Required Reading Annotated Self Drive Cars

Research Paper Part 3: List of Headings

Due no later than 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday of Unit 5
No formal grade is given but you are required to submit this if you want your RESEARCH PAPER to be marked.
List a minimum of five main headings and a one-line description for each that you intend to use.
Submit your file as an MS Word document.

You are to list a minimum of five headings and a one-line description for each that you intend to use in your research essay. This is required, but is not graded. Write your headings following these guidelines and requirements:

The structure of your essay sometimes is usefully divided not just by well-defined paragraphs, but also by sections delineated by headings. In effect you are practicing categorization of ideas. You are playing the game “these things belong with these things” in a kind of intellectual sorting system. How you choose to do this is part of the creative aspect of your essay. While a good scholarly essay need not have headings, for the assignment in HUMN 422 you are required to use them. Your headings should describe the subject matter it is meant to describe as clearly and succinctly as possible. Despite the shortness of titles, they deserve considerable thought to ensure that they are accurate for their task.

The number and size of sections labelled with headings, just like the number and length of paragraphs, is determined by numerous difficult to define aspects of your material, analysis, and insights. Generally, however, you might expect a 5,000-word paper to have perhaps eight relevant labelled sections – but not twenty, and not two. The rule is one that is ineffable in the sense that it only has to be somehow proportional to the ideas presented. The best guide is to experience and observe what other authors have done, as in the cases of the numerous required scholarly article readings in HUMN 422.

Research Paper Part 4: Introduction

Due no later than 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday of Unit 7
No formal grade is given but you are required to submit this if you want your RESEARCH PAPER to be marked.
Submit the introductory paragraph for your Research Paper.
Submit your file as an MS Word document.

Do you read the newspaper? When you scan a newspaper for items that interest you, the first thing you read is the title (e.g. “Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police” is bound to get your attention!). If the title indicates that the article is interesting, you then proceed to read the first paragraph. Typically, you read the first paragraph with a question in your mind: “Is this interesting, as I thought it might be?” You want to know what the article is about. And if that first paragraph does not tell you what the rest is about, you would be forgiven if you read no further, as obviously it is a badly written article anyway!

A scholarly essay, just like a newspaper article, needs to say in some meaningful sense what the essay is about in the first paragraph. Every good scholarly work will start by writing what is considered the thesis statement. A thesis statement is really a statement of the question the essay answers. In a sense, ‘thesis’ is a misleading term; more often than not the question statement is a hypothesis in a strictly scientific-jargon sense (i.e. is not proven true). Readers want the answer to their question, “what is the question this essay is asking?”.

Where that thesis statement occurs in your essay is crucial. It should appear in the first or second line, or at the very least, within the first paragraph. It should not be buried in text, and it should be presented as overtly as possible.

What all too frequently occurs, however, is a writer will start out her or his essay writing background information to establish the reason they are asking their thesis statement question. They read a bit like a fairy tale: “A long time ago, in a far off land, there lived a student of Technology, Society, and Culture…”. What such writers are doing is they are retracing the path by which they came to their thesis question. And, more often than not, it is either not interesting or needs to be relegated to a labelled section such as “Historical Background”. If you need to write such background material before you can arrive at your thesis statement, do so, and then either throw out the unnecessary prologue, or find a better place in your essay in which it belongs.

Your Introduction will generally be longer than just the statement of your thesis. Good introductions provide a brief map of where the essay is going. It is a good practice to state the key factors you are to examine, and the key factors are often the same subtopics you identify as subheadings in the body of your essay. The introduction section for a 5,000-word paper would probably be only two or three paragraphs long.

Once you have established your thesis statement, a good practice is to re-state that statement (stylistically it is better not to do it in the exact same words) in some form whenever you present a new idea, and say overtly just how or why your new idea is related to that statement. In a sense, your thesis statement becomes the conceptual ‘glue’ that holds your entire paper together. You do not want your reader stopping and asking herself or himself, “why is the author telling me this?” You need to ensure that she or he knows why, and you do so by tying it to the central thesis.

Research Paper Part 5: Final Paper

Due no later than 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday of Unit 8
Worth 50% of final grade

LATE SUBMISSION POLICY

This assignment is subject to the Late Submission penalty policy, namely 5% per day for three days.
This page will close and will not allow further submissions after this Late Submission period has expired.
In the event of an emergency preventing you from submitting within this time frame, special permission must be obtained from your instructor. Documentation substantiating emergency is required. In such a circumstance, if the extension is granted, the professor will reopen the submission function for you on an individual basis.
Please do not email your submissions to your professor, either before or after the due date; all coursework should be submitted through the online course (Moodle).

