Homework 6: Mythical Man Month

Due: Start of Class November 28th, Hard Copy and Electronic (in Turnin folder)

All work on this assignment MUST be done individually!

For this critique, you will be reading Brook's famous title paper from his book the Mythical Man Month. Write a one page (maximum) paper critiquing this work -- what do you agree with/disagree with like/dislike. Is there anything in here new? Does this apply to your past experience?

Critique guidelines:

• Class discussion of the critique is mandatory! Not attending will result in reduced, or possibly no, critique credit.
• Critiques must not exceed one page, single spaced. Critiques of longer than one page will not be graded.
• The goal of critiques is for you to 1) encourage you to read and understand the paper, 2) encourage critical thinking about its contents (http://wsuctproject.wsu.edu/ctr.htm describes how critical thinking can be
evaluated and gives some hints for things you might want to think about – look at the “Mastering” column), and 3) provide a basis for an interesting class discussion on the paper.

Things to avoid when writing critiques:

• Don’t summarize the paper.
• Don’t make vague comments like “this was a good paper” unless they are followed up by more specific ones describing why you thought it was a good paper.
• (and it should go without saying that critiques should be typed, and spell-checked, and free of grammatical errors.)

Things I want to see in a critique:

• Your opinion. What do you agree with and disagree with and why (the why is important!). This can refer to the ideas in the paper, the writing, anything.
• Well supported arguments. The best critiques draw on information from outside sources like your own experience or what you’ve learned from other papers, texts, or classes.