Author: ksoakes

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Instructions for submitting your final work

With the end of the summer term quickly approaching, you’ve got some looming deadlines, but you’ll have a little bit of extra time. Read on for instructions and deadline info.

Final projects will be due by the end of the day on Thursday, 8/6 (this is a 24-hour extension). Please post your project to the blog, and be sure to do the following:

  • if your project takes the form of anything other than a blog post (for which you could use Expressions to build your document), please insert your project into the post as a usable file (i.e. PDF) or link. Use the Add Media button on your post to do this. Remember that you can title that media in the Add window, so that whatever text you want to have will appear where you embed the link.
  • in the body of your post, include a brief outline of the rhetorical situation for your text–the audience, purpose, mode of delivery/publication, etc. (Remember that you have full control over this and can create whatever hypothetical situation you desire.)
  • categorize your post as “Taking it public,” and tag it with “final project,” “unit 3,” “week of 8/3,” and [your name]

 

Your Unit 3/final course reflection will be due by the end of the day on Saturday, 8/8 (this is also a 24-hour extension). Please refer to the unit 3 assignment sheet for the prompt for this 500-word post. Please note:

  • this should read like an essay (not just a Q&A)
  • you should categorize this post as “Taking it public,” and tag it with “week of 8/3,” “reflection,” “unit 3,” and [your name]
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Audience, audience, audience

Know the 3 most important factors in real estate? Location, location, location.

Well, for writing, it’s audience.

Take a look at the rubric for your Unit 3 project, and you’ll see this come up again and again–note how many of these items hinge on textual features that are appropriate to the audience. That’s why you need to have a very clear picture of who your audience is, so that you can better assess what they will need and expect from you, so that you can deliver.

Presenting your research in an audience-appropriate fashion is the critical to the success of your communication. You might have terrific information and important new ideas to share, but if you can’t make them land with your audience, there’s little point in you writing in the first place.

That’s why we’ve spent the last couple of weeks looking at texts that weren’t scholarly articles or straightforward academic-style essays. Those genres work really well for certain audiences and purposes–to communicate cutting-edge new ideas to other people with some background knowledge/expertise in the field–but they don’t work well for everybody all the time. We depend upon other genres to communicate in other situations.

And that’s why I’ve asked you to get pretty specific in setting forth the rhetorical situation that you’ve conjured for this text you’re creating. In order to understand and evaluate your work, your readers need to know just who you’re aiming to reach and under what circumstances. (Make sure that you include a brief note explaining all this in the body of your draft post, due by the end of the day on Friday, 7/31).

It’s worth reviewing some of the myriad ways in which audience matters

Decisions about audience and purpose are intrinsically connected–it wouldn’t make sense to provide general knowledge background to people who are already experts, nor would it make sense to lobby entry-level workers for policy change (since they’re not the ones who make those decisions). Your audience and your objective need to be tightly and logically connected.

Your audience dictates various writing choices–how long will you be likely to have your readers’ attention? how much specialized jargon can you use? how much background information will you need to provide? what’s an effective level of detail? what kinds of examples will they be most interested in? what source information will your readers expect to have for their own follow-up? what kind of relationship will you seek to establish with them?

Knowing your audience lets you shape your text to be functional for them–in terms of level of formality, voice, use of graphics/media, visual organization of the text, incorporation of external links, etc.

 

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Crediting your sources

One of the challenges of writing in non-academic styles is that your academic citation skills might need to flex a bit–in-text parenthetical citations and footnotes simply aren’t appropriate to all genres, but you are still ethically bound to provide information about your sources to your readers.

So how do you do this??

This is one of the reasons I’ve asked you to look for sample texts in the genre you plan to write. In reviewing those samples, please pay attention to how the authors handle sources–do they provide a list of references at the end? (and perhaps numbered footnotes throughout?) do they hyperlink to other articles they’re working with? do they rely on in-text attribution (the sort of “according to X….” phrases)?

There are some formats (i.e. PowerPoint) where fairly traditional academic-style footnotes are still the order of the day. In most cases, though, in these non-academic genres, you’ll see embedded links and in-text attribution as the norm. You need to look closely at some samples to see how authors handle it in these media outlets, and then act accordingly.

Why is this so important?

