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EET 104: Engineering Ethics

First Things First 

Before you begin work on any research project, examine the assignment for requirements. 

Q. How long is the PowerPoint presentation? 

This could be a slide length, a word count, presentation time limit etc.

Q. How many sources?

How many total sources does your instructor ask for; are they all outside sources or does your textbook count as one of your sources?

Q. What kind of sources?

Does your instructor specify certain types of sources? Are there other requirements such as how current/old the sources can be, or where the source should come from - the library, a database, a book/ebook, a peer-reviewed journal, etc.?

Q. How do you cite sources?

For this assignment, you will use MLA format for your citations. You may want to remind yourself what information you need to create the MLA Works Cited and in-text citations.

Q. When is it due?

How long do you have to work on this project? Plan out your time and then plan extra time in case you have problems or get stuck.

Review the Requirements

For your final assignment in this class, you will be generating and presenting a short PowerPoint presentation on a historical engineering ethics problem.

In this presentation you should cover (at minimum) the following points:

  • Historical review of the problem
  • Analysis of ethical concerns
  • Limited discussion of technical details
  • Highlight possible solutions that could have avoided the problem

Consider the following:

Q. Do you have a choice?

Review your assignment - are you allowed to choose a topic or does your instructor assign you one?

Q. Do you have an interest?

If you have a choice on what topic you can choose, consider which one you find the most interesting.  Which topic do you think would be the easiest to research? Which topic would you have the most to say about?

Q. Are there sources?

Before you totally commit to a topic, you'll want to make sure that there are enough outside sources on the topic for your assignment. Not every topic is going to have information written about it. Newer topics or topics that aren't as well known may be harder to find sources for.  Do some searching in the library's databases to make sure there are sources, and Ask-A-Librarian to double-check if you're not sure there are enough sources for a topic you're really interested in.