First Writing Assignment

TUT 100.32 - Virtue in Animal and Machine - Professor Weinman



Summary:
You will write a brief essay on the subject matter of our tutorial.
Purposes:
There are several objectives for this assignment:
Expected Time:
Good writing takes work. I recommend you plan for the following (including scheduling time you can be doing other things).
Due:
8 a.m., Thursday 26 August
Turn In:
Please do the following by the beginning of class:

Assignment

Background

As a reminder, the following is an excerpt of the description for this tutorial:
What is virtue? ... Can an animal demonstrate kindness? Computers can be frustrating, but could they be outright mean? In this tutorial, we will explore these two new threads in the study of ethics and behavior. Do we want computers making ethical decisions? Who, or what, will be responsible for the actions of autonomous machines? ... Do dogs and monkeys understand and expect fairness? Do mice feel empathy? Can rats be generous? In short, what can the interactions among animals teach us about social living? Might these hold answers for whether, and how, computers could reach such an understanding?

Topic

There are a variety of major questions and issues raised in the preceding paragraph:
You may write one of two types of essays:
  1. Take and explain a position on one of the major questions listed above.
  2. Describe and explore the implications and importance of an answer (whatever it may be) to one of these major questions.
Your essay may be based on your opinion, experience, and/or general knowledge.

Suggested Organization

I recommend you follow the traditional "five-paragraph essay" format. Some advice on how to do this can be found in the college Writing Lab's "Schematization of the Typical College Essay." In particular, you should focus most of your space and effort on making your supporting points clear.
If you have not already, you should also browse Williams and McEnerney's Writing in College: A Short Guide to College Writing to help you through the stages of writing. It can be a very quick, but immensely helpful read. You will return to it many times through out the semester. (Or at least you should!)

Audience

Your audience will be your peers in other tutorial sections who perhaps have not considered any of these issues much, if at all.

Length

Your essay should be between 400-600 words.
Note that I prefer to assign writing assignments by word count, rather than pages. I have found this is a more accurate guide to content length; with experience you will hopefully get a sense of this as well. Moreover, word counts prevent the temptation to inordinate fiddling of formatting and typographical trickery.
Under normal conditions, however, the formatting guidelines below typically yield about 250 words per page. That means you will be writing approximately 1.5-2.5 pages.

Formatting

Sources

Though none are required, you should cite any sources you use at the end of your essay in APA format.

Before You Finish

You should bring to class on Thursday a smooth draft. Thus, it need not be the immaculate, finalized copy, but it should not fresh from your fingers in to the word processor, either. Smooth stands in contrast to rough, implying that you have