Write an essay that provides a descriptive understanding of one of the following ideas
or machines from the history of computing:
ENIAC
and that also describes the effect of this work on the modern world.
A detailed description of the idea or machine you have chosen is required, giving the
reader a good idea of the underlying principles that make the machine work or that
explain the idea. You should provide further information about the historical setting
and the individual or team that developed the machine or idea. You also need to
identify and explain any impacts that your chosen idea or machine has had on the
modern world and the development of technology. Although it may be difficult to see
a direct impact, there will be indirect effects where a machine or idea has influenced
the development of another machine or idea that has more obviously influenced the
present age. As an example, you may examine the influence of the von Neumann
machine on the design of modern computer architecture. You may concentrate on a
single issue or impact in detail, or discuss several issues in less detail. However, the
issues you discuss should relate to the general domain of modern information
technology.
The essay should be written in the style of a descriptive explanation. You should
briefly introduce the historical setting and provide details of the people involved (e.g.
their previous work, any abiding ambitions, etc.) but the main body of the essay
should explain your topic in sufficient depth that your reader will gain a good
understanding of the ideas involved. If you are writing about Babbage's Difference
Engines, then you will need to explain the method of differences and how this can be
implemented mechanically. If you are writing about the Turing Machine, then you
will need to explain how such a machine can execute a simple program. If in doubt,
seek advice from your tutor.
To give coherence to your work, the essay should be divided up into distinct sections,
starting with an introduction and ending with a conclusion or summary, with each
middle section having an identifiable theme and title.
The assignment is particularly concerned with the quality of your writing style and
with your ability to effectively research a topic. Therefore, you should be applying the
tutorial material on writing style, and consulting and referencing several authoritative
sources, including the original work that describes your chosen topic.
The main aim of the
assessment is for all students to achieve an adequate level of writing skills and to
demonstrate correct use of the APA referencing style.
Guidelines for the
Foundations of Computing and Communication Essay
Introduction
The first sentence of an introduction needs to capture the reader’s interest and make a
general assertion about the topic. For instance, you could say “The analytical engine
was one of the most important and influential inventions of the nineteenth century.”
You then need to briefly justify your assertion, and give the reader a flavour of the
topic.
The main purpose of the introduction is to capture the reader’s interest and give a
general background to the rest of the essay. One approach could be to describe the
historical background of the machine or idea you have chosen. For Babbage’s analytical
engine, this could be a description of the industrial revolution in England, looking
at the state of technology and science, etc. Then, the introduction needs to summarise
the rest of the document. The idea is for the reader to get an overall idea of the content
of the full essay, so that he or she can decide whether it is worth reading further.
Therefore, the introduction should end with a guide to the rest of the document. For
example, you could say: “In the next section we introduce how a Turing machine
works, highlighting the simplicity and originality of Turing’s thinking. Then we examine
how Turing used the Turing machine idea to …”
Writing the Middle Sections
The middle sections, or body of the document, are where you present the details of
your work. Each section requires a well-defined topic, with each paragraph addressing
a single aspect of that topic. It should be easy for a reader to identify the topic you are
discussing at any point in the essay. Paragraphs and sections need to be linked by
some kind of logical association. This may be chronological, i.e. starting with the
original ideas that preceded the development of the machine or idea and then describing
how the machine or idea evolved year by year, or you may prefer to divide a topic
up by the different areas needed for an overall understanding, such as the mathematical
theory behind a machine, the principles by which it operates, and the details of the
physical mechanism.
Whichever categorisation you select, it is important to make things obvious to the
reader. Section topics are given by the section title, but the first sentence should also
make the topic clear. Sub-paragraphs, within a section, can be given optional subheadings,
but the topic of the paragraph should emerge clearly with or without a heading.
A good way to think of sections and paragraphs is that they are like mini-essays in
their own right. Each section needs an introductory and concluding paragraph, to introduce
and describe the section’s topic and then to summarise what the section has
said. Just like the middle sections of the essay, the middle paragraphs of a section provide
the actual details, with all the details relating to the topic of the paragraph. Similarly,
a paragraph requires an introductory and concluding sentence. A good concluding
sentence not only sums up the main point of a paragraph, but can also provide a
link to the next paragraph (this may sometimes require two sentences, depending on
your writing style and the general flow of the essay).
The main quality that should emerge from your work is that of an organic unity.
