Essay due on November 1st, 2019 at 5pm EASTERN TIME. Directions on attachment. Extremely important, this is also a rough draft. I will be picking the same person who does the rough draft to do the final essay when it is due.

Capstone Essay (Draft) The purpose of this assignment is three-fold: To give you the opportunity to use a critical perspective to analyze a recent world event. To give you the opportunity to use much of what you’ve learned this semester. To help you better understand how people, movements or technology alter global cultures. Overview Write a 1,200-word essay not including a bibliography that explains, from a critical and global perspective, how the trajectory of this event was shaped by various information systems. Your goal is to evaluate the authenticity and credibility of the information reported about this world event, so the essay should demonstrate your understanding of the diverse and complex nature of information, bringing order to, and maximizing the value of, the information for the audience it reaches. Your essay will help you come full circle, in that you must explain how we know what we know about this world event. Thus, your essay should state a thesis argument, and your paper should analyze, how the event was covered or how information about the event was manipulated or suppressed. Finally, your essay should address what all that means on a global level. Guidelines Your writing should CRITICALLY examine HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW about your event. You need to challenge assumptions and expand the bounds of debate. Don’t give a recap of the event. As voracious readers, your instructor and writing coach already KNOWS what happened. Think instead of how the public got the information and how it might have been influenced – manipulated, suppressed, etc. Look at all the different players and facets involved in the event. Media, business, government, and the public from countries around the world may have been affected. Be careful of sweeping generalizations such as, “the media only want sensational stories”, or, “the government always lies.” Back up your claims with facts and expert opinions that are cited. The concepts covered in the course should be the building blocks of your essay. Descriptions of events do not constitute analysis, which is the application of learned concepts to create new ways of looking at the world.   Answer some or all of these questions: How does the rhetorical triangle apply in your analysis? Who’s keeping secrets? Who’s penetrating secrets? Who’s manipulating information? How is information created, harvested, conveyed, and used? Follow these steps: For the first purpose, you should select a national or international event and do a thorough-going read of articles related to that event. Imagine that you are tearing apart an engine, piece by piece, examining every part for wear, tear and defective workmanship. Remember, information usually is a collection of a lot of moving parts. Challenge assumptions, expand the bounds of debate and make sure your analysis is beneficial to global society. For the second purpose, how do the readings/web explorations this semester frame your examination of the event? What role, if any, did secrecy, revelation, intellectual property, freedom of information or suppression play in this event ? Review readings and video lectures to focus your thinking. Was there an example of how lies protect secrets or how secrets protect lies? Or, perhaps, how was rhetoric used to shape and convey the event? Use every lens you’ve been provided this semester to examine the event and select those that bring it into focus. You may use any chapter from your text as supporting information. Outside academic sources (journals, books, etc) may also be used. If you do that, you’ll be in great shape to tackle the third purpose, which is to determine how a person, movement or technology influenced this event. How did one or more of those alter the global culture? How do any (or all) of those bring desirable or undesirable change? Add Visual Media and Bibliography Visual media are an important part of the final essay. Use images, videos, and web links as evidence to illustrate your thesis. You should have a minimum of 5 articles or web sources, one of which is scholarly. Use MLA for your citation format, but don’t worry about indentations or margins. Remember to examine everything that is covered in class: readings, assignments, discussions, tutorials, as potential tools useful for crafting your final assignment. What does an excellent essay look like? As you write and revise your final essay, compare your work to those in top-scoring essays by students in a previous semester. Study how they scrutinized their events and applied the analytical tools gained during the semester.   Important:  To prevent cheating, we won't allow any subjects for the capstone whose events take place before June 1, 2019.