Well, this is a research course, after all, so we need to approach the particulars of citing research carefully, but this isn’t just some check-off on an assignment. Research-based writing lives and breathes beyond the university, too, so you’ll need to have a variety of tools at your disposal to employ in these situations. You probably won’t be using MLA or APA-style forever, but you will be researching and sharing what you’ve learned for the rest of your career.

It’s also worth considering the ethical implications, which run in two directions. You have an obligation to the authors of the sources you are working with to provide credit where credit is due. Furthermore, you have an obligation to your readers, who need to have ready access to the sources you’ve been using for their own purposes. You’re part of a larger discussion around your issue, remember, and that means that you need to honor those whose work you’re building upon, as well as facilitate those who will want to do more with this topic once you’re done with it.

Note that (as indicated in the assignment rubric on the unit 3 assignment sheet) you have 2 responsibilities–to provide in-text attribution of sources that you are relying upon in building your argument and providing a separate complete bibliography for the sources that have helped to shape your thinking (even if you have not quoted, paraphrased, or cited them in your actual text).

Because this work of figuring out how to cite your sources matters so much, please be sure to integrate these credits into your draft, so that I can give you some feedback on how well it’s working and what adjustments you might need to make. If you have any questions as you’re working, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

 

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Writing in a conversational tone

This issue has popped up in a few of your posts/comments on the blog, so I wanted to follow up in a more visible way. Read on for some tips on how to produce a text in a conversational (as opposed to formal/academic) tone.

It’s not easy for many of us to write in a conversational tone–you’re not imagining that. In large measure, our writing style is the product of our education, and you’ve spent a lot of years being trained to write in a formal, academic style (and perhaps chastised when you produced something other than that). Furthermore, much of our writing lives have been defined by minimum word counts, which drive us to embellish our writing so we can inflate our word totals.

Conversational writing, therefore, means cutting against our habits and conducting ourselves in ways that are counter to our training. We need to develop new habits in order to do this effectively.

So, a few words of advice

  • as you try to figure out what you want to say and how to say it, talk it out–open up a voice memo or other audio recording on your phone, and pretend that you’re talking to someone about your topic. Prompt yourself with something casual like “what I’m really trying to say is….” and see what you come up with. The recording ensures you won’t lose the nuggets you come to.’
  • freewrite–try not to edit as you compose, but rather let yourself keep writing for a set period of time (10-15 minutes is a good starting point). This helps you to maintain your chain of thought and to get more comfortable hearing your ‘voice’ on the subject.  Once you’ve written, then read your text aloud. Look for the key ideas, then …..
  • pull out the key ideas into a fresh file, and start building a text around them. This helps you to avoid feeling wedded to the first words you wrote, which are often just verbal treading-water as we try to get started on our thinking.
  • when you’ve got something to work with, take your time revising, and do so with a particular focus on
    • employing visual organization (section headings, lists where appropriate; brief, focused paragraphs)
    • leading with the big idea (in each paragraph and in the text as a whole)
    • using visual representations of information where appropriate (infographics, charts, graphs, etc.)–this allows readers to engage in the ways that are most comfortable for them

Note that the revising will take time and discipline. One of your tasks later this week will be working through a guided revision process. Check out the Review and Revision worksheet in the Unit 3 dropbox on Blackboard.

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Discussion prompt for Week of 7/27

In this week’s discussion, you’ll focus on identifying one or more usable models for your own writing, recognizing that we can learn from and build on how others present their ideas. Much like we’ve been working with the templates in TSIS, such models can provide us with jumping-off points that will allow us to develop our own thinking.

I’ve given you a few pieces to get you started. You’ll find a folder of sample texts from different genres in the Unit 3 folder of Assigned Readings on Blackboard. Look through these to take in some of the many possibilities for what research-based writing can look like, and then browse around the web for some more examples. Locate a text that looks/works kind of like what you envision for your own project–something in that same genre (i.e. a magazine article, a memo from an HR department, a PowerPoint delivered to a professional audience, etc.). It doesn’t have to be on the same or even a related topic–you’re just looking for an example of a genre (or type of writing) that you’re going to be writing in.

For your post, once you’ve located an example, please share it with us by linking it to your post, and then talk about what you think of this text as an example of that genre–what are some of the unique or distinctive features of this type of writing? how well does this particular sample work? what do you like about it? are there ways in which you think it is less than successful? what lessons will you take from this to use in crafting your own project? (Bear in mind that we can learn both lessons in the positive–I really like how they did this, and I’m going to try to do something similar–and lessons in the negative–I don’t think they did a good job with X, so I want to make sure to do better).

