Essay

ormat: 12 point type; Times New Roman; MLA format and citations (see page 588 in your textbook for an example paper in MLA format), double-spaced, .pdf or .doc file

Length: 900-1200 words

Objective: The assignment requires you to conduct research and present an objective report for a general audience. These skills are necessary for navigating general academic research across fields, as well as professional development. Gathering quality information and presenting it clearly for a general audience is a basic necessity of professional development.

Instructions: Write a field survey using at least three articles from your chosen topic. You must use at least one academic (peer-reviewed) source, although all sources must be credible. The goal is to thoroughly and objectively give an account of the relevant literature for some situation, phenomenon, event, or trend for a general audience. Of course, you will still need to compose a central thesis, but your thesis should help you focus your subject instead of arguing a particular position. That is, this document should be more of a news item than an editorial. 

To provide a proper overview, you must note not only what experts in the field agree on, but also what they do not agree on. The goal is to present a field of research that you will later wade into and make an argument (final research paper).

Here are some possible topic starters for your field report. You must narrow from these categories:

Artificial Intelligence and 

medicine

religion

literature

philosophy

politics

film

agriculture

gaming

dating

(something else)

For instance, you may want to write a report on how writers use AI thematically in literature. Or you may want to write a report on AI innovations in the future of crop management, or how philosophers use AI to talk about free-will, or an overview of the critiques of transhumanism. 

What I’ll look for when grading:

—An objective view of the relevant literature for a specific field of research.

—Coherent and cohesive paragraphs.

—Concise sentences free from grammar and punctuation errors.

—Logical transitions between paragraphs.  

—Accurate interpretation and incorporation of source texts.