Source Choice and Initial Communication

Part 1: Source Choice and Initial Communication

On your own, find a suitable news article on the web about an Information Technology topic that interests you. This must have been published within the last two years. Look for trusted news sources; do not choose a journal article, “white paper,” vendor sales article, ebook, or online encyclopedia entry. If after doing the Reading you are not sure your choice is appropriate, ask your professor for additional guidance.

The source must have the following:

• Human author names identified (both first and last names, and not obvious pseudonyms)
• A date of publication (not the copyright date as explained in the Reading)

In a professionally-written email, tell your assigned classmate which source you chose. Include in your email:

• Salutation
• 1-2 sentences that explain the article’s main idea.
• The article’s full URL (but not an APA reference entry)
• A closure line and signature

The purpose of sending this email is to (1) practice email etiquette and (2) to ensure that your classmate does not choose the same news article. If by chance you have chosen the same article, the classmate whose email was sent first should keep that source, and the other classmate will have to find a different article.

Part 2: Starting a Paper / Practice in Summarizing

Complete before Sunday noon ET, if not earlier

Your paper will be a summary of your chosen news article. For all parts of the paper:

• Do not use first person (I, me, my, myself, we, us, or our).
• Do not directly quote from the article.
• Do not include mathematical formulas, code, computer commands, images, tables, or other figures.

Your content responsibilities at this stage are:

• Write a suitable descriptive title for your paper.
  • Do not name it with the course or unit number; describe the content instead.
  • Do not use the article’s title as yours; doing so is a form of plagiarism.
• Write an introduction paragraph.
  • Include the article’s title (in italics) and full author’s name (or authors’ names) in the paragraph.
  • Include a very brief overview of the main ideas.
  • As explained previously, do not refer the paper to itself (“this paper will examine,” etc.).
• After the introduction paragraph, write 2-3 more paragraphs explaining main ideas from the article.
  • Use deductive paragraphing and write mostly in active voice.
  • Include in-text citation in each of these paragraphs to acknowledge the origin of the ideas. The first sentence in each paragraph must have citation at the very least (see the Citation/Referencing PDF for further details about citation frequency).
• The introduction and detail paragraphs combined must contain 300-400 words.
• Do not write a conclusion (see below).
• Be careful that you have adequately cited your source as you already learned in the last unit. Inadequate citation can result in a charge of plagiarism.
• Write a 7th edition APA reference entry for the source and place it on a References page in the same document. Do not use Word’s citation tool or any other citation generator; you are expected to learn to create entries on your own.

Your formatting responsibilities are to use 7th edition APA formatting:

• Begin with a new (blank) Word document and complete this formatting completely on your own, without the help of any templates or developer tools. Use the instructions found in this unit’s Formatting Take-Away PDF (found in the Reading section).
• You must have a title page, body pages, and a reference page. Do not write an abstract.
• Do not include subheadings; this paper is too short to benefit from them.
• Turn on the “track changes” feature before a final save. While this is not an APA requirement, it will facilitate the rest of the instructions below.
• Save this document as IT513-Unit3-YourLastName (where your own last name is entered).

Once this is saved:

• Send your document via email to your assigned classmate by Sunday before noon ET. Failure to send this on time and communicate with your classmate may result in point loss.

Part 3: Writing a Conclusion

Complete once you have received your classmate’s document

Read the article by following the link in the reference entry.

• Make sure “track changes” has been turned on so all changes you make are clearly identified.
• Add your name to the title page: type the word “and” and then your first and last names after the classmate’s name.
• Write a conclusion.
  • This must be 80–110 words in length.
  • Do not quote from the article or use first-person writing.
  • Avoid “in conclusion,” “in summary,” and similar statements as explained previously.
• Do not edit any further; just add your name and the conclusion.
• Keep the track changes feature turned on, and do not “accept changes.”
• Save your work.
• Add your last name to the end of the document name: IT513-Unit3-ClassmateLastName-YourLastName (where your own last name is added)