Your post should be >150 words and must include an embedded link to or a picture of the sample you’re discussing. Please categorize your post as “Discussions/Homework,” and tag it with “week of 7/27,” “genre,” “unit 3,” and [your name]. Posts are due by Wednesday.

Then, for your response work this week, please read through 2 classmates’ drafts (which will be up by the end of the day on Friday). In order to ensure that everybody gets feedback, please go to the list of posts on the blog dashboard. Click “All Posts,” find the post with your draft, and then read the 2 immediately below that. In your comments (>100 words each), please highlight what you think is working well, what you’d like more explanation of, any questions that you have about the content, and any suggestions you have about how best to reach the audience this person is targeting. Your feedback is due by the end of the day Sunday, 8/2 (note this is an extension from the original due date).

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Overview of Week of 7/27

As we head into the final stretch of the course, your focus will be on developing your Unit 3 project. That will unfold through a few different steps. this week. Please read on for more about what you’ll be doing (and how, when, and why).

Make sure you take the time to review comments from me and from your classmates on the blog, as well as the feedback you received from me on your research portfolio, project proposal, and project plan. I’m looking forward to seeing how these projects take shape in the coming days.

As you’re doing that work, some things to keep in mind about genre. As we’ve been discussing (see below), genre is not simply a template, but rather a response to the demands of the subject matter/author’s purpose and the needs of the audience. (This might sound familiar–this is how Graff and Birkenstein talk about their They Say/I Say templates, as starting points for organic work, rather than as static cookie-cutter patterns. Those TSIS techniques may come in quite handy as you are working to orchestrate a complex conversation among you and your sources!)

For that reason, it’s essential that you head into this drafting work with a very clear picture of your audience and a clearly articulated objective. You have free license here to invent the parameters of your rhetorical situation, and in fact you’ll need to provide a brief statement of that situation with your draft. Tell us who you’re writing for (as precisely as possible), and explain the circumstances under which that audience will receive your text (i.e. browsing through social media, sitting at a professional conference, visiting their company’s Human Resources Department or their university’s Career Services Office, etc.).

As you see from the rubric for this project (below), your project will be evaluated based upon both content and approach–how well you work with your sources to develop and communicate your ideas AND how effectively you convey that material to your given audience within the situation you have constructed. Make sure you consult the criteria listed in the rubric as you are drafting and revising.

Content
Has clear research focus/question /2
Provides appropriately detailed examination of research focus/question /2
Provides background/examples appropriate for target readers /2
Includes discussion of/implications for workplace culture(s) /2
Utilizes and appropriately references source materials /2
Subtotal /10

 

Presentation of information
Clear visual organization of ideas/information—constructed for easy comprehension by readers in the situation you have outlined /1
Makes effective use of visuals (graphics, images, pull-quotes, white space/background, other) to enhance reader understanding and interest /1
Text is not marred by proofreading errors /1
Language is clear, engaging, and audience-appropriate /2
Subtotal /5
TOTAL:  /15

Your draft (with brief accompanying statement explaining the rhetorical situation for your text) is due by the end of the day on Friday, 7/31. Please post this to the blog. You’ll each read and respond to at least two of your classmates’ drafts by the end of the day on Saturday, and will begin revising your drafts based upon their feedback, even as you are waiting for additional feedback from me.  See this post for the particulars regarding your posts:

If you would like to talk with me about your draft-in-progress or any of your other work in the course, please email me directly, and we can communicate that way or set up a time to talk by phone. 

So here are this week’s tasks:

Reading

  • genre samples on Blackboard–check out the Genre Samples folder in the Unit 3 readings folder to see some of the various forms that researched writing can take
  • sample(s) you locate on your own of the type of text you’d like to develop–thinking about your target audience and your intended purpose, look for texts that seek to reach a similar objective

Writing

  • draft of your Unit 3 research project (post to blog as link or attachment by Friday, 7/31)
  • revision worksheet–considering and reconsidering your own draft as you await feedback from me and from your classmates (due by Sunday, 8/2)
  • discussion work as outlined in the post below:

    Discussion prompt for Week of 7/27

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Thinking some more about genre

In our discussion work this week and next, I’m asking you to think about genre and what shape your final project will take. You’ve got a lot of latitude here to decide that shape, and it’s worth thinking some more about how genre connects to audience and purpose as you do so.

