As an organized prewriting activity before writing my Big Data essay, I made an outline including a thesis, claims an sources. Here it is!

Thesis: The utilization of big data by the United States government provides benefits to public safety through domestic and foreign crime prevention which drastically outweigh the concerns of privacy invasion.

Claim 1: United States citizens benefit from the government’s use of big data to prevent domestic crime by allowing the government to predict crime and to seize criminals at a faster rate than previously possible.

• Source 1: “Big Data and Privacy” by Tom Price
  • Facial recognition technology can be used to find lost/kidnapped children, people on Alzheimer’s alert, and criminals
  • Scientists in Boston developing technology to collect data from cell phones and computers in an effort to predict possible victims of suicide before they act.
  • Email metadata allows for the FBI to track the source of concerning and/or threatening emails
• Source 2: “Spy On Me, I’d Rather Be Safe” Intelligence Squared US Debate
  • Government can obtain cell phone metadata and other data from third party companies to track down criminals after they have committed a crime

Claim 2: Big data acts as a resource for the government to protect the country from acts of terrorism because it allows for rapid lawful investigation of suspected terrorists before and after an act has been committed.

• Source 1: “Spy On Me, I’d Rather Be Safe” Intelligence Squared US Debate
  • Government can obtain cell phone metadata and other data from third party companies to track down criminals after they have committed a crime
• Source 2: “Reforming the NSA” by Daniel Byman and Benjamin Witte
  • The government is allowed to spy on non-U.S. citizens and foreign leaders if “there is a compelling national security purpose”

Naysayer: Many Americans argue that the collection and use of big data by the government is an invasion of privacy on citizens.

• Source 1: Glenn Greenwald’s “Why Privacy Matters” TED Talk
  • If you close your bedroom door at night and don’t give out your email password, you obviously care about privacy.’
  • The internet has turned into a place of mass, indiscriminate surveillance.’

• Counter-argument: The government may only obtain information from third party companies when a court order is given to do so under legal circumstances.
  • Source: “Reforming the NSA”
    • The FBI is required “to obtain judicial approval before issuing a ‘national security letter,’ a form of administrative subpoena the government uses to obtain phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and financial transaction records”
    • The NSA is restricted “to obtaining specific records only with an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and only on targets that are two steps removed from the phone number of a suspected terrorist, rather than the previous three”
    • The internet is made to be completely public and everything is archived/ can be accessed at a later time

This prewriting activity helped me organize my claims and decide where I should use my sources. I also planned my naysayer and counter-argument, which was super helpful! This is the most helpful prewriting I have completed this semester, though I think I will try this method with sticky notes the next time I need to write an essay. I like that sticky notes allow you to move claims and sources into different orders as you develop your argument. I often struggle with putting my ideas in order so that everything flows nicely. I also miss connections between sources sometimes, and I think being able to rearrange sticky notes would help! Overall, this activity made it a lot easier to write my essay than past activities have.

In the revision process, I first focused on global revision. I rearranged most of my sources so that I could make text-to-text connections and integrate multiple sources into multiple paragraphs. I added in sentences around claims ad sources to better introduce each idea and explain exactly what I was trying to convey. I also revised my introduction paragraph to set the scene better for my paper. I began with a scenario about teens’ clothing store preference and how it changes as they get older. We can see those changes through big data by analyzing trends in debit card purchases. Next I focused on sentence level revision, which was when I focused on rewording any confusing sentences and adding small details to enhance my paper. I think revision went well! It was hard coming back from a week of no service or wifi and being behind, but I managed to catch up in time.