Assignment for Paper Four: Putting It All Together

Prompt:
Now that you have done a significant amount of fieldwork, secondary research, and analysis of your technology and its use, it is time to put all that you have done together into one coherent, cohesive, and cogent document. This paper should be at least ten to twelve pages in length, and it should address the wide range of your work on this topic over the course of the semester. Think of this paper as your chance to tie all the different threads of your analysis together into a overarching interpretation. Of course, the research you’ve done over the semester has revealed that your topics are too large to be addressed in their totality, so you’ll need to make choices about what to focus on in order to have an in-depth analysis.

Write a ten to twelve page paper in which you do all of the following:

• Discuss your positioning, assumptions, and preconceptions about your chosen technology that you had before you began your fieldwork. You should be able to draw on your first paper to help you out with this.
• Discuss and analyze spaces and artifacts associated with your technology and its use. You should be able to draw on your second paper for this.
• Discuss and analyze secondary research related to your technology and its use. You should be able to draw on your third paper for this.
• Discuss and analyze any interactions or interviews you had with people about your technology and how they use/don’t use it.

While these four aspects need to be included in your paper, they don't have to be organized in four different sections or in the order they're listed in here. In addition, you’ll need to:

• Develop an interpretation (or even multiple interpretations) of the technology and/or how people use it using all of the observations, interviews, and research you have conducted so far. Your main task in this paper is to convey this interpretation to readers who may or may not be familiar with this technology, but certainly aren’t experts on it.
• Focus on answering questions like we’ve discussed frequently in class: “why do people do X with the technology,” “what aspects of the technology lead to certain kinds of uses,” “how do people resist traditional practices,” “what people/organizations influence how others use or perceive the technology.”
• Develop an organization for the paper that goes beyond the “Frankenstein” technique of pasting your previous papers together. See Ch. 8 for some ideas as well as good advice for large-scale revision.
• Include an informative and interesting title for your paper.
• Proofread your paper carefully before handing it in.

Remember, this is not a list of questions to ask, and your paper should not be organized according to the bullet points. Rather, you should develop a main idea (or thesis) about your technology using everything you know about it. This main idea (or thesis) should reflect the research and analysis you've done; in other words, it shouldn't state something immediately obvious to an outsider or someone who hasn’t studied it extensively.

Format Requirements

• This paper must be at least ten, double-spaced pages long, and if you plan on going more than twelve, clear it with Derek first.
• A “page” is a sheet of paper with at least 250 words on it. Set your documents to have one-inch margins all around, and use the Times New Roman (12 point) font.
• Your name, my name, the course section, and the date should appear in the upper-left corner of the first page (do not use a cover sheet). Your last name and the page number should appear in the upper-right corner of every page (use “header” function).

Important Dates

• Thursday, Nov 11: Frankenstein draft due in class.
• Sunday, Nov 14: drafts due to group members and Derek by email. As always, your final paper grade will be affected by late or incomplete drafts.
• Monday Nov 15 through Thursday Nov 18: Conferences. No class on these days.
• Friday Nov 19: Paper 4 due in Derek’s mailbox by 11:00 AM. Papers turned in later than 11:00 AM will not be received by Derek until after Thanksgiving Break, creating a large late penalty.