First off, while it’s useful to think of genres as different types or categories (such as we use for sorting movies or music into meaningful ‘buckets’ or groups), genres are not static. Rather, genres are adaptive and organic. The pop music of today does not sound like the pop music of the 1960s. The circumstances, expectations, and preferences have shifted, and what is popular now is different from what was popular then.

Secondly, while genres have conventions and expectations (people come to a particular genre of movies expecting them to follow certain ‘rules,’ for example), these genre conventions aren’t written in stone. Users challenge them all the time, bending these notions to come up with something new. Think about the film Get Out–it was a comedy right? or was it horror? or was it something else altogether?

When it comes to writing, I think it’s helpful to think of genres as usable responses to recurring writing situations. Need to apply for a job? A cover letter gets the job done. It’s not fancy or exciting, but it contains the elements that a hiring manager would want to know, and in a pretty usable way that lets the reader go about their work efficiently. That didn’t just happen–the genre evolved as this situation (people applying for jobs) kept happening, and people kept responding in pretty consistent ways. Over time, this type of text took on a pretty predictable form. Now, people know what to expect from it (the writers and the readers), and that makes it pretty functional for the readers.

It’s important for writers to consider their readers’ needs as they write. This is all the more true outside of a classroom setting. A teacher reader has to read students’ texts–that’s literally their job–but outside of the classroom, readers seldom have that same requirement. Instead, we make choices about what, whether, and how well we read. When we bump into texts that don’t seem to meet our needs and interests, we often just don’t read them. Or we only skim them.

In your project proposal (due Sunday), your task is to settle upon an objective that you think matters–you’ve learned information that you really want to share with people whom you think need it, and if you’re going to accomplish that goal of information delivery, then you need to think carefully about what your reader will expect, value, and want in a text. That’s why you’ve got so much latitude to determine the genre you use, and it’s why you’ll need to think carefully about it.

As you’re settling on a genre, it’s really valuable to look for examples of that type of text that you think work really well, and then to read them closely, paying attention to things like

  • what kind of tone does this author use
  • how long is this text
  • how does the writer talk about/point to evidence
  • what role do graphics play here
  • what kinds of style and syntax does the writer employ
  • how formal is the voice
  • what level of detail does the text provide
  • what sorts of word choices does the writer make

So start poking around to look at some of your options. For next week’s readings, you’ll be looking at sample texts in a variety of different genres, but I’d like you to keep looking for models, as well, so that you can see the above considerations in action and be able to draw lessons for yourself. Next week’s discussion work will ask you to share something you’ve found, so start looking now.

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Overview for Week of 7/20

We’re moving into Unit 3 this week, with just a few weeks to go before the end of the summer term.  Read on for an explanation of where we’re headed in this final segment of the semester. 

Over the course of Unit 2, you’ve assembled a body of sources that cover a range of perspectives and ideas related to your research topic. You’ve spent some time thinking about how these texts fit together and how you fit into the subject–what you find interesting and significant about what you’re learning.

So now it’s time for you to jump into this conversation–to develop an argument based on the research you’ve compiled for an audience and purpose of your choosing. Over the next week and a half, we’ll be working through the process of selecting an appropriate audience and articulating your purpose in addressing that audience. Be sure to read through the unit 3 assignment sheet in preparation for this work.

Along the way (this week and next), we’ll be looking at some examples of different genres, considering how writers bend their texts stylistically to suit their purposes and the needs of their audiences. Towards that end, here’s what’s up this week.

Reading

  • “How to create a culture manifesto for your organization”
  • “Shaping an ethical organizational culture” (note that this is a change from the original Unit 3 schedule–NYS took down the document I had planned to work with)
  • Chapter 10 of TSIS (originally on last week’s schedule, but I accidentally omitted it from last week’s overview)–this will be an especially important chapter for your upcoming work, so make sure to read it!