WRITING YOUR RESEARCH ESSAY

These points about writing your research essay are intended to give you some insights into what constitutes a scholarly paper along with presenting some ideas as to why a scholarly essay is constituted the way that it is. It is by no means to be construed as a comprehensive guide to essay-writing – you can access more information on Student Online Services (SOS) or Google for such guides if you wish – but is meant, rather, to present some key factors and express them in a manner that many published guides do not. Your formal scholarly research essay needs to follow certain timeworn practices in order for it to fulfill its object of offering its reader insights that are truthful. Most of the academic articles included as required reading in HUMN 422 are examples of scholarly writing that you can take as an example of how to write your research essay.

An essay, however, not only serves to inform and convince the reader with knowledge and insights, it serves as a structure that allows you, as its author, to understand the topic that you are writing about better. ‘Better’ means more objectively, rationally, logically, and clearly. The ability to write good scholarly writing is, in many respects, the same ability that you use for good insightful, scholarly thought.

Convincing Information and Analysis

Formal scholarly essays are constituted so that they are objectively true. Objectivity is in contrast to other forms of writing, such as a subjective essay written from the author’s idiosyncratic individual biases, or an exercise in rhetoric. Rhetoric is writing meant primarily to persuade rather than to inform, and has a long tradition in Western classical scholarship. A formal scholarly essay, however, must appeal to the intellect rather than the passions. A well-written scholarly work is one where every statement, and every sentence is somehow proven to be true to the reader.

To offer this kind of objective ‘proof’ when you write your essay you really have only a handful of possibilities. These are as follows:

Use logical argument: Logic is the science of the formal principles of reasoning that demonstrates a sequence of thoughts that lead to a valid thought. For example, the statement: “All hippies have long hair”, and the statement that “John is a hippy”, forces, through logic, to state that “John has long hair”. In your own use of logic, you may have to present a somewhat muted version of this type of reasoning, but the “Most hippies … John is … John most likely has” logic still has validity.
Use examples: In your essay, particularly if it involves abstract conceptualizations, ‘truth’ can often best be established by offering examples of what insight you are offering the reader. Examples can be weak or strong supporters of your insight, depending upon how generalizable they are. If, for instance, I write “rear-engined cars are considerably more dangerous than front-engined cars” I can offer an analysis of the pendulum-like weight distribution of rear-engined cars versus other configurations, but I can also write that: “Rear-engined Porsche 911s are frequently known to be in single-vehicle accidents” I have sort of offered ‘proof’. Whether or not that ‘proof’ is acceptable to the reader or not, depends on a number of factors, including whether the rear suspension of the Porsche 911 was to blame, the accident statistics are believable, and so on. One thing that examples do accomplish, however, is that they ‘concretize’ the abstract concept so that a reader can envision and understand it. Using examples is often the best way to explain a concept. Using examples is really just about using the principles of deductive and inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning takes an example and makes a generalization from it. Its credibility relies on how representative the example is of other examples. Deductive reasoning would apply a generalized idea, such as an abstract concept (e.g. rear-engined cars) and apply it to a specific example (e.g. the Porsche 911).
Cite an outside authority: Most interesting scholarly papers attempt to add to the existing body of knowledge, and do so by constructing their knowledge on the foundation of previous knowledge. This is how progress happens in many instances, just as technological innovation tends to build on past technologies. If you are to make a case for an insight, analysis, or point in your essay, you can establish its credibility by citing other credible authors and their writings. This requires, however, that the sources you cite are considered, and are seen to be considered, truthful and reliable. What constitutes a valid source is described in the links listed below: “Evaluation During Reading” and “Annotated Bibliography”. It is sufficient to use a citation format – such as APA required in this course (though other formats are as good, and arguably better) to establish this type of substantiation in your essay.

The one thing you should ask yourself, after writing every single statement and sentence, is: “Did I offer convincing substantiation of this point to the reader?” You really need to do this for your entire essay for it to fulfill the requirements of good scholarship. Keep in mind too, that most readers will tend, out of simple human nature, to disbelieve everything you say if they should stumble across one thing you say that they think is untrue.

Abstract

For your Research Paper ensure you write your Abstract following the guidelines and requirements described in “The Report Abstract and Executive Summary” in the Purdue Online Writing Lab.

Introduction

Refer to Part 4: Introduction for details on writing the introduction.

Essay Body Structure

Good structure of an essay follows the same rules as good writing. Generally paragraphs should be used to isolate different ideas from one another, and each paragraph needs to follow upon the previous paragraph with some kind of connecting idea. Connecting ideas are often indicated by connecting words and phrases such as ‘however’, ‘as in the previous argument’, ‘in contrast’, ‘accepting this premise we conclude’, and so on. The connections, that can be stated either at the beginning or ends of paragraphs (or both) are numerous and amenable to creative writing styles.

The structure of your essay sometimes is usefully divided not just by well-defined paragraphs, but also by sections delineated by headings. For additional information on headings, refer to Part 3: List of Headings.

