Tag: unit 2

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Types of sources

As you see on the unit 2 assignment sheet you will need to have at least 1 primary source and 1 scholarly source in your research portfolio.

We’ve talked a bit about scholarly sources already–take a look back at this post for a refresher:

What makes a source “scholarly”?

Now let’s talk about what a primary source is. A primary source is typically one based on direct first-hand experience or observation of an event or issue. What constitutes a primary source will vary by discipline/research topic. For example, in history, a primary source might be a document or artifact that dates to the time period under consideration (a letter written by a soldier during the Civil War, for example, or a photograph taken at that moment in time).  In literature, a primary source might be the poem or other literary work that the author is analyzing. In the sciences (both social sciences and “hard” sciences), primary sources might be data from experiments conducted or field notes recording one’s observations or actual artifacts from that research process. 

There are certainly situations in which opinion polls/surveys constitute primary sources, as well, providing fresh, direct insight into attitudes on a topic. Similarly, narrative sources (blog posts, interviews, autobiographical writings) might constitute primary sources, too. The basic idea is that a primary source gets us as close as possible to a particular phenomenon or topic, providing us information that is as unfiltered and direct as can be had.

By contrast, most of the sources you find yourself working with are secondary sources, which include primary sources among their evidence. Such sources provide you with commentary and analysis that is at least one step removed from the topic itself. Note that both types–primary and secondary–are valuable in any research inquiry. Primary sources, because they are so individualized, really don’t work in isolation. They need the context of additional analysis, such as is provided by secondary sources, to be meaningful. This is yet one more reason why an array of sources, serving different functions and representing different perspectives, is so critical to the success of researched writing.

And one more note on the subject of source types: it’s worth striving for a “balanced diet” of information. Scholarly sources are kind of like broccoli–maybe not as tasty and easy as some other types, but with a lot of valuable nutrients. They’re good for the overall health of our inquiry, even if they’re not our favorite go-to item. For more on this analogy, I encourage you to watch this really accessible and interesting TED talk by JP Rangaswami:

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Discussion prompts for Week of 6/22

This week’s work centers around focusing and surveying, and we’re going to stick with that theme in discussion. I’d like you to consider an analogy to photography here. When you’re getting ready to take a picture, you need to make a whole lot of decisions. That starts with deciding what your subject is going to be–what you’re going to focus on. In the course of making that decision, you’re also weighing what else is around that focal point, deciding what to include and exclude based on how you frame the image (whether and how much you zoom, how you refocus if you do zoom in, and deciding whether and how to overlay filters and other effects).

image that depicts a person focusing camera lens

That’s kind of how research works–figuring out what’s worth focusing on requires a lot of surveying the landscape to see what’s out there and what’s interesting, and then making a series of decisions about how to compose a final image that you think others will want to see.  We’re entering the surveying phase now–looking to see what’s out there and then deciding where to focus and how to frame the shot.

Please respond to both of the prompts below by the end of the day on Wednesday, 6/24, and then tune back in later in the week to respond to a couple of your classmates’ posts.

  1. What search tools have you tried, and what are you noticing about them–how they work, what kinds of sources you turn up with different tools, what specialized features (i.e. Advanced Search features) seem especially helpful? If you’re running into roadblocks, explain what you’ve tried, so we can offer suggestions to help you keep moving forward.
  2. Plot some research goals for yourself. As you can see in the unit 2 assignment sheet you will need to have at least 1 scholarly source, and at least 1 primary source (check out the post below for a rundown of what constitutes a primary source). You’re welcome to include a variety of sources beyond that, but will want to ensure that your sources represent a range of different viewpoints and contributions. What kinds of texts are you hoping to find? Which fields and voices do you want to make sure are represented? How will you work to find them?

A refresher on source types:

Types of sources

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Overview for Week of 6/22

I’ll be getting you feedback on your recent posts and on your focusing flowchart within the next 24 hours, so please be on the lookout for that, and use that to get started on your research for sources for your research portfolio.