Writing

  • project proposal (due Sunday, 7/26)–this will be a brief blog post in which you plot out the basics of your project, including what audience you think ought to hear about what you’ve been learning (i.e. what group would benefit from hearing the argument you plan to develop)
  • discussion posts in response to this week’s prompts (due Wednesday, with follow-up comments, as outlined in the prompt due by Monday or Tuesday at the latest):

Discussion posts for Week of 7/20

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Discussion posts for Week of 7/20

I am working my way through your research portfolios and will be getting you some feedback as soon as I can. While you’re waiting for that, please review the  unit 3 assignment sheet and get started on the week’s readings, a couple of texts on building healthy cultures within an organization that look rather different from the essays/articles we’ve been reading.

Our focus is on genre this week and next. To refresh, “genre” refers to the sort of reasonable responses we make to recurring writing situation–need to reach out to a prospective client? a formal business letter can be a good way to initiate contact. Need to show what you know to a teacher on an exam? a 5-paragraph essay might get the job done. Need to impress a potential employer? An organized, clean, easy-to-read resume is a good plan. Have to make a sales pitch? A snazzy Prezi might be just the thing. Genres take shape because we find them to be helpful, audience-centered ways to accomplish a particular kind of communication task. The demands of the writing situation dictate the sort of genres that might be appropriate. As you move toward presenting your research, it’s time to explore possible genres for that work.

For this week’s discussion, please respond to both of the questions below. Categorize your posts as “Discussions,” and tag them with “week of 7/20,” “unit 3,” “genre,” and [your name].

  1. Notice the practical focus of both of this week’s readings (these aren’t just about sharing information for curiosity’s sake but rather about rendering it usable for a particular audience and purpose). Select one of this week’s readings to focus on, and examine how the authors do that–how do they process what they’ve learned to make it actionable for a reader? what readers? what writing/rhetorical strategies do you see them employing to make this information usable for their readers? Be specific and analytical–why do you think they go about it in this way? How effective do you think it is for that particular audience?
  2. It’s time to start imagining the possibilities for your own research writing in Unit 3–given what you want to discuss, for what purpose, and to whom, what are some of the options for you? What kinds of texts would this sort of reader be likely to engage with? where/when/on what platform do you see them getting this info? what kinds of expectations would your readers have about
  • level of detail
  • writing style
  • length of text
  • time spent reading
  • citation method
  • types of evidence/sources

Your response work might carry over a little into next week–you can either respond to their answers to #2 above, or read through a couple of your classmates’ project proposals after they’re due on Sunday, 7/26. Either way, please comment on at least 3 of them.  Try to offer up your suggestions for what forms their work might take, given the parameters they’ve outlined.

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Overview for Week of 7/13

We’re wrapping up Unit 2 this week, and your primary focus will be on assembling your research portfolio. This set of texts is kind of a checkpoint on the way to your research project, an opportunity to assess what you have to work with and what you might be able to make from it. It’s not an end in and of itself, but rather a stopover.

A few reminders about the items that the portfolio will contain (taken from the unit 2 assignment sheet )

  • at least 6 annotations (2 paragraphs each, 1 of summary, 1 of discussion)
  • focusing flowchart
  • research plan
  • complicating your research activity
  • rounding out the conversation worksheet
  • your unit 2 reflection (see assignment sheet for prompt)

In short, this portfolio will represent your research progress, from the inception of your idea, through locating and considering sources, and including your efforts to broaden that conversation to better understand the issues under consideration.

As you advance towards this goal, then,

  • be sure to read through feedback on the above assignments and your discussion posts (I’ll get you feedback on your draft annotations ASAP)
  • refresh your memory on writing an effective summary (review this handout on summary)
  • review the rubric and assignment overview on the unit 2 assignment sheet
  • email me with any questions

Read on for the week’s agenda.

Reading

  • “Individual change won’t create gender equality in organizations”
  • your assigned jump-out link from that text (check out the announcement on Blackboard for details)

 

Writing

  • write your unit 2 reflection
  • complete your source annotations
  • assemble your research portfolio. This will come in as a single blog post with embedded PDF files. Check out this post for instructions on how to do that:

Instructions for creating a blog post with embedded links and files

  • respond to this week’s discussion prompts by the end of the day on Friday (this is a 1-day extension). See post below:

Discussion prompts for Week of 7/13

Note that I’m pushing back the next assignment (the research proposal) to next week, so that you’ll have some more time to work through your ideas. You can look for more info on that in next week’s overview on Monday.