Assignment #2 - Creating Solid Research Questions

Question about Audience

• Why will my readers care about this issue? The U.S. has the highest number of broadband subscribers in the world, yet is extremely slow compared to other countries with the fastest speeds.
• What will my readers want or need to know about this issue? What is slowing the internet down in the US. What technology are they using which is different than the fastest ones.
• What do my readers already know about this issue? That internet is faster in European and Asian countries.
  
• What do I want my readers to learn about the issue? I want my readers to be able to learn why the internet is so slow in the U.S. and what we can take from other countries to improve our broadband speeds.
• If I am trying to persuade my readers of something, how easily will they be persuaded? They will easily be persuaded because research and statistics don't lie when numbers are involved and they can see what they are doing wrong.
  
• What will my readers use my writing for? They will use it to learn how they can make improvements to their network.
  

Narrowing Research Question

• Time-- The time will have to start in the early 1990's since that it was countries like South Korea began their massive strides in internet. 
• Place—US compared to Asia.
• Population-- internet subscribers
• Viewpoint-- social

Defining Key words and concepts

• What are the key terms of your question? internet download speed
• What are the central concepts in your research question? improvement

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Broaden and narrow vocabulary

• Check key words and concepts—Are there related items to these words/concepts? Can we categorize parts to narrow even more? No

Questions about research

• Is the question easily and fully researchable? Yes
• What type of information do I need to answer the research question? What different types of technology are other countries using? Is there enough funding to research improvements in Comcast.

• Is the scope of this information reasonable (e.g., can I really research 30 online writing programs developed over a span of 10 years?) Yes I can see the development since the 90s since that is when the major improvements in the fastest in the world were starting to take off.
• Given the type and scope of the information that I need, is my question too broad, too narrow, or okay?
• What sources will have the type of information that I need to answer the research question (journals, books, Internet resources, government documents, people)
• The types of sources that I will use will include journals, internet resources and government documents.

Assignment #1 Prompt #2

The purpose of each paragraph in the introduction memo assignment are as follows:

#1 To give the reader an idea of what my document is going to talk about and contain.

#2 To give the reader some background information from high school how I became interested in my future profession.

#3 To tell the reader about my experiences at Penn State while working towards my future profession.

#4 To describe to the reader about my future field and to tell about the average day of a person in that field.

#5 To tell the reader the types of communication that are performed in my field and to tell them about the types of writing that are performed. It describes the new methods that are being used and developed.

#6 To tell the reader about authority in journalism and how one attains an authority position.

Assignment #1 Prompt #1

When I was a young my writing process used to start out with me brainstorming by making a web. That was always my favorite brainstorming exercise, but as I got older, I sort of out grew that. My writing process now begins with me usually sitting in my desk chair for a couple minutes, just thinking about that I want to write. If I do this, I can usually plan out most of my paper in my head. Depending on what I am writing, if it is something long like a story for a class I will sometimes write down all that I want to cover in the writing and have a sort of map for where I need to remember to go while writing.
From this point, I usually just start writing. The best way for me to write is in a room by myself which nothing on to distract me. I just start writing and I usually take off. Once I start I usually am fine for writing my entire papers so can write a good deal until I find it necessary to take a break. While I'm writing I'm typically that kind of person that edits while I write. If I notice I miss spell something or maybe misplaced a comma, etc, I usually have to go back and fix it. I still do make mistakes though.
The way that I edit is that I usually print it out and edit it on paper, making all corrections that I see then make the corrections on screen. After this I usually reread and edit it on screen. Sometimes I might typically do these steps more than once, depending how important the writing is. The things that I look for when I do revise is words that I misspelled, punctuations that are out of place and I also usually edit the way I write things. Sometimes I can write things easier and clearer than I do the first time. This is my writing process from invention to final copy.