Scientific writing about discourse community

NSCI 306—Fall 2019 1

Writing Project #2

Writing Project #2

Investigating Discourse

Background: Scientific writing involves a culture of writers and readers. Another way to think about this is

that science has its own language or “discourse”—its own ways of speaking/communicating.

According to John Swales, this makes science as a whole (as well as its specific disciplines and

other academic disciplines) a “discourse community.” Discourse communities use language in

specific ways and, generally, use specific genres (such as journals, blogs, newsletters, emails,

etc.) to communicate amongst members. Journals/journal articles are a common genre used in

many academic discourse communities, and, arguably, help to form the knowledge base of these

communities. Thus, it is vital to be familiar with the journals in your chosen field.

The Assignment: Investigate a current academic/professional journal related to your academic discipline and

present your findings in a written paper. Your task is twofold:

 Learn about the journal’s research trends and interests and

 Determine and explain how and what this journal contributes to the goals, work, and/or knowledge base of your academic discipline (major).

To do this, you will need to do the following:

1. Describe and define your major (discipline), including some of its overall goals, its work, etc.

For example, if you are a Kinesiology major, what does Kinesiology, as a field of study, do or

seek to do? Or, what is its purpose? This description/definition should help contextualize your

chosen Journal, which means helping your audience understand why you are discussing your

chosen Journal.

2. Investigate at least the past three consecutive years of your chosen journal, looking through

titles and abstracts of the articles and other contents of the journal. You do not have to read

every article of every issue. Here are some of the questions you should strive to answer. You are

looking at your journal over time (longitudinally) to see trends and recurring topics and to get a

sense of the journal itself.

 How long has this Journal been in publication? Who publishes it? How often? What is its focus?

 How does an author submit articles to this journal?

 What genres are present in the Journal other than research articles? (Letters to the editor, book reviews, responses, etc.?)

 What are some of the recurring topics in this Journal? Briefly explain at least two of these topics so readers have a better understanding of them.

 What kinds of research questions seem to be part of this Journal? Are these questions consistent with questions your major asks or the work your major seeks to do?

 Is the research usually conducted by a single researcher or done collaboratively (more than one researcher)? Or is it a mixture? What might this say about how knowledge is

created in your discipline?

 What else should your audience know about this Journal?

NSCI 306—Fall 2019 2

Writing Project #2

Remember, though, that your main objective is to determine how and what your journal

contributes to the goals, work, and knowledge base your discipline. Thus, your paper needs to be

more than just a list of answers to the above questions. Use the information from your

investigation to help discuss what your journal does for your discipline.

3. Compile a Bibliography showcasing two of the recurring topics you discovered in your

investigation. The Bibliography should:

 Clearly label each recurring topic, such as Topic #1: Childhood Obesity. Topic #2: Vitamin Supplements.

 Cite three articles per topic, preferably from different years/volumes of the Journal. No summary or evaluation of the articles is necessary. Simply list the full APA citations in

alphabetical order by author last name.

o This means you need a total of 6 (six) citations.

 Be its own page/section. It is also separate from the Reference Page. (The Reference Page is for anything you cite in the paper itself.)

Your work with the Bibliography will help you with work for Project #3.

Paper Requirements

The paper includes a minimum 750-word (maximum 1250) essay addressing Parts 1 and 2 of the

assignment as listed. Yes, this is possible. The Bibliography does not count toward the word

count. The Reference Page is also not part of this word count. The Title Page and Abstract are

not part of the word count, either.

Formatting:

Papers should conform to APA format.

 12-point Times New Roman or Arial font, 1-inch margins all around, double spaced.

 Title Page required.

 An Abstract is required for this assignment. 200-word maximum.

 Reference Page required if you use direct quotes or close paraphrases from any part of your Journal’s webpage or if you directly refer to or quote from or paraphrase any of the

articles you find.

 The Bibliography should come after the Reference Page or the last page of the paper. Title the Bibliography as “Bibliography.”

Refer to the APA Handbook as needed. Sample papers will be available on Blackboard.

Timeline: (Refer to Course Calendar for other dates and assignments)

Thursday, 10/24/19: Project #2 Introduced.

 Read Assignment Sheet and follow Calendar for other assignments Friday, 10/25/19: WP #2 Journal Log due

Tuesday, 10/29/19: WP #2 Rough draft due by 11:30 p.m.

 Go to Writing Project #2 on Blackboard. Select “WP #2 Rough” submission link

 If you do not submit by the deadline, you will not be able to participate in Workshop

 Review Writing Workshop #2 Procedures sheet Thursday, 10/31/19: WP #2 Workshop (via Turnitin PeerMark) due by 11:30 p.m.

