What is the future of the professional world? For the essay assignment you will be using key terms and examples from some of the readings (attached) to examine this question. The following questions might help you discover a specific focus that you can use to begin addressing the assignment:

- To what extent will changing technologies transform business interactions in ways that require completely new skills, attitudes, and expectations?
- How will our understanding of professional knowledge or expertise remain consistent or be reshaped in the future?
- How will the boundaries between our personal and professional lives and our personal and professional networks be impacted by changing technologies?
- To what extent will future workplaces demand robotic conformity or allow for innovation and creativity?
- Conversely, to what extent will the qualities of the traditional workplace (physical, social, environmental, economic, individual character and attitude) still be crucial in determining people's experiences in the future world of work?

Readings: You must use at least three essays for this assignment and may use up to five by using the criteria below:

1. Howard Rheingold's "How to Recognize the Future When It Lands on You" AND/ORNicholas Negroponte's "Creating a Culture of Ideas (Key Term Essays)

2. Rebecca Mead's "You've Got Blog" AND/ORMichael Lewis's "Pyramids and Pancakes" (Example Essays)

3. Any other essay (bell hooks, Malcolm Gladwell, OR Mike Rose) (attached all of them)

- You may also substitute a source identified through your own independent research for one of the readings listed above; however, you must get the new source and substitution approved and provide a copy of the source material with your paper.

Highlight the Thesis in blue.
Highlight the examples and quotes in yellow.
Highlight the hook and\or the background in green.
Highlight the connections between readings in red.

Your paper will be graded based on how well it meets the following course goals:
- Strong thesis or theory announced in the paper's introduction and explored/developed throughout the body of the paper;
- The paper contains a majority of developed body paragraphs that use examples effectively, engage with the specific language of quotations, build a connection between two readings, and make clear how the idea in the paragraph contributes to the development of the thesis;
- The paper demonstrates substantial connections between readings. Each connection must work with one or two quotations in their original context analyzed in detailed relation to an example. These connections or relationships developed between the texts often involve testing one author's terms and ideas against the experience/ideas of another;
- The paper must include effective use of the quotations. Quotations are carefully chosen to work with key terms and ideas from the readings and are used to advance the theory of the paper. The introduction to each quotation orients readers by providing an appropriate sense of the original context. Quotations are integrated into the grammar of the writer's own sentences. The writer will analyze and interpret every quotation and engage with the specificity of the text author's language. Sources for quotations are correctly cited using MLA style. (Note: competency in achieving this goal absolutely depends upon close, careful, accurate reading skills);
- The paper must include effective transitions from sentence to sentence and from paragraph to paragraph to create a logical progression of thought and forward the theory;
- The paper must incorporate a strong organizational structure that presents paragraphs in a meaningful order, uses topic sentences to signal that order, supports the exposition of the thesis or theory, and builds to an effective conclusion.
- The paper should demonstrate student's ability to incorporate a variety of sentence structures and begin to demonstrate attention to style and diction;
- The paper should demonstrate reasonable control over patterns of error.