This is a technical research paper and not a social statement. It must describe the technical aspects of your information technology topic. You could use your textbook to find an information technology topic and explore it in more detail for this project. Sample topics are: flash memory, MP3 file format, virtual private networks, denial-of-service attacks, information privacy (applications to support it), peer-to-peer computing, or HTMLv5. You may, if you wish, submit your topic to me by e-mail. I will provide feedback on whether the topic is appropriate. This submittal is optional.
Report Requirements In addition to the required technical content, your report must be well-written, well-organized, and have a professional appearance. Your grade will be based on both the technical content and the editorial quality of your report. The report should contain an explanation of your topic. The explanation should be written for your classmates – assume they know information to the level we covered in class, but they do not know the
details of your chosen topic. The size and metrics of the paper are defined in the project rubric. Consider including diagrams or pictures if appropriate. Your report must contain a reference section with at least 3 references. These references must be cited in your paper in order to get credit. If you copy diagrams or pictures, identify the source of each.
It has been my experience that students often find 3 or 4 websites, copy large chunks of text from them, and glue the chunks together to make a report. That is not acceptable for this report. The presence of entire sentences or paragraphs from other sources that are not quoted (even if the sources are in the reference section) will result in a poor grade or if it exceeds the limits defined by my rubric it could result in 0points for the project. You should read all your sources, completely understand the topic, and then write the report in your own words. If a significant portion of the paper is simply quoted and cited this will also result in a poor grade. Also, make sure to identify (i.e., cite) the sources of any images that you copied. I will submit your report to TurnItIn, a plagiarism detection service. I will not accept work from you that you did for another class to meet this grade requirement. Finally, if you do not submit a paper and only do a presentation, 0 points will be awarded for the project.
Do NOT write about a technology history. One paragraph maybe but not a full page.
Do NOT use a paper from another course. NJIT frowns on this recognizing practice makes perfect. You can re-use a topic just not 40% of the paper.
Do NOT pick a topic that was well talked about in class (like malware types and HTML). It will make it more difficult for you to meet the rubric criteria of providing new information to the class.Do NOT write about a technology history. One paragraph maybe but not a full page.
Writing style should not be conversational. Sentences should be concise without a lot of “fluffy” verbiage. The paper has a word count criteria but don’t meet it with useless words. Some examples are “and”, “however”, “furthermore”, “in which that”, and verb tenses of past perfect and past perfect progressive. These just cloud the information making it harder to understand what is being written