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The prompt for the final project is  here . Read it, watch the video below, and then complete the first step in the project-crafting process — i.e., drafting a proposal — by following to the instructions below the video.

Project proposal instructions

Select a piece of internet technology — an app, a gadget, or a social media platform — that you and friends and/or family members have used or want to use — and write an approximately 500–word proposal for researching it.

***Because your research will consist, in part, of recording your own experience with the technology and in interviewing other users, you should choose a piece of tech that you yourself use, or want to try out, and that some of your friends and/or family members use, too.***

Your proposal should be organized around a research question.  That question should focus on the broader human significance of the piece of tech you’ve chosen:  i.e., on how it’s changing our political systems, or our understanding of the self, or our social relationships, or the nature of our communities, or our forms of cultural expression. In other words, your TED Talk isn’t about how cool (or how awful) your chosen piece of tech is; rather, its purpose is to consider how that piece of tech is fundamentally transforming the human experience. The goal of your research will be to make an original and insightful contribution to an ongoing scholarly and public discussion. Your research question, then, should not ask merely for a report on existing knowledge; nor should it ask for a rant. Rather, you should craft what's called an  open  question, i.e., a question whose answer isn't factual in nature, but that asks you to explore the tech's meaning. Your open question should specific (i.e., about one particular app, gadget, or platform, not about "the internet" or "social media" in general), and it should be a question that requires some scholarly research while still being of potential interest to a broad, well-educated public.  In short, your question should lead you to other texts and, from there, to original insights of your own, of the sort that will appeal to the kinds of smart, diverse audiences who attend TED Talks.

Here are some examples of good questions and some not-so-good questions:

Not-so-good questions

What can be done to prevent online bullying? This one is both too broad (i.e., it doesn’t specify a particular online platform) and too narrow (it doesn't address a topic of deep scholarly interest). How have online giants like Amazon affected the retail market? This question might have led to interesting insights 10 or 15 years ago, but by now online shopping is old news, and it’s been studied to death. So it’s highly unlike that you’ll develop any original insights with this question now. Should you buy an iPhone or an Android phone? This one won’t lead you to think about the broader human significance of the tech in question. You’d just end up with a consumer review.

Good questions

What kind of friendship is shared by Facebook friends? This question will lead you consider the nature of friendship — a topic of general interest to, well, pretty much all of us, but also of scholarly interest to philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists. The selfie: A form of narcissism or a genuine art form? Selfies are ubiquitous on Instagram, Facebook, and other forms of social media; so the broad public audience who uses these platforms is familiar with this specific photographic genre, whether or not they themselves take selfies. At the same time, the question of the artistic merits of the selfie will be of interest to art historians and theorists. How do online religious communities differ from face-to-face religious communities: a study of   Shambhala Online  (Links to an external site.) . Here, your lay audience would consist of religious adherents (in this case, Buddhists specifically), and your scholarly audience might consist of religious studies scholars or anthropologists, i.e., people who study the history of religions and the formation of human communities.

Format

Your proposal should have three paragraphs:

1. In the first paragraph, clearly state, flesh out, and contextualize your main research question and the sub-questions that follow from it. Your goal here is to make clear to me what you want to research and how it fits the assignment.

2. In the second paragraph, explain why you believe your question may lead to original, surprising insights. You won’t know what specific insights you’ll find until you arrive at them. But you ought to be able to explain why your research question promises to take you someplace interesting.

3. In the third paragraph, describe your audience and explain why you believe your question will interest both the laypersons and the scholars among them: i.e., To scholars from what particular discipline do you hope to interest? And what particular segments of the broader public do you have in mind? Explain why members of both segments will be interested in your question.

Please format your document in MLA style, following  these instructions . Name your doc as follows: Last name, first name - WRIT 1133 - Research proposal. And submit your proposal here on Canvas by Monday at noon, Mountain Time.

* A few words to the wise: I let some stuff slide in the discussion responses that that we can't afford to let slide now. So: If you don't answer all three questions above thoroughly, each one in a single, coherent, fully developed paragraph; or if you don't  proofread (Links to an external site.)  carefully; or if you don't  format  and name the doc correctly; or if you don't submit it by noon, then you will receive neither credit for nor feedback on the assignment.

Link to the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f71seOxpho

Link to Final Project Requirements

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10VBO4snTKJ3mzfJiZXiBqVBAQ9a_ZBgmjUDf2docDTs/edit?usp=sharing