NSCI 306—Fall 2019 3

Writing Project #2

 Read and give feedback on assigned PeerMark draft(s) Tuesday, 11/5/19: Final Draft due to Blackboard by 11:30 p.m.

 Go to Writing Project #2 link on Blackboard. Select “WP #2 Final” submission link

Assessment

This Project is worth 200 points, broken down as follows:

 10 points for Journal Log (see Timeline for due date)

 15 points for Workshop must submit draft and Workshop responses on time for full credit

 175 points for Final Draft

Project #2 will be graded according to the Assessment policy in the syllabus and the Grading

Criteria holistic rubric on Blackboard.

What Professor Taylor is looking for in this Project

 Clear definition and discussion of major (academic discipline) as described in “The Assignment” section above

 Clear connection between major and chosen Journal

 Discussion of what academic/professional journals do, why they matter

 Clear discussion and exploration of chosen Journal as described in “The Assignment” section above

 Logical order of ideas. Keep your audience in mind.

 Logical transitions and connections between paragraphs

 Conclusion that clearly wraps up the discussion and gives readers something to think about.

 Bibliography as described in “The Assignment” section

 Adherence to APA style and formatting, including attempt at Abstract

 Clear and clean prose—few/minor grammar or mechanics errors. Be sure to proofread and spellcheck.

Be sure to consult the WP #2 FAQ on Blackboard as needed.

Running head: JOURNALS IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING 1

Journals in Computer Engineering

Author Name

California State University, San Bernardino

NSCI 306.1

Assignment Due Date

Professor Mandy Taylor

JOURNALS IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING 2

Abstract

This paper contains information relating to the current trends in peer reviewed journals in the

Computer Engineering field. Specifically this is about the analysis of the yearly Sustainable

Computing journal and its research trends and topics, and how it relates to Computer

Engineering as a whole. Before an accurate examination of the journal can be performed, some

of the common goals of computer engineering as a field must be defined for context in order to

show how the journal meets these principles. For the journal analysis itself, I first had to ensure

that the journal I analyzed is scholarly and contains content that further advances the previously

defined goals of computer engineering. Several trends could be readily seen from the content of

the journal, most notable was the publication of research that lead to better management of

existing resources, and how new and innovative thoughts can be applied to computer systems to

reduce energy costs. Most of the published research originates from small teams or individuals,

indicating that this specific field is still in its infancy.

JOURNALS IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING 3

Journals in Computer Engineering

Computer engineering is the combination of both computer science and electrical

engineering, whose members are versed in both abstract programming and component level

circuitry design. Computer engineers provide the framework to facilitate communication

between an electrical engineers and computer scientists. They provide the translation of what a

computer scientist can dream of, to what an electrical engineer can build. The Institute of

Electrical and Electronics Engineers best describes computer engineering as field that is

“dedicated to advancing technological innovations and excellence for the benefit of humanity.”

(IEEE, 2014) Being able to meet such noble goals involves being able to meet and exceed

requirements of a projects at any stage of development, and even find ways to improve the

original design. This indicated that a computer engineer is often exposed to many types of

computers and electronics and is required to handle any task ranging from designing transistors

to inventing communication protocols. As with any great field, computer engineering has many

different sub disciplines, and each sub discipline has its own focus.

Despite the differences in focuses of sub disciplines, most computer engineers are

primarily concerned with writing programs that directly operate on electronic hardware. This is

a type of programming is known embedded programming, which produces a code layer between

hardware and software known as hardware driver. Hardware drivers are used by software

engineers to interface with hardware to run their applications, and hardware engineers to

interface with software. Driver level programming is a technique of coding that is highly

specialized and challenging due to the constraints placed on the developer. In typical

programming practices a programmer can assume an unlimited amount of resources are available

JOURNALS IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING 4

to execute their program, and can write their software with no knowledge of the underlying

hardware system. A computer engineer must write code that is highly optimized with a firm

limits on the available resources of the system they are working with. This different model of

programming has led to an emergence of a new specialized field of study that pushes the limits

of efficiency and optimization of designs known as sustainable computing. This new coding

style lends itself naturally to creating lower power usage and efficiency computing system that

will help humanity to continue advancing computers in the future, while providing little to no

extra burden on our limited available resources. An academic journal which best explores these

concepts is the accurately titled journal Sustainable Computing, which effectively complies with

the general goals of the sustainable computation, and contains a wealth if interesting information

for the purpose of this paper.

