in your web guide to make it more visually appealing.

3. A multi-page web guide: similar to an annotated web guide, but broken into multiple web pages. This will require a little more work on the design side, since you will need at least a rudimentary way of navigating between the pages. Don’t let the design challenge distract you from the core assignment.

I strongly encourage you to choose one of the web guide options; it will be your choice whether you make your guide available to other students. Please print your web guide (don’t worry if the printed version looks a bit funny) as well as e-mailing it or uploading it. I will read the online version, but write comments on the printed version, and return it with your grade.

Our March 7 lab class will cover the basics of designing a web page in Netscape or Word, which should prepare you to do a very basic page or site. If you want to do additional work on the design or technical aspects of your guide, I am happy to help.

Help: I encourage you to e-mail or meet with me to discuss your paper. In particular, you may find it helpful to outline your paper topic and thesis statement, so that you can be sure that you have a strong central argument.

Click here for information on the grading scheme.

Click here for suggested paper topics.

Click here to download the final paper assignment as a Word document.