Critical Book Review of The Cult of Information

This document constitutes the submission for grade to Dr. Wood, 9909CSMN6019043 of a critical book review by Robert W. Schuler. The total submission consists of this document:,

• an Executive Summary (precise),
• the full document (and a Word97 version of the document), and
• a graphic titled poll.jpg.
• The whole enchilada may be downloaded as a WinZip archive by clicking here.

The assignment was: Critical Book Review

In addition to interpreting current, unfolding events, CSMN 601 requires you to deal with powerful ideas and visions that have been expressed in recent IT and business literature. You will play a role in raising your classmates? awareness. You will make three choices (first, second third) from the books listed below for approval by your professor; your choice priorities will be observed so long as there is a reasonable coverage of the listed books. Your assignment will be to acquire the book, read it, evaluate its significance, taking into account what others have already written about this work, and write a critical review as well as present a capsule version of your review to your classmates. Your professor will determine such things as the desired length of the written review, the length and form (oral or online) of the capsule review, and the due dates for each. Each work will be assigned to at least two people so that the class will have the benefit of independent, contrasting points of view. Approximately half of the effort should be spent on capturing and distilling the book?s "aboutness" (the main ideas); the remainder will be your assessment of its value and importance (taking into account other reviewers? opinions where possible) ? whether you would recommend it to your audience. Let me restate the previous sentence to be perfectly clear about the content of the CBR: No more than 1/2 of your paper should concern description of the book; the balance of your paper should be your critique of the book. The best critique makes use of other sources and reviewers, and minimizes your personal opinion except as your opinion can be logically supported. Be sure to note whether the book has a companion Website, such as Papert & Negroponte (1996) and Yourdon & Becker (1997) do.

A Note about the APA

The paper deviates from the American Psychological Association. Publication manual (3rd or 4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. The deviation is due to the fact that the APA provides guidance for preparing manuscripts on typewriters and this UMUC course has been entirely on-line. The final paper is prepared using the hyper text transfer protocol and following the guidelines of the APA as closely as possible. Titles have been tagged appropriately H1 for the main title H2 for the first tier titles and so on. It is not possible to double space HTML text without an undue amount of effort, however paragraphs have been appropriately tagged, so it is possible that a browser may be directed to display the paper in accordance with the APA.

The source document was generated using Microsoft Word97. This document is being made available for those who wish to print the paper. Note: Emphasis was placed on minimizing paper, so the Word document also does not follow the APA guidelines.

Please feel free to send comments on this document to: Schulerrw@nswccd.navy.mil

The paper was graded by James G. Wood, PhD as follows:

Grade: 90

General Comments (provided as part of the evaluation):

• I expected to get the CBR by email also.
• URL good! The Tycho precis is OK, but could have been better designed to serve as an introduction which lays out the format of the paper that follows (an advance organizer for the reader). The ES is also the most important place for you to "sell" your point of view. See the 'Presentations' document on my mindspring web site.
  
• A bit too much simply description and narrative (should have been less than half of the paper).
• Use of outside sources a bit constrained; a critique should have been crafted mainly from outside materials and logical analysis of the piece.
• Structure and flow of arguments, support of arguments inadequate; sectioning would have helped.
• A better initial announcement of criteria or strategy for the critique would have improved the paper.
• Minor editing problems (no doubt due to time constraints).
• Could have been more concise (more substantive content).

Specific Comments (provided as part of the evaluation):

=== Percentages ===

Executive Summary/Precis (5%) Earned - 4

Content (60%) Earned - 52

• Meets Stated Title/Direction
• Logical and well organized
• Content is correct and timely
• Opinions if given are stated as such

English/Grammar (20%) Earned - 19

• Writing is at masters level
• Spelling and grammar correct

• Logical and follow a recognized style
• Reference - check

Meets criteria as outlined (5%) - Earned 5

• 15-35 pages
• single spaced exclusive of references, appendices and illustrations