Everything in the essay should link together and flow. This requires planning the
document in advance, so that you understand the logical structure behind what you are
saying. Then each sentence should be logically linked to its successor, both in terms
of content and with the judicial use of connectives (i.e., hence, therefore, in addition,
consequently, as a result of this, etc). Sentences link to form paragraphs, which logically
link to form sections, which create the finished document.
Formatting
The basic layout of your essay should follow this document as closely as possible.
The standard font for an assignment is 12pt Times New Roman, with paragraphs fully
justified and hyphenation turned on (if you are using Microsoft Word, then Tools-
>Language->Hyphenation allows you to turn on hyphenation). Section headings are
14pt bold font, titles are 16pt bold and paragraphs have their first line indented (except
the first paragraph of each section). All essays must also have an explicit Introduction
section, a Conclusion or Summary section, and a References section.
Please note, a print-out of the assignment must be handed in along with an electronic
submission on learning@griffith and it is your responsibility to be able to produce
another copy on demand (in case your assignment goes missing).
Referencing
Your essay must be based on a range of source documentation, and all sources must
be properly referenced. For the purposes of this course, we shall use the American
Psychological Association (APA) referencing standard. All referencing standards are
precise, and the APA standard is no exception. While there is an APA publication
manual, which would be cited as follows: (American Psychological Association,
2001), there are other on-line resources that explain in detail how to reference printed
material and electronic resources (Lesley University, 2005). You are strongly advised
to use these sources. Please pay special attention in laying out your references and citations,
as the correct use of indents, commas, semi-colons, ampersands, etc, must be
strictly respected in academic writing.
In particular, you must use in text citations to show the sources of your work. As
you know from part one of the assignment, when you use information you have found
from the literature (i.e. books, articles and web pages) then you must include the
source in your list of references. However, this is only the first part of referencing.
Every time you rely on information from one of your references in your essay you
also have to provide an in text citation. For example, Gottfried Leibniz is famous for
inventing the stepped drum mechanism (Thornton, 2007). In the previous sentence,
the in text citation links back to the course textbook. If you use an in text citation
there must be a corresponding reference in your reference list and the name that starts
the reference must also be the name you use in the in text citation. Conversely, every
reference in your reference list must be cited in the essay at least once (otherwise it is
a bibliography).
An in text citation simply contains the name of the author followed by a comma
and the date of publication all contained in brackets. You can also include the page
number in a citation. This is optional if you have paraphrased a source (i.e. expressed
it in your own words), but if you quote something then you must include the page
number. For example, one of the basic themes of the course textbook “is that technology
is an outer expression of the increasing ability of human intelligence to form
and manipulate abstract formal representations of the world” (Thornton, 2007, p. xiii).
If you quote more than 40 words then you should indent the whole quotation (for an
example see page 33 of the course textbook).
In text citations where there are two authors are handled as follows: Heisenberg’s
proposal of the uncertainty principle (Wheeler & Zurek, 1983) caused the whole notion
of determinism in science to be questioned. Citations with more than two authors
just contain the first author’s name followed by et al., as when referencing the paper
that redated the famous Ishango bone (Brooks et al., 1995).
Conclusion
A summary or conclusion (as with an introduction) is a necessary part of an essay,
and is used to sum up the body of the material presented. Therefore, it should not introduce
any new idea rather it should pull out and simply re-express the most important
ideas that have already been explained. An exception to this rule is the final paragraph
of a conclusion, which may be used to describe any future work that may arise
out of the ideas you have presented.
In a piece of persuasive writing, the conclusion is often used to drive the main
point of an argument home to the reader. However, in this essay, the purpose is to be
descriptive and explanatory. Therefore, the conclusion should present an overview of
the machine or idea you have described and emphasise how your topic has influenced
the modern world.
References
American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual (5th ed.). Washington,
DC: American Psychological Association.
Brooks, A., Helgren, D., Cramer, J., Franklin, A., Hornyak, W., Keating, J., Klein, R.,
Rink, J., Schwarcz, H., Smith, J., Stewart, K., Todd, N., Verniers, J., & Yellen, J.
(1995). Dating and context of three Middle Stone Age sites with bone points in
the Upper Semliki Valley, Zaire. Science, 268, 548-553.
Lesley University. (2005). APA citation format. Retrieved February 8, 2006, from
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Thornton, J. (2007). The foundations of computing and the information technology
age: A historical, sociological and philosophical enquiry. Sydney: Pearson Education.
Wheeler, J. A., & Zurek, H. (1983). Quantum theory and measurement. Princeton,
New Jersey: Princeton University Press.