Summer 2021 — UC Irvine — Information & Computer Science — ICS 139W — David G. Kay

Writing Sample

Write about 200 words of clear, correct, grammatical English on one of the following topics: 

• What city would you most like to live in, and why? 
•  Who was your favorite computer science instructor, and why?
• What is your favorite computer game (or other computing activity), and why?

Take plenty of time to rewrite and revise. For this purpose, it is better to write something short and nearly perfect than something longer but less correct. Grammatical correctness is the most important part of this exercise, not length or the brilliance of your ideas. 

This course's prerequisite requires  that students have completed the Lower-Division Writing requirement. This  means everyone should start out with proficiency in writing in academic English (sometimes called "sentence-level mechanics").  We know from experience that a student without that proficiency will struggle in ICS139W and probably not suceed.   Your score on this sample will give you valuable advice on whether this course is right for you, but the score itself doesn't affect your course grade. Everyone who submits it gets credit for the submission (and anyone who doesn't gets a zero).  

You may use any reference materials, paper or electronic, but no other people.

Due date and submission details:  This doument is due by 8:00 PM on Friday, June 25  Submit a PDF version of the document if you can; it's a saving option on most systems.  Send it to the place in your Canvas space for submitting the Writing Sample. If something doesn't work as expected, post on Piazza or send Email to ics139w@ics.uci.edu.  Many aspects of this course setup are new, so the occasional glitch is likely.  Let us know if you find something; we'll be reasonable about deadlines, but if the problem gets resolved in half an hour, that won't result in a whole day's extension.