Conclusion

Every scholarly essay requires an introduction and a conclusion, even if these sections are not overtly labelled as such. The conclusion really is a summation of what was said, proven, and/or discovered, in the body of the essay relative to the thesis question. The conclusion needs to restate the thesis question in some manner (that is, it need not and perhaps should not be verbatim), and say, in concentrated form just what the essay said about it. One common mistake is to introduce new ideas in the conclusion. You should avoid this. As a general rule, you as the writer should only include in the conclusion what is found in the essay itself. The only exception to this is that it is sometimes appropriate to indicate further areas of inquiry and study in the conclusion. The common saw about the structure of a good speech is that it “tells the audience what you are going to tell them; tells them; tells the audience what you told them.” The principles of a good essay are quite similar.

Essay Presentation

Your goal in writing your essay is to express ideas, often quite complex ideas, in a manner that is easily understood by an educated reader. Your form of substantiation, your essay structure, and the presentation of your essay should enhance and not impede your readers’ understanding. And again, good writing is a skill that enables good thinking. Your essay may be a most brilliant piece of insightful writing, but unless you present your essay well, its ideas may be overshadowed or ignored. There are a few basics about essay presentation that you should follow:

Title Page: Your essay requires a title page that includes your essay’s title, your name, the name of the course, and the date. These should be centred and neat.
Abstract: This summarizes your paper’s key findings in a succinct form.
Number Pages: You will be formatting your essay as a document (usually a Word Document) and so it will have pages. In the digital world, some documents don’t have pages. The title page and the first page should not have page numbers written on them, subsequent pages should (starting, therefore, at “3”.
Fonts: General practice is to use serif fonts for text, and san-serif fonts for titles. One common preference is for 12-point Palatino linotype for text, and 12, 14, and 16-point bolded Arial for titles. Non-capitalized serif fonts are easiest to read because the reader’s eye quickly sees the overall shape of the word. ALL-CAPITALS and sans-serif fonts, do not have that easy shape. Fonts should be in a very dark colour (black, dark teal, etc.) and the background should always be white.
Bibliography: You require a bibliography (not your annotated bibliography) for your essay. It should include primary sources and scholarly sources. You should include as many bibliographic references as you need; however, it is hard to imagine that you would have fewer than 15 or so for a 5,000-word paper.
What and How to Cite: Cite all ideas that are not common knowledge and are not yours. These need not be direct quotations. Cite all direct quotations. Quotations less than four lines should be included within “quotation marks”. Quotations greater than four lines should be indented on both the left and right-hand sides, and single-space.
Citation Format: Your essay is to be formatted, as a standard imposed by RCC, in APA citation style. There are good reasons not to use APA style, but it has, for better or worse, become the standard used by most academic presses.
Photos and Illustrations: Our digitized universe, and the fact that you will be submitting your essay as an electronic document, means that photos and illustrations are technically easy to include. While scholarly essays traditionally do not include photos and illustrations, you should feel free to include any that you deem appropriate in terms of furthering the scholarly expression of your essay. They should, however, be formatted in terms of size, location, and citation.
Word Count: The word counts for assignments in HUMN 421 are specified within very stringent limits. As an andragogic principle, the discipline of ‘drawing inside the lines’ is a useful one to learn. A trick that often works well for writing with a really clear, concise, punchy style is to over-write your number of words, and then trim sentence-by-sentence.
Spelling and Grammar: There is no excuse, given computer programs, to misspell. Grammar programs tend to pick up many faults as well. Just do not make mistakes!
Proof Reading: Almost nobody can write perfectly. Most people cannot see their own writing mistakes. Asking someone to proofread your essay assignment before submitting it does not constitute cheating, but rather, is something you should expect to do.
Contractions: Contractions should not be used in formal writing.
Words: Use the most specific words possible and avoid the weak generalized expressions.

SOURCES FOR HELP

This document is meant to give some specific guidelines for your research essay, but is not comprehensive. There is an excellent online writing lab is maintained by Purdue University that you can refer to, and from which several required content readings in your course syllabus derived:

The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects.

There are numerous other guides to good writing. Recommended is Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style which is succinct at eighty-five pages, an entertaining easy read, and widely available.

RCC’s Student Online Support (SOS) has links to many good writing guidelines.

In this course, the following sources are required reading:

“Annotated Bibliography”

“Annotated Bibliographies” Purdue Online Writing Lab

“Evaluating Sources” in the Purdue Online Writing Lab

“Evaluation of a Peer’s Paper”

“The Report Abstract and Executive Summary” in the Purdue Online Writing Lab

EVALUATION

The following rubric indicates those areas you should be focusing on in preparing your assignment, and how the instructor will weigh these components relative to one another.

Activity/Competencies Demonstrated	Grade
Content	/60
The thesis has been thoroughly explored	/20
Substantiation valid and robust	/20
Insightful (analytical, not reportage)	/20
Communication	/25
You use language clearly and effectively	/10
Information organized intelligently and in a manner that relates holistically to the thesis	/10
Proper abstract, introduction and conclusion to paper	/5
Attention to Detail	/15
APA Formatting and text formatting	/5
Spelling and grammar	/10
Total	/100