Ch. 14: Additional Case 2

Objectivity in Definitions

Background

Personnel working for your college or university’s Help Desk are frequently asked what a cookie is. To deal with the number of queries they get for this term, they would like to provide links on the Help Desk website to useful definitions of the term. However, they have discovered that definitions for the term vary considerably. In fact, one person working for the Help Desk remarked, “Some of these definitions don’t sound very objective.” They have asked you to help.

They would like you to analyze how the definitions are structured and developed, then look at how the authors insert their own perspectives into the definitions. Finally, they would like you to provide some guidance on which definitions to link to.

Your Assignment

To complete this assignment, perform the following tasks:

  1. Study Chapter 14, focusing on writing extended definitions.

  2. The term you will be looking at is cookie, a kind of file used in web transactions. Start by looking at some definitions. Whatis.com has a good, basic definition. But things get more interesting when you look at the Microsoft definition or the one from the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Use a search engine to find other definitions. (If you haven’t ever looked at a search engine’s “tips” or “syntax suggestions” to see how to restrict your search and thereby limit the number of hits, this exercise will surely motivate you to do so.) Consider the following:

    • Which techniques did the authors use to create the extended definitions you discuss?

    • How do the authors use these techniques to create a persuasive case that their definition of cookies is the one you ought to share?

    • How do the authors’ motivations or perspectives emerge from their definitions?

  3. Write a 500-word memo to the Help Desk director explaining the techniques used by the authors to develop and shape their definitions. Finally, recommend the site with the best definition. (See Chapter 9 for a discussion of memos.) Attach to the memo the definitions that you are including in your survey, and be sure to credit the source of each definition properly. You can attach the definitions in one of three ways: (1) print copies of the web pages on which the definitions appear, (2) download to your hard drive the files containing the definitions and then open those files and copy the texts of the definitions to the file containing your memo, or (3) select the texts from the web pages themselves, copy them, and paste them into your own file.