Read on for the particulars of what’s due this week, but first, let me give you a bit more of the Big Picture of Unit 2.

big picture

In this Unit, you will be assembling a set of sources–representing a mix of voices of various stakeholders, a variety of source types (including primary, scholarly, and others), and a range of perspectives. Your primary tasks in this unit will be making decisions about what sources to include and becoming conversant with those sources. In this unit, we’ll focus on these elements:

  • locating sources (working with the SU library databases and other tools)
  • evaluating sources (assessing their value, credibility, and utility to your project)
  • writing about your sources (in a couple of note-taking and discussion exercises, and in longer annotations that are part of your portfolio)

You’ll be building a research project with these and other sources down the road in Unit 3. This unit will let you take your time developing a strong foundation for that work, so that your research can be intentional, critical, and productive (and not just quote-dropping or patching together other people’s words and ideas). This will allow you to make something new, a valuable contribution to the world of knowledge on the subject you choose to explore.

So, here are this week’s tasks.

Reading:

  • “Four questions to protect your organization’s culture during COVID-19
  • chapters 6 and 7 of TSIS
  • chapter 2 (“Forwarding”) of Rewriting

Writing and discussion work:

  • 2 note-taking exercises (1 due Wednesday, and the other due Sunday)–this begins with you locating possible sources, and then working with 2 different techniques spelled out on this notetaking techniques handout
  • discussion posts (your posts due Wednesday, replies to classmates’ posts due Saturday). Here’s the link to the prompts:

    Discussion prompts for Week of 6/22

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Discussion Week of 6/15

  1. I think the most fascinating commonality that was beaming through everyone’s canons was the focus on improving the diversity within the workplace. Although, I found it fascinating how many combatting demographics there are when promoting this said diversity. Even the smallest of differentiators like religion, age, maybe even hair color/texture can certainly be looked at when addressing the success and diversity of a company. One of the most captivating media pieces I found, which had me think about organizational culture in a different way, was classmate Bryan’s TED Talk link focusing on how language changes the way we speak. I find that this was something that I simply overlooked, how the transmission of conversation within a workplace should be diverse and reach to many demographics not just focusing on one.
3. The paragraph I decided to focus on was a huge traditional paragraph, in my opinion, that changed the course of the article. The paragraph starting with “Webb says her airport experiences can be…” all the way to “…and they will serve the population better” was a seamless transition. Introducing the article with Webb’s personal experience was a great way to captivate the attention of the reader, hoping that it may be a somewhat relatable experience or one that the reader could place themselves into Webb’s shoes. This paragraph brought together Webb’s personal story and how demographically skewed computer systems are programmed to be in a manner that was almost undetected. Bringing the key points of Webb’s story to mind as they aligned perfectly with the purpose of the article is certainly not easy, but the way Bogost blended these two together is astounding.
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Blog Post week 6/15

I think immediately at the start of the blog post, one of the first uses of rhetoric that helped me was in the first paragraph. When introducing Amy Webb, Peterson grabs the attention of the reader with a common issue that many have experienced, in this case it is getting injured and having a boot. This helped to place myself in the shoes of Amy Webb and understand where the foundation of the article is coming from. The next piece of rhetoric was something I found I could connect to was when Amy described how she noticed the other women walking through the scan at the airport and seeing that all of them had the breast area glowing yellow. This was an observation that allowed me to picture the incriminating evidence Amy found, being that all these women passing through airport security were found to have glowing areas of yellow in the breast region. I found it fascinating that it was small inconsistencies with the system’s scanning that marked whether an area should be considered searched or not. This was further understood when mentioned how “curly hair” may also show up as a yellow area of concern on a security scanner, although many people like myself have curly hair, allowing myself to understand that these small inconsistencies most likely affect a large population of people who do not have straight hair and even more with those who do have breasts. Later leading into the topic of the article, being that computer analysis systems should be more diverse, I found it quite interesting when Webb decides that an example to look up to is China as it draws the reader in as to why this is the case that there is a better way to educate. They way China is educating their future generation is a bit different than the USA, as these young children are being taught the “new basics of knowledge” pushing for studies of reading and writing over coding. I think it is also evident that when in the concluding paragraph, the reader is drawn in again by the claim that this underrepresentation of minorities and women is an issue, but “not a fundamental one”. This claim in interesting as it pushes not that the public is not represented, but that the real problem is “computing with computing”.

