Term Paper Assignment
As a final semester project for this course, you will examine the life and accomplishments of a technologist (a person who has invented or significantly contributed to the development or popularization of a particular technology or industry). A list of possible people includes but is NOT limited to:
Henry Ford
Thomas Edison
John Browning (famous gunsmith)
Clarence Birdseye (frozen foods)
Jacques Cousteau (co-inventor of the aqualung)
Steve Jobs (co-founder and CEO of Apple)
Steve Wozniak (co-founder and early product engineer at Apple)
Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft)
Edwin Land (inventor of the Polaroid camera)
Elon Musk (founder and CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX)
Hedy Lamarr (co-inventor of frequency hopping spread spectrum technology)
William. Kellogg (breakfast cereal)
Ransom Olds (founder of Oldsmobile)
Andrew Carnegie (early industrialist)
Stephanie Kwolek (inventor of Kevlar)
Bette Nesmith Graham (inventor of Liquid Paper)
Rear Adm. Grace Murray Hopper, USN (inventor of COBOL computer programming language)
Henry J. Heinz (ketchup inventor)
Rudolf Diesel (inventor of diesel engine)
R. Stanford Ovshinksy, (developer of advanced battery technology)
Werner Von Braun (German rocket scientist, father of U.S. space program)
Lee Deforest (pioneer of radio technology, almost inventor of the vacuum tube)
Reginald Fessenden (pioneer of radio and sonar technology)
Harley J. Earl (General Motors chief designer 1927-1959)
Alan Turing (Mathematician, WWII code breaker, inventor of digital communication)
Jack Kilby (inventor of the integrated circuit)
Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Christine Darden, Mary Jackson (NASA mathematicians profiled in Hidden Figures)
Others mentioned in our textbook, the How We Got to Now video series or that you are otherwise aware of.
In your paper, you should address the following questions;
What did this person invent or to what area of technology did he or she contribute?
What motivated this individual to accomplish what he or she accomplished?
Who or what influenced or inspired this person?
What was this individual’s educational background
What problems or challenges did he or she face?
How did this person’s accomplishment(s) affect society.
What was this person’s role in the development of the technologies to which they contributed? Was this individual a hands-on inventor, a business person, or both?
I am more interested in this person’s life as it relates to the area(s) of technology to which they contributed and less in interesting trivia such as Hedy Lamarr’s film career or the fact that Steve Jobs once dated folk singer Joan Baez or that Bette Nesmith Graham’s son Michael Nesmith was a member of the ‘60s TV pop band the Monkees.
Your paper should be in MLA format and at least four(4) pages long, not including the Works Cited page. It should be in 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, with one-inch margins. You may use the template on our Moodle page to ensure that you have the proper format. Your sources should include at least two (2) scholarly resources. NOTE: Wikipedia is NOT a scholarly (or particularly reliable) source. You must use in-text citations when you quote or refer to any outside information. You may include illustrations, charts, graphs, or tables as long as the source for the information contained in them is properly cited.
Please DO NOT put your paper into any sort binder or cover. A simple staple in the upper left corner is sufficient. There is also no need for a title page. You may submit your report electronically via Moodle. Acceptable formats are MS Word (.doc or .docx), OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice (.odt), Apple Pages (.pages) or Google Docs. Do not submit MS Works (.wps) files. I have no way of opening them. The document should be submitted as a single file, that is, DO NOT submit the Works Cited page or illustrations as separate files from the report itself.
. It is worth 150 points or 15 percent of your final grade. Points will be assessed as follows:
Criteria
Description
Points
Content
What does the report have to say about the topic? Is the topic covered thoroughly, logically, and coherently?
65
Sources
Are you using appropriate (i.e., scholarly) sources?*
20
Format
Does the report follow MLA format?
25
Citations
Are all sources properly documented, both in-text and on the Works Cited page?
40
Total
150
*Please note that any work of historical fiction (e.g., the 2014 feature film Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher or the 2016 film Hidden Figures) is not considered an acceptable source because the events depicted in them are frequently distorted, misrepresented, or just plain made up to enhance entertainment value.
