After you have read this week's discussion assignment and are prepared to enter the forum, log on to the MyASU Blackboard discussion forum  between noon each Wednesday and noon each Friday and post your responses and replies to the assignment, and to observations made by your classmates.

I recommend that you log on more than once during the forum session to view additional postings made by other forum members, and to add further responses. Each forum counts as a full class session and therefore full class credit, so you must put in the equivalent time and effort.

I encourage you to actively engage in discussion with your classmates, but please think about what you are saying BEFORE you send a posting (use the preview option). Remember, this forum is not anonymous and you will have to sit in class with these folks every Tuesday.

For this week's forum discussion, read Chapter 10 on Evaluations and pages 135 to 140 on "determining warrants". Then read Sean Kamperman's essay, "The Wikipedia Game: Boring, Pointless, or Neither?" (235-239). Then play the game (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Game for the rules). How did you do? Discuss how Kamperman is asking his audience (?) to reconsider common conceptions of Wikipedia as a source for knowledge and information in academic contexts. What does he establish as his criteria for his argument? What can be warranted in his evaluative criteria, and what needs to be argued for? What sorts of evidence and reasoning does he use? Based on your own perceptions of knowledge making, both in and outside of academia, how convincing do you find Kamperman's evaluation of Wikipedia as both "fun" and "educational?" What do you base YOUR judgment of Kamperman's argument on?

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For Tuesday, Nov 4

Re-read carefully the prompt for report #3. http://www.public.asu.edu/~petergo/courses/ENG102/report-three.html. Narrow the topic lists you started in class to at least three most promising topic choices based on the criteria outlined in the prompt. For each topic possibility locate at least four or five "reliable" published online or print sources that present evaluative arguments on the topic. Your sources should represent a viariety of perspectives, e.g. history, promotion, critique, analysis, news, and so forth. Then write a brief statement evaluating the viability of each topic for the report assignment.