The focus of Sustainable Computing is on high efficiency computing, which is the quest

to continue to push the advancement of technology while simultaneously reducing the energy

footprint of its usage. Achieving these goals results in an ultimately more sustainable future. In

an era where computers are infiltrating our every aspect of life, the cost to continue producing

and running electronics will increase unless we find more efficient ways to evolve our

technology. To solve some of these important problems, Sustainable Computing focuses on

smart sensor monitoring networks and performance optimization of existing technologies. These

goals can be achieved at many stages of computer design, spanning the entire spectrum of

interests of computer engineers, potentially allowing anyone with any level of interests to

participate. For example at the academic level, the use of environment monitoring hardware

nodes will help theorize more efficient algorithms for sustainability. At the software level of

design, the use of power-aware software and scheduling systems can help manage power usage.

JOURNALS IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING 5

At the firmware level design, real time systems can be created to have power-efficient

architectures and directly implement energy harvesting techniques. And at the circuitry level of

design, circuits can be created that have reduced power leakage and faster application specific

devices for certain tasks, instead of using power hungry general purpose machines.

Research of similar topics like these are critical for continued advancement of sustainable

computing technologies and can come from many different sources. Sometimes research is

done by large scale corporations with commercial interests, but the majority of research

submitted to Sustainable Computing comes from small teams of less than five researchers. This

is likely due to its extreme specialization and recent formation of this specific field. The journal

is written for an expert in the field, using many extremely technical concepts and specialized

language from the field. For example, in each subsection of the articles there are easy to

understand graphs and images with clear and simple descriptions of the information in that

related section it pertains to, but the section itself contains detailed descriptions of the research

findings. (Majumder, Pande, & Kalyanaraman, 2013, p. 36-46) The concepts are generalized

enough to be easy accessible, and is organized in such a way that the reader may be able to glean

the meaning of the article, but technical enough allow the expert researcher to gain new ideas.

The submission process to the journal is fairly straight forward. On the host website of the

journal, there is a guide dedicated to potential authors who want to submit.

This guide outlines many different aspects that should be observed when forming the

research article, including the ethics and conflicts of interests for the journal. Given the nature of

the journal, it is important that the author has the aim of the journal in mind when submitting

research. There are many aspects of computer engineering that allows for faster or smaller

computers, but rarely are there advancements in power reduction or sustainability in mind.

JOURNALS IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING 6

Therefore, an author who submits must have this primarily in mind because the aim of the

journal can be easily distorted and changed. Furthermore, the ethics of submitting an article can

be important. Through the disclosure of interest in the subject and the source of funding can

reveal biases in research allowing for the potential inclusion or exclusion of research.

Additionally for acceptance the author most provides an abstract of their research, which enables

future researchers to access their information more quickly. (Sustainable Computing, 2014)

This journal is a good example of the application of computer engineering, because it

applies to many aspects of computer systems as whole. Through the careful analysis of

computers in their entirety we can make careful observations about ways computers operate, we

can continue to advance the field while still providing distinct benefits to humanity. Through

reducing the energy costs of humanity, we can continue to grow as a whole and advance into

newer and greater eras of computation while preserving what we already have.

JOURNALS IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING 7

References

IEEE (2014). IEEE – About IEEE. Retrieved January 17, 2014, from

http://www.ieee.org/about/index.html

Majumder, T., Pande, P., & Kalyanaraman, A. (2013). High-throughput, energy-efficient

network-on-chip-based hardware accelerators. Sustainable Computing, 3(1), 36-46.

Sustainable Computing (2014). Guide for authors | Sustainable Computing | 2210-5379 |

Elsevier. Retrieved January 18, 2014, from http://www.elsevier.com/journals/sustainable-

computing/2210-5379/guide-for-authors#5000

JOURNALS IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING 8

Bibliography

Topic #1 Energy Efficiency

Alahmad, B., & Gopalakrishnan, S. (2011). Energy efficient task partitioning and real-time

scheduling on heterogeneous multiprocessor platforms with QoS

requirements. Sustainable Computing, 1(1), 314-328.

Bergamaschi, R., Piga, L., Azevedo, R., Araújo, G., & Rigo, S. (2012). Data center power and

performance optimization through global selection of P-states and utilization

rates. Sustainable Computing, 1(1), 198-208.

Huang, H., Quan, G., & Fan, M. (2013). Thermal aware overall energy minimization scheduling

for hard real-time systems. Sustainable Computing, 3(4), 274-285.

Topic #2 Sustainable Computing

Berezecki, M., Frachtenberg, E., Paleczny, M., & Steele, K. (2012). Power and performance

evaluation of Memcached on the TILEPro64 architecture. Sustainable Computing, 2(2),

81-90.

Johnson, M., Bar-Noy, A., Liu, O., & Feng, Y. (2011). Energy peak shaving with local

storage. Sustainable Computing, 1(3), 177-188.

Sookoor, T., Holben, B., & Whitehouse, K. (2013). Feasibility of retrofitting centralized HVAC

systems for room-level zoning. Sustainable Computing, 3(3), 161-171.