ICS 139w: Critical Writing
— ASSIGNMENT 5: PROPOSAL FOR POLICY CHANGE —

Assignment Prompt

Often we write to persuade someone to adopt our point of view or take some action. Perhaps more than any other writing, persuasive writing requires appreciation of the reader's interests and goals.

For this assignment, you will write a letter to a policy maker. In approximately two-three pages, you should take a position, recommend some action, and back it up with the best reasoning you can; don't just raise the issue or state a concern. Plan actually to send this letter; don't treat it as simply a classroom exercise.

Choose a public policy issue involving technology, an issue you care about strongly, and one about which you have some information or knowledge. It's much easier to write with conviction if you really have that conviction; it requires real talent to fake it. On the other hand, you must approach your topic with enough objectivity to understand the opposing point of view and deal with those arguments in a reasoned way. Your topic should be one that you as a computer scientist have some particular reason to address. Some current policy issues that relate to computing are security and privacy issues, online activism, copyright concerns, and patent reform. (See for example http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy for recent news stories about a variety of issues).

Choose a specific recipient, a policy maker who is an appropriate audience for your opinion, such as President Bush, Senator Boxer or Feinstein, your congressperson, or the editors of a major newspaper like the Los Angeles Times or the New York Times. If you have a specialized issue, we can suggest other appropriate policy makers. Your letter should be addressed to this person. Make sure you address your letter properly: you don't say "Dear Mr. Bush" when addressing the President. (Search for "forms of address" in Google if you need to).

Your conclusion should recommend some action on someone's part; don't simply raise the issue and complain about the status quo. Moreover, be sure that the recipient of your letter is someone who has the power to take the action you recommend. Below are some broad guidelines:

If you want a new law introduced (or if you want to support or oppose currently proposed legislation), write a legislator (Senators Feinstein or Boxer, your local member of Congress, or the chair of the relevant House or Senate committee).
If you want some action by the Executive Branch (e.g., for the Justice Department to drop the antitrust case against Microsoft), write to the person in charge of that branch (the Attorney General in the case of the Justice Department).
The most effective thing the President can do is move public opinion: you should write to the President if you want him to take a public stand on some issue (or if you want him to sign or veto a particular piece of legislation that has passed out of Congress). The President does not officially originate or introduce legislation.
You can of course also write to policy-makers in countries outside of the U.S.

In particular, you need to say what you want, right up front, and then give the reasons. It's an unfortunate and brutal fact that high-profile officials receive hundreds or thousands of letters every day; they have staff who screen them, perhaps just reading the first paragraph and tallying the letter as "pro" or "con" on an particular issue. It's the rare letter that's so well written that the staff person will read the whole thing, and even rarer still that they'll pass it along to the official him- or herself. Of course it's that kind of gemlike letter that we're aiming for, but for it to pass the first threshold, it has to state up front what it wants the official to do.

Note that if you took Writing 39C at UCI and wrote a research paper on a technical policy issue, you may write about the same issue here. But remember that a letter to a policy maker is different from a research paper: this letter is shorter, it won't cite research sources as completely and meticulously, and it will recommend to the recipient a particular course of action and address explicitly the reasons why the recipient should take that action. You can write about the same topic as Assignments 2 & 4, but you should rewrite your arguments to be addressed to a policy-maker and focused on a specific course of action.

This assignment should be 2-3 pages in length.

Deadlines

A draft of this assignment for peer editing is due in class on Wed 08/24.

A final, polished version of the assignment is due Fri 08/26 at 11:59pm to the EEE Dropbox.

Scoring Rubric

Scoring will be based on The Upper Division Writing Rubric. An assignment specific rubric can be found below:

5pt - Critical Thinking and Analysis

1pt - Takes a clear stance on a public policy issue involving technology
2pt - Is targeted at a specific and appropriate audience for affecting this policy
2pt - Proposes some reasonable form of action on the part of the audience

5pt - Evidence and Examples

3pt - Provides strong arguments and examples in support of proposed action
1pt - Appropriately uses reliable, external evidence as support; cited in-text
1pt - Addresses or acknowledges counterarguments

5pt - Organization and Structure

1pt - Position is stated clearly at the beginning of the paper
2pt - Argument follows from a series of understandable connections
1pt - Arguments, reasons, and evidence are appropriately divided into paragraphs, sections, and sentences
1pt - Each sentence follows from the previous

5pt - Writing, Grammar, and Language

2pt - Is free of grammatical errors and shows evidence of proofreading
1pt - Is in proper letter format and appropriately addresses the target audience
1pt - Uses words, terms, and rhetorical devices appropriately
1pt - The writing has effective style: easy flow, rhythm, and cadence

ICS 139w: Critical Writing — ASSIGNMENT 5: PROPOSAL FOR POLICY CHANGE —