INP and Essay

Making Sense of the Internet Project and Essay (Please read through this FULL form!)

For this project:

You will be investigating online NEWS sources and developing some critical reading skills for perusing the great blob that is the internet. This assignment has three parts: the assignment below (75 points), an in-class component on the last day (15 points) and your essay (70 points). The in-class component can only be done in class.

Define these words

Bias

Publisher

Verify

INP

Use your own words throughout the project

1. Evaluate news source
1. Select three NEWS articles online from library website that are from three separate sources dating after 2012. To access NEWS on the library website, go to articles then on “All database types” scroll down and click on NEWS. Select from Newspapers plus, CQ researcher, California newstand and Pro quest news stand and research library.
1. one from a newspaper or news source,
2. one from a magazine and
3. one from a blog
2. The article must
1. have an author
2. must have an “about” page that tells about the site
3. be at least one full page (over 250 words) but not more than 1000 words.
4. Your article should be NEWS on your final project topic (not a tech product review or a human interest profile or a discussion of tech fashion),
5. If the article does not have a date or an author, find another article
3. Do NOT use news aggregators like yahoo news. Only use news sites that create their own news. If you aren’t sure, don’t use it. You can start your search with yahoo but follow the story to its original site.
4. Once you’ve located the stories you would like to use, post the MLA citation with the URL on the Eng117 blog under INPcitations post, english117vasudeva.blogspot.com. There can be NO duplicate articles, so check the list before you post your own. You can NOT use articles that other people have posted, so check the blog to make sure your article has not been used.
5. Go  to  https://docs.google.com/document/d/18WcfPmDj2dbWOqRTDfjJR2NVM-riagqjkDD3-Nd9pmQ/edit?usp=sharing
6. Answer the questions on the chart for all three articles. You will do one chart for each article. (75 points). You may not be able to find ALL the information the chart asks for, for each source. But you need at least 80% of it. If you’ve gone off base, you might have to go back and pick another source if you can’t answer the chart’s questions. I will also look up this material so please do a thorough job.

This part of your project will be due according to the due date for the INP on your schedule.

Internet News Project Essay

Essay Instructions

You have to decided to start a new internet news company. Your job is to convince a group of investors from the NEH (the national endowment for the humanities, http://www.neh.gov/ ) that your internet news agency would be a good investment. You must address at least three of the counter arguments and have at least three reasons why they should invest.  Your investors are the NEH, a government organization that only invests in projects believed to be good for society. Thus, your reasons can't be to make money; your essay must argue why your internet news company would benefit society.  

NEH Mission statement:

“Because democracy demands wisdom, NEH serves and strengthens our republic by promoting excellence in the humanities and conveying the lessons of history to all Americans. The Endowment accomplishes this mission by awarding grants for top-rated proposals examined by panels of independent, external reviewers.

NEH grants typically go to cultural institutions, such as museums, archives, libraries, colleges, universities, public television, and radio stations, and to individual scholars. The grants:

• strengthen teaching and learning in schools and colleges
• facilitate research and original scholarship
• provide opportunities for lifelong learning
• preserve and provide access to cultural and educational resources
• strengthen the institutional base of the humanities”

(from, NEH website, http://www.neh.gov/about, June 10, 2015. )

vocab: humanities, wisdom, reliable

1. First, check out the NEH website to familiarize yourself with projects they fund. What are they looking for?
2. questions to consider
1. The NEH states, democracy demands wisdom, what role do you see for news in that commitment? Another way of asking that question, how can news facilitate or detract from democracy?
2. Why is news important to society and democracy?
3. what kind of news is best for society?
4. How would we design a news site that would be reliable?
5. Are there any good news sites out there that promote wisdom? Which ones? Why?
3. Essay Criteria
1. Essay should be 4-6 pages long, double spaced, 12 font, 1inch margins (if less than four pages, the essay will NOT be accepted)
2. Your essay will need to cite at least four sources but have at least 6 in-text citations (NOT quotes). You may use one quote.

1. Make sure you are using paraphrasing and quoting correctly
1. Must have an MLA Works Cited page

Supplementary Materials

NEH Research Map

Go to www.neh.gov

(Add more boxes if needed)

URL went to (look in the search window and type copy and paste what’s there)	Clicked on (provide the name or description if a visual of what you actually clicked on)	Ideas I found (list ideas related in some way to the Humanities)

How is the NEH related to Wisdom?

How is the NEH related to Democracy?

How is News related to democracy? Find an essay that discusses news and democracy and summarize it.

Link to Democracy and News Essay
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/books/chapters/0316-1st-gans.html?pagewanted=all&pagewanted=print

Rubric for News

How does news increase democracy?	why is that an advantage for democracy	how to increase the chances the news will have that advantage	how does news decrease democracy	why is that a disadvantage for democracy?	how to decrease the chances the news will have that disadvantage
Increases society’s awareness of controversial events	With more awareness people can make better decisions how to vote	find experts that can discuss the complexity of controversial events	Highlights the political agenda that the news believes	With one sided news we make bad decisions	Make sure that all news stories have at least two sides represented

Select one square from the diagram above and turn it into a paragraph you could use in your essay. Use at least one citation in this paragraph