MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Abstract:
The purpose of my paper is to educate a layperson about the functionality, the benefits, and the potential downsides of autonomous vehicles. Descriptions and definitions will be simplified and detailed so that a reader with any level of knowledge of the technology being discussed will be able to understand the information in the paper. Peer-reviewed sources will be cited for the information in the paper in order to provide high-quality references for the technology presented. The goal of the paper is to bring autonomous vehicles and their future impacts on general transportation to the attention of the average consumer, who will be significantly affected by the shift from manual to autonomous vehicles. The paper will be broken up into sections, which are meant to be read as a single document in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of autonomous vehicles.

Reader's Profile:
I imagine a reader that is not well-versed in the technology behind autonomous vehicles and has a hard time understanding the technicality and concepts discussed in the paper.

Reader's Response:
The paper is informative and well-sourced, but I knew very little about autonomous vehicles before reading the paper and found the material to be a bit overwhelming. I think maybe some visuals or graphics could have helped me wrap my brain around some of the concepts discussed within the paper. You should consider adding information in a form other than text in the final copy.

J -- will you use visuals? Use the design document assignment to think about this option in terms of citation and incorporation into a text. Yet, typing this, I wonder if video or animation is the way to capture some of the "swarm" or networked behavior.

Article? Paper? What will you model after: Wired or AAA?

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Any Department of Transportation commentary on this innovation? I would expect this could be your "proxy" for much of what is proprietary (Auto industry, software innovation including by Google and others).