Seattle Newmediapedia

Basic Concepts of New Media

 

Dr. Philip N. Howard

Department of Communication

University of Washington

 

Write a 500-word essay for our Seattle Newmediapedia.  Some items will warrant a 1000 word essay, and you may team up with a partner to author these longer essays.  Your entry has been assigned and if you asked for a specific entry, we made the effort to give it to you. 

 

The Essay.  The essay should follow the outline of this Draft Template.  There are some tips for planning and writing your article.  Discuss the who, what, when, where, why and how of the entry.  This may involve visiting the library for news records, business plans, annual SEC filings, and patent information.  You are welcome to contact your people or companies directly, but remember that a special searching website has been prepared for our class.  Since this is public scholarship, avoid quotations from copyrighted works wherever possible so that you do not have to provide in-text citations.  You are welcome to paraphrase and summarize since you have to list 5 items for “further reading”.  For this assignment, use the Chicago Manual of Style writing guidelines and the format of these 5 items.  Normally we say it is unethical to plagiarize by copying more than a phrase or two from someone else, but if your entry goes live and some out there catches plagiarism, it will be deeply embarrassing for you and the University of Washington.  This is the first draft of your encyclopedia entry.  The second draft will go online here:

 

http://depts.washington.edu/pedia/

 

Assignment Goals.  First, the goal of this assignment is to involve you in a collaborative, large-scale, public scholarship project.  Second, this assignment will encourage you to develop and practice your writing style.  Third, this assignment will teach you about new media businesses and innovations in our city.

 

Assignment Grading.  The first draft of your encyclopedia entry, Version 1, is worth 20 points, and is due midnight on Friday November 5th.  The second draft of your encyclopedia entry, Version 2, is worth another 20 points, and is due midnight on Friday November 12th.  This assignment will be graded according to the standard grading method in the course, with expectations of good ideas, perfect spelling, and careful grammar.  Since our encyclopedia will be going ‘live’ before the end of the class, we will be extra tough in grading grammar and spelling.  Be sure to review the guidelines for grading and labeling your essays.  For example, if Ted Coopman submits his first draft, Version 1, it would be labeled “coopmant_version1.doc”.  A week later, if Ted Coopman submits his second draft, Version 2, it would be labeled “coopmant_version2.doc”.