Assignment

5: Final

Due: Dec. 6-10

CFP: Strange but Simple: The Rhetoric of Everyday Technological Change

Editor: Professor Will Kurlinkus (University of Oklahoma)
Contact Email: wkurlinkus@gmail.com

We seek 5-7 page single-spaced chapters for our edited collection Strange but Simple: The
Rhetoric of the Everyday Technological Change. Where much recent scholarship on technology
has focused on cutting edge technological communities, in this collection we wish to explore
trailing edge technological change, those techno-cultural trends that remain ubiquitous,
ignored, simply there. As technology theorist Marc Wiser claimed more than 25 years ago, the
most profound technologies are those that disappear. More specifically, were interested in how
new technologies slowly leak into old communities, cultures, and spaces, leisurely changing the
actions, values, and ways of thinking that go on therethe recent uptake of knitting by 20-
something hipsters, the elderly joining Facebook, the constant presence of cellphones in college
classrooms, the way Facebook has changed the way we mourn the dead. We imagine the best
submissions will:
1. Select a community and technology and show how that technology has profound but
unnoticed effects on the ways members of that community act. How has Facebook changed
the very definition of what it means to be a grandparent? How has Snapchat changed the
definition of a sexual relationship? How have cell phones changed the nature of the college
classroom?
2. Include primary research (3 interviews)interviews with several members of that
community with different perspectives on the topic.
3. Include secondary research (5 sources)speak to pre-existing theories in rhetoric,
composition, and technological studies that have been written on this subject.
4. Include some kind of rhetorical analysis: though we dont want simplistic and empty
references to rhetorical concepts like ethos, pathos, and logos, we do want nuanced
interpretations of communication, attentional economics, writing, learning, persuasion,
emotion, ethics, memory, audiences, media, etc.

[Requirements]:

5-7 single-spaced pages,

2 footnotes
2 properly-formatted images with descriptive captions that are used as evidence or examples in the
paper and referred to directly
At least 3 sub-headings (which means at least three different parts to your analysiswhether three
different types of examples, three different theories/arguments, etc.)
Quotes from three interviews
Refers to a spatial/site observation
Quotes from five sources
Properly formatted works cited page
Analyzes rhetoric (communication, argument, persuasion, manipulation, etc.)
Analyzes technological change
1 set of bullet points
Research methods section (explains how and why you selected your subjects, what questions you
asked, etc.)

Assignment 5: Rubric
_____________[Requirements] (10 points)

_____________[Primary Research] (20 points)

Researcher uses primary source interviews and spatial observations

Researcher treats subjects/interviews as expert data that shapes his/her argument
Primary source quotes are not just thrown in the paper but explained, analyzed, and referred
tosources are introduced and outroduced. Researcher fully explains to the reader who
the primary sources are, how they are experts, and what the primary source quotes mean in
terms of his/her argument.
Research methods (with list of interview questions and description of why sources were
selected) seem clear and unbiased.
Pseudonyms are used to protect subjects

_____________[Secondary Research] (20 points)

Researcher uses secondary sources to set the scene for his/her own argument (they say/I
say): researchers agree with, disagree with, or agree with part of sources and explains how
their primary research informs this decision.
Researcher puts secondary and primary sources in conversation with one another (i.e., In his
article Dr. Johnson describes sexting as an unpopular activity on college campuses; however,
in an interview with Tony Marcquez, college Freshman at OU, Marquez stated, I sext with my
girlfriend several times a week.)
Secondary source quotes are not just thrown in the paper but explained, analyzed, and
referred tosources are introduced and outroduced. Researcher fully explains to the
reader who the secondary sources are, how they are experts, and what the primary source
quotes mean in terms of his/her argument.

_____________[Analysis] (20 points)

Researchers starts the paper by explaining why this topic is important and interesting
Every example is analyzed
Researchers avoid broad statements in the introduction and conclusions of their arguments
Arguments are sufficiently limitedresearchers dont make grand claims about all athletes,
college students, etc., from limited data pools
Researchers don't necessarily need or want a proposal for change. It is clear their goal is to
analyze culture as it is.
Researchers attempt to remain unbiased, making sure they are open to the positive and
negative aspects of their topic.
Kairos: researchers show how the analysis of this topic is interesting and important right
now.

_____________[Examples] (10 points)

Researchers give numerous and interesting examplesusing the descriptive skills they
learned in the memoir
Researchers show (through primary quotes) rather than tell

Researchers define the key terms of their arguments

Researchers clearly have (PEApoint, evidence, analysis for every main claim) all examples
are clearly explained and linked to the main point.

_____________[Relationship to CFP] (10 points)

Somewhere in the analysis of the paper the researcher is clearly talking about how
technology has changed a community
Somewhere in the analysis the researcher Include some kind of rhetorical analysis: though
we dont want simplistic and empty references to rhetorical concepts like ethos, pathos, and
logos, we do want nuanced interpretations of communication, attentional economics, writing,
learning, persuasion, emotion, ethics, memory, audiences, media, etc.

_____________[Writing, Proofreading, and Formatting] (10 points)

See common errors sheets 1&2 at: https://english1113a.wordpress.com/errors-to-avoid/

Look back to previous assignment sheets to make sure you understand what goes in an
introduction and conclusion

_______________[Final Grade]