Graduate Student Guidelines: Technology and Human Communication

You will not have to take exams, but you will have to turn in TWO, completely different, 5-7 page (single space, Times New Roman 12 font) papers which will hopefully relate in some way to your MA research. This page length does not include references.

Paper #1 (due Oct. 14) should in some way touch upon the themes we're dealing with throughout the first half of the semester: the public networked sphere, copyright, public domain, and re-write culture. You should focus on one topic area that interests you specifically (e.g., Google and it's drive to errode privacy in order to satisfy advertisers).

Paper #2 (due Dec. 14) should draw upon themes we're dealing with over the 2nd part of the course: digital learning, cell phone use, videogames, multitasking, social networks, privacy, global internet use, and the future of the Internet.

Both papers should be properly referenced and use at least 15 sources from academic books and journals (not newspapers, although the New York Times is acceptable as there is academic triangulation). There should be no grammatical or spelling errors and you should not consider these papers "drafts." I also urge you to constantly think of ways in which this research will help you towards your other MA work or is publishable in some way.