Essay 4 — Alan Turing

Purpose

This exercise gives you further practice with the idea of writing as metaphorical or real conversation, with locating your ideas in such a conversation, and with finding and using evidence to argue for a position. The exercise thus addresses the following learning outcomes:

• Outcome 1. Read significant texts carefully and critically, recognizing and responding to argumentative positions as part of a literal or metaphorical conversation between authors
• Outcome 2.1. State a defensible thesis for an argument
• Outcome 2.2. Support that thesis with relevant evidence
• Outcome 2.3. Use valid reasoning to draw conclusions from the evidence
• Outcome 2.4. Write clearly throughout the argument
• Outcome 2.5. Improve the substance of an argument through revision (only assessed for the final version of the essay)
• Outcome 3. Incorporate, with proper credit, information gleaned through library research into written arguments.

Background

This assignment basically asks you to dig into some aspect of Alan Turing’s life or work. You can take initial inspiration for this from “Breaking the Code,” or our discussions of Turing’s work in class between November 5 and 10.

I expect you to do some amount of library research for this essay, although not necessarily as much as you did for the Enigma essay. However, the research skills from Jonathan Grunert’s research classes on October 15 and 18 are likely to be helpful.

Activity

There are many metaphorical conversations surrounding Alan Turing: Alan Turing as the hero of Bletchley Park (as, for example, in the movie The Imitation Game), Alan Turing as gay rights martyr and/or icon (as, for example, in “Breaking the Code”), Alan Turing as the father of computer science, etc. Pick one of these conversations, and add your thoughts to it in an essay of 4 to 6 pages.

This is a very open-ended essay assignment. I suggest that you start by identifying a Turing-related “conversation” about something you find interesting. You can interpret “conversation” loosely here, really it just means something related to Turing that people seem interested enough in that multiple people are writing or saying things about it. A library or even Internet search of the form “Alan Turing and X,” where X is some topic you think Turing was involved in and that you find interesting (for example, “Alan Turing and Enigma,” “Alan Turing and gay rights,” etc.) will probably get you started. The most important result at this stage is something that people are talking, writing, or thinking about, not necessarily what they are thinking yet. So a broad search that doesn’t necessarily produce authoritative results is OK at this stage. Things that we have read or talked about in class, e.g., “Breaking the Code” or aspects of Turing’s work, could be initial elements of the “conversation.”

Once you identify something interesting that people are talking about, then you have to figure out what they are saying. This is where you need more authoritative sources. Your initial search may have turned some up, in which case use them. Or the initial search may have turned up a general topic or idea, around which you can form a more precise search in a library database. At this stage, you should try to find some authoritative sources, ones you can rely on to give you an accurate sense of what other people are saying about your topic. You don’t necessarily need a lot of sources, you should be able to minimally complete this exercise with just one or two distinct voices from the “conversation.”

Once you know what people are saying, you need to “add your thoughts” to the conversation. This too is very open-ended. It could range from simply agreeing or disagreeing with a position taken by one of your sources (as long as you write a convincing argument for why you agree or disagree, supported by evidence), to some extensively researched and novel interpretation of something in Turing’s life or work (although you don’t have time for tremendously extensive research).

You need to have enough sources to have an informed opinion on whatever you write about, and to have evidence beyond your own thoughts to support your argument. But beyond this practical requirement, there’s no specific minimum number of sources you need.

Follow-Up

We will do peer reviews of drafts of this essay during class on November 19. Please be prepared to share the essay with the person you work with in the peer review. I expect that we will do these peer reviews in class.

During the three school days beginning with the peer reviews, i.e., November 19 through 23, I will meet with you to share my thoughts on your draft and answer questions you have for me. You can make an appointment for this meeting via Google Calendar. Please make the meeting 20 minutes long, and schedule it to finish before the end of the day on the 23rd. So that I have time to prepare for these meetings, please share your Google Doc draft, or email me your non-Google-Doc draft, by the start of class on the 19th. Note that the 23rd is the day before Thanksgiving break; please schedule your meeting far enough in advance that you can fit it around travel plans if necessary.

Following the peer reviews and meetings with me, you’ll have a chance to revise your draft essay. Share your revision with me by 11:59 PM on December 5. If your second version is in a Google Doc you already shared with me for the first draft, sharing it again just involves emailing me a quick note that the document is ready for me to look at.

Finally, I will meet with you again to discuss your final essay. Please schedule these meetings between December 6 and 8. The meetings should last 20 minutes, and should end before the end of the day on the 8th.