The Technology Essay will be the second one that adds research to your personal essay. The essay itself can be on any aspect of modern technology that has affected or will affect you personally such as: computer software, the internet websites, satellite TV, cellular technology, a technique or invention in modern medicine (like Lasik) or warfare, UFO’s, video games, robots, DNA or reproductive technology and many other subjects. Your topic should be a specific new gadget or invention (please do not do the Iphone or Itouch).
Be specific in your topic. For example, cell phones would be too broad, but you could focus instead on the new photo-phone technology or the latest video game (TiVo, Blu-ray, Skype, Blackberry,YouTube, Wikipedia yes; internet, the computer, no: too broad).
Your title should name your subject for example, TiVo or Second Life and should state, “The Past, Present, and Future of __________.”
Use your research to state 1)when, where and by whom the technology was invented; 2)what its current state is (features now); and 3)what you expect this technology to be like in the future. Your preview and body paragraphs should reflect this organization.
Caution: make sure you don’t just write “three features of_______” because this is not the assignment. Instead, you are asked about the history, current state, and future of the subject. If you are not writing about the evolution of the invention or device, then you have not fulfilled the assignment.
You will need at least two sources for this essay but the quotes in each body paragraph should not be more than 25% of the essay. If you have no quotes then you have not fulfilled the assignment. Again, go to the College’s library databases or out onto www.google.com. Other good sources are www.wired.com and www.cnet.com.
For this essay, the quotes will serve as your reading reference. Put quotation marks around any material taken word for word or note anything you paraphrased. Be sure to cite the sources (www.yoursource.com) at the end of your paper as an informal source page.
Again, you may set this essay up in any of the four forms of discourse. The usual sandwich structure is required and you should use first person (I). Read the selections in Technology in Collegiate Reader marking each for structure , and do the vocabulary at the end. You should know the answers to the study questions as well.
