Introduction to Information Technology

Homework #3 Word Document Format Description

Homework #3 consists of a written report in MS Word and a PowerPoint presentation slides.  Each student should research and identify a topic in which information technology (IT) is used.  It is preferable that the topic is in the student’s department major or a topic where IT impacts the society.

Submit the topic to the instructor and get it approved as soon as possible but no later than the due date specified in the syllabus.

Then, you have to write a professional technical report using Microsoft Word.  The report should be about 4 to 5 pages long, single spaced, using New Times Roman with a font size of 12.  It should have the following:

• Title of the paper (all capital letters, bold and centered)
• Your name and your affiliation (dept and school address), centered below the title after one blank line.
• There should be a blank line after the affiliation and before the abstract
• Abstract (with the word “ABSTRACT” as title and bold). It should be brief less than 100 words. There should be one blank line after the abstract.
• TABLE OF CONTENTS (TOC) should follow the abstract. TOC must be generated using MS Word TOC feature as done in Homework #1 and not typed by you.
• Following the TOC, various Sections of the paper should appear starting with Introduction, and end with Conclusion. Each section should be a HEADING Each heading should be uppercase and lowercase with first letter of each word in uppercase.  For example, the first major heading will be “Introduction”.  The text should be HEADING 1 style. Heading underneath the major heading is the first subheading. The first subheading should be HEADING 2 style text.  A subheading under the first subheading will be HEADING 3 style text.  Click on one of the headings and see the text style change from normal to HEADING.  Follow the method used in Homework #1 to create section headings as HEADING style text.
• Refer to Homework #1 for a model document layout.
• References section is the last part of the paper. References should not just be website URL references taken by just searching web sites.  It should include books, journal papers, conference proceedings, and library materials. Those who cite journal, conference papers and books will receive more points than those who cite only URLs.
• References must be numbered sequentially starting from 1 according to the order in which they are referenced in the body of the paper.
• All references included in the References section, must be referenced in the body of the paper between square brackets like [1] or [1,5] or [3-5], where [1,5] means reference 1 and 5, and [3-5] means references 3, 4, and 5
• The document must have page numbers
• The footnote should state that “This work is done as part of the requirements for the course CSCI.120 Introduction to IT at FSU”
• TABLE OF CONTENTS is normally included only in large manuscripts and not in journal papers. It is included in this report in order for you to learn and exercise your knowledge on creating it. It should be generated using Word Table of Content feature and not typed by you.

Any small texts, graphics, and figures taken from a source must have appropriate references to those sources in the slides and Word document.  Small texts taken from references must be within quotes.  Copying materials from website, Internet, books, etc., will result in disqualification of the homework; it will result in a “Fail” grade for the course.

The content for the PowerPoint slides must be from the completed paper and should be a reflection of the paper.

Points for the presentation slides are awarded based on the following items:

• Quality of the PowerPoint slides including features used
• Subject content of the slides (depth and width of coverage of the topic)
• The last slide should give the list of PowerPoint features used in the slides. You should use as many features as possible since this homework is mainly on PowerPoint.

Points for the written report are awarded based ob the following items:

• Adherence to the above mentioned technical format for the document
• Depth and width of the technical content of the document
• Relevant usage/importance of IT
• Quality and seriousness of writing
• Various features of Word used. You are encouraged to use as many features of Word as possible including use of images

Students should mail the written report and the PowerPoint slides to the instructor by the due date stated in the syllabus.