The essay was written, and submitted on paper only, for the third "progression" of Writing Workshop II (A40.0002/078), a course offered in the Spring 1998 term by the Expository Writing Program at New York University; my instructor was Ms. Caley Lander.
The style to be used in EWP was the MLA style found in A Pocket Style Manual, 2d ed., by Diana Hacker, published by Bedford Books in 1997 in Boston. In addition, I made slight use of the paper version of Online!: The Internet Guide for Students and Writers, by Andrew Harnack and Eugene Kleppinger,published by St. Martin's Griffin in 1997 in New York.
Figures 1, 2, and 3, referred to in the text, were merely the first three pieces of art at Allen Mullen's "Ascii Art" page, printed white on black (as in the originals), with the respective captions "Figure 1: Line-style ASCII by Valkyrie", "Figure 2: Solid-style ASCII version of a classic", and "Figure 3: Abraham Lincoln in grayscale".
Note that although I have received some good recommendations about the essay, I have made and shall make no changes to it. It is simply a copy of what I submitted to my teacher in college, and so it shall remain.