Commentary Assignment
Assignment #3: Commentary
Due date: Draft due for peer review: 19 January
Stapled hard copies are due at the start of class on 24 January
Format:
- 2 pages
- 8 ½ x11 paper
- Double spaced
- MLA Format
- One outside source is required
For examples of MLA format, see the Purdue Writing Owl at:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
Content:
Using at least one outside source, write a commentary on digital living. A commentary is an informational, evaluative, or persuasive piece intended for a magazine or newspaper audience. Therefore, your sources should be attributed (integrated into your essay) not cited in a parenthetical (as in a research paper). See the essay on page 591 of your textbook for an example of attributed sources). A commentary can provide a personal opinion or insight but must be formal in tone and supported by your source.
You may use the essays in your textbook as models and as your outside sources if you wish. (These include “Grief in the Age of Facebook,” “Is Facebook Making Us Sad?” and “Hyperconnected”). You may also use visuals we will be viewing in class. These can be streamed here:
Frontline, “Digital Living:”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/digitalnation/
Frontline, “Generation Like:”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/generation-like/
“From One Second to the Next: Texting While Driving Documentary:”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk1vCqfYpos&spfreload=10
The topic of digital living includes anything about the relationship of technology to our daily lives. Examples include:
- Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites
- Texting
- Internet searches (i.e. researching ones own medical symptoms, cyber stalking, cyber bullying)
- Privacy issues
- Internet dating
- Video games
- Taking cell phone photos w/o subjects permission
