2.7 Reports

2.7 Reports

Plagiarism is not acceptable. If you plagiarize or copy the work of others you will receive full negative credit for the report.

The Learning Center is located West Campus Santa Catalina building (C),second floor, north end in room C217 (Hours: M-Th 8:00-6:00, F8:00-2:00 Phone: 206-6819). Please attach the marked up version of your document to the back of your final version. The Learning Center will, in addition to marking up your draft document, date and sign the first page and initial all of the other pages.

Please double space the draft of the report that you take to Learning Center. This will assist them in proofreading your report.

The length of the reports is expected to be between 3 and 6 pages each single spaced, 12 point type (Not counting cover sheets). If you run out of things to write about, please stop. It is the content that is important, not the length. If your report is much less than 3 pages, perhaps you need to do more research, or think a bit more about the book you just read.

Reports are due at the start of class. Failure to turn a report on time will result in the loss of 5% of your class grade per day it is late. Reports turned in late on the due date will be assessed a 5% penalty.

2.7.1 Book reports

I recommend that you take notes while reading the book you are reporting on.

Please see the reading list for possible books to read.

The reports should be your thoughts on the subjects covered in the book, NOT a summary of the books content.

The cover sheet needs to include:  

• Your name
• CIS100 & Louis Taber
• Author's name
• Title of book
• ISBN
• Copyright date
• Call number of book

2.7.2 Topic report

You will need to research a computer related topic and write a report on it for this class. It is recommended that you have between 5 and 10 references. These need to be listed after your report.

We will spend one class period in the Library where a research librarian will provide the class with pointers on doing research. This will include some of the pitfalls of Internet research and how to locate and access other possible information sources.

The topic paper will require the use of the Internet.

Some possible topics:

• Encryption (AES,DES,Twofish,RC4...)
• NSA (National Security Agency) See: ba:puzzle
• Weather forecasting
• Movie making
• Data integrity
• Privacy
• Identity Theft
• Compilers
• Super computers (Cluster and Vector)
• IC manufacturing
• The early history of the PC
• The history of minicomputers
• The history of supercomputers
• Data General Corp.
• IBM
• Digital Equipment Corp.
• Sun Microsystems
• Intel Corp.
• Cray Computers
• Linux
• SCO vs IBM lawsuit
• Trojan horses, viruses & worms
• Programming errors and the consequences
• vacuum tube computers
• Early computer memory systems
• Mechanical computation
• The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
• The Patriot Act
• Digital Signal Processors
• Embedded computers
• IT Outsourcing
• tele commuting
• The fate of the paper-less office

Please remember, the emphasis is on the computers in this class. So for any of the above topics make sure the area you research and write about is computer related.

2.7 Reports