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Week of 6/15 Discussion

Clearly we all took the Expanding The Canon assignment seriously. It’s always fun when everyone gets to chose subjects which are close to their hearts, intellectually stimulating, or in the best cases, both. I was particularly struck by Samantha’s post about religion in the workplace.  Despite having been raised Roman Catholic, I am not a particularly religious man. I am, however, a huge fan of Christmas. I have a tattoo on my chest of Santa Claus for crying out loud!I

It’s my love of Christmas that got me thinking as I read Samantha’s post. For ten to eleven months of the year, there are no hints or signs of religion at my workplace. Then, come mid to late November, Christmas decorations are hung everywhere around the office. There are some decorations for Chanukah and Kwanzaa, but they are dwarfed by the blinking lights, trees and ornaments throughout the building.

Everyone at work is well aware of my fondness for Christmas and as such, for the past several years, I have been responsible for organizing the office holiday party. This is typically a non-denominational event which usually involves drinks and dinner somewhere. This past year, however, my boss wanted to do something different.

She was enamored with the idea of riding around to see holiday lights displays. I loved the idea, and quickly looked into hiring a bus to drive us around certain neighborhoods known for their displays. A colleague suggested I hire a party-bus that featured karaoke, so that everyone could sing their favorite Christmas carols while we rode around town. While I understood her intention, I wasn’t quite sure that was the best idea. The idea behind the holiday party is to be as inclusive as possible. Asking people who don’t celebrate Christmas, and are perhaps unfamiliar with Christmas carols didn’t seem particularly sensitive and inclusive.

I ultimately decided to get the karaoke bus, and it seems I didn’t have anything to worry about. The people who chose to sang ended up picking rock & pop songs. The only holiday song that ended up being sung was “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.” Perhaps I got lucky, or perhaps other folks were being more mindful and inclusive than my fears had been giving them credit for.

For me, the “flashpoint” of Bogost’s article is the moment when Amy Webb blames our recent cultural obsession with STEM education for the current lack of diversity in computing. Given that the conventional wisdom du jour has been a focus on getting more kids – and in particular – girls and minorities into computing via STEM education, to have that quote from an NYU professor, which follows Bogost’s own self-identification as a professor of computing and liberal arts at Georgia tech is particularly powerful.

At the end of that passage, the reader is now asking themselves, “Well, if these guys don’t think getting kids into STEM is going to solve things, what will?”. Bogost now has the rest of the article to attempt to answer that question.

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Prompts 6/18

  1. One particular media element which I found significant from this assignment was Dan’s attached TEDTalk named “How to Make Millennials Want to Work for You.” This really made an impression on me because although I’m not considered a Millennial, I still learned about the upcoming adjustments in the workforce and how businesses and older employers need to adapt for this generation and the upcoming generation, Gen Z. Just as Dan said in his post that there is a disconnect in Gen Y and Gen X, I think it’s important to note that there may also be a disconnect in Gen X and Gen Z. When the speaker of the TEDTalk explained the topic of money vs. meaning, this thought really sat in my brain for the next few minutes after watching. I came to the realization that working unhappily without a purpose really would serve me no motivation in life, so I’m grateful for watching this because I definitely learned something valuable. I am seeing the idea of “diversity and organizational cultural” differently because this video really took me back to week 1 when we read the several different definitions on what organizational culture is, and which one I most identified with my own definition of it, comparing that to what I think it is now. Just a few weeks ago, my knowledge on this subject matter was little to none, however that’s changing with every single reading and prompt I write.
  2. Bogost uses several transitions throughout his article to develop an argument and lay down the groundwork. One passage that I’d like to focus on is his transition between the paragraphs in the middle of the article beginning with “Even though she’d like…” and “Webb points to China…” Here, Bogost effectively points out an issue that Webb sees with diversity in the computing industry. When Bogost mentions that Webb says “Critical thinking is what the computers won’t be able to do,” he purposely sets up this statement to then lead into a solution in the next paragraph. By explaining that Webb thinks of China as an alternative, this moves forward with Bogost’s groundwork and addresses a strategy of having a possible AI textbook for preschoolers.
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Discussion Prompts Week of 6/15

  1. When looking through all of my classmates posts in the canon, I saw many examples of diversity that we hadn’t really discussed earlier. I really enjoyed reading the posts and looking at how others wrote about diversity in all aspects. One post that really stood out to me was the one about religion in the workplace. It made me think about how religion can play a huge factor and and that leadership has had a big effect on how the company goes about religion. Personally, I am not very religious so I haven’t thought much about that but having religious diversity is once again essential in order to connect to a verity of different customers. I thought it was really interesting because as said in the post, religion in the workplace is often seen as religion of the workplace. In addition to the article being intriguing, the media element that was included helped tie everything together. It went into further detail about religion in the workplace and how there is a lot of discrimination that has been happening along with it.

3. Transitions can often be challenging at times, but it is essential in writing because it helps with he flow of the passage and helps develop ideas. The section I would like to focus on in Bogost’s article about diversity in computing  is where he introduces the center in which he works at at Georgia Tech. He begins this paragraph by saying “among them.” This transition from the last paragraph helps the reader know what exactly is being talked about and included. He then goes on to say what the center is and their goal. He uses “among its activities” to further show what the center does and help the reader see why it’s important to the article. Throughout the passage, he uses quotes from various people. To help the flow of these quotes, he uses words such as “she insisted” and “even though” to help with this flow.

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Week of 6/15 – Discussion

1. I really found myself appreciating many of the topics our peers shared this past week. One thing I found myself noticing was being able to make connections across different posts or subjects. The media element Samantha shared on religious diversity, for instance, brought up the notion of integration when combatting religious stereotype threats. This pairs along with some of the arguments Bogost raised when sharing the various perspective he and his colleagues had on distinguishing integration with diversity. Similarily it also touched on the idea of embracing valuable differences which were overlapping themes between Aaron, Dominique, and  Mikayla’s post. The general message each author argued for was in taking the time to learn from others and embrace the differences we all share. Whether that be in one’s disability, educational or experiential intelligence, or the perceptional age and influence from minority populations, all three articles respectively umbrella under the same goal. Like many of the other canon articles and media links shared, I gained valuable insight in expanding my line of thinking opening up targeted groups and larger, untapped audiences.

3. Bogost starts his argumentation with a particular and relatable but problematic situation at the airport involving the university professor Webb to create an interesting and intelligible beginning to the topic of discriminatory environments in technological fields. Here, he uses quotes to zoom out the specific situation and to identify the problems in a bigger picture that have been created by the non-representative Tech industry. After that, he puts the focus on some approaches in that area to ameliorate the issues in diversity. For the link between the individual paragraphs, the author applies transitional connectors into the syntactical structures like “even though” or “but” for a better reading flow and to maintain coherence between the different passages. Besides that, he includes various opinions of other experts, giving them a voice to substantiate his reasoning. Webb also plays a role throughout the argumentation to generate a connection between the anecdote of the beginning and the passages. Giving her point of view, the article ends by pointing out the general problems of Computing in the Tech industry.

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Discussion week of 6/15

  1. When reviewing my classmates’ contributions I could see that many new categories of diversity are discussed throughout these posts. Each topic of focus added to the canon simply because they analyzed a topic that we have yet to discuss. What I found interesting was that before reading the post discussing language diversity, I had not thought the topic was an issue related to diversity. It made me think outside my perspective, and since I know many people with non-native accents it allowed me to connect and empathize. The addition of the article Language Diversity, Non-native Accents, and Their Consequences into the canon was significant to me because it added a unique inclusive perspective of multiple people who struggle with the challenges of language diversity at work. The media element from the same post, which was a TED talk from cognitive scientist and professor Lera Boroditsky, was informative and connected well with the article, working as supportive evidence. After reading all of these posts I can now see how diversity and organizational culture is so complex. Reflecting on the first reading we looked at where there was so many definitions of organizational culture I can see how this came to be due to a extensive list of diverse groups in the world.

3. The transitions that Bogost uses throughout his writing help move along his argument clearly, keeping it focused and concise. Some of the ways he approaches moving between one paragraph and another include a tactic where he seems to begin his paragraphs with a response to the question that the previous posed. The use of language to begin a paragraph such as “But” and “even though” continuously reference the content in the paragraph above giving his writing a continuous flow. To do this he begins his text with the story of Webb, making them familiar with her from the start so that the continuous inclusion of her perspective does not feel random or unrelated to the other facts or opinions he includes.