June 2021 – WRT 205 Summer 2021

Expanding the Canon Draft

Strategic Diversity Leadership

In “Strategic Diversity Leadership: The Role of Senior Leaders in Delivering the Diversity Dividend” (Journal of Management, September 2020), Luis L. Martins shines a spotlight on the role that top executives play in shaping organizational culture and driving organizational performance. In this paper, he discusses his findings from an extensive literature review of contemporary research on strategic leadership and workplace diversity and inclusion, work that led him to develop a new framework he calls “strategic diversity leadership.” His purpose is to share this framework with organizational leaders who are seeking competitive advantage as well as his academic peers to inspire further study.

As a professor and chair of the management department at The University of Texas at Austin, Martins knows a thing or two about organizational cultures and organizational performance. Over a 30-year academic career, he has conducted research and written extensively on the factors that drive innovation, change, and performance, including diversity and inclusion. He has also consulted for dozens of clients, such as Coca Cola, FBI Crime Labs, Samsung, and Waffle House, to test solutions in the real world. Business and academic leaders know that when Martins finds a new way of solving a problem, it is worth taking a closer look.

A missing link

There is a significant body of research that shows diversity leads to better organizational performance, but there is also evidence that shows the implementation of diversity and inclusion programs do not always lead to the desired results. Martins defines the diversity dividend as “the enhancement in an organization’s performance that is attributable to its diversity” (1192). When he investigates why the diversity dividend is not realized, he discovers a missing link between the traditional role of top executives and the role they must play in their organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts. If Martins is right, which I believe he is, implementing a strategic diversity leadership framework to close this gap is the key to better performance.

Leaders must lead

Martins defines strategic diversity leadership as “the shaping of the meaning of diversity within an organization by the organization’s senior leaders” (1194). Martins’ strategic diversity leadership framework is extremely useful because it directly links the role of senior leaders to the efforts and outcomes associated with the organization’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. Because they hold positions of authority, Martins asserts, top executives have both the platform and the responsibility for realizing the benefits of a diverse workforce. That is to say, supervisors and other employees can only do so much if the organization’s top executives do not lead the way.

Fig. 1. Strategic diversity leadership framework showing the link between traditional senior leader roles and organizational diversity initiatives (Martins 1195).

Martins argues that senior leaders must use the power of communication to establish a vision and articulate that the “current state is unacceptable” (1198). He also argues that senior leaders must participate in public activities that promote diversity and inclusion, including rituals and ceremonies (1198-1199). In other words, top executives must symbolize the value of diversity and inclusion through both words and actions. Only by taking full responsibility for the design of the organizational culture can senior leaders create organizational performance that maximizes the diversity dividend.

The strategic diversity leadership framework Martins proposes is important because it shifts our focus for solving organizational culture challenges from the level of supervisors, staff, policies, and tasks to the level of executives, vision, strategy, and organizational design. Martins is telling us that those who hold the most power in an organization also hold the most responsibility and they must be held accountable. I couldn’t agree more. While the strategic diversity leadership framework holds great potential for bringing about change, Martins understands that he is breaking new ground and proposes further study to finetune his theories and reveal additional insights. I look forward with optimism to seeing his ideas confirmed.

Works Cited

Martins, Luis L. “Strategic Diversity Leadership: The Role of Senior Leaders in Delivering the Diversity Dividend.” Journal of Management, 1 September 2020, pp. 1191-1204, https://doi-org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.1177/0149206320939641.

“Luis Martins Biography.” The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business. https://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/execed/faculty/luis-martins.

Discussion Questions Week of 6/28

Response to #1

In his TEDxMidwest talk, “Why work doesn’t happen at work” (October 2010), Jason Fried, entrepreneur and founder of Basecamp, argues that it’s time for companies to change their thinking and practices about office work. He asserts that the typical office is an unproductive environment full of interruptions and activities that waste time, and he makes a case that employees will be more productive working in environments of their own choice. Fried’s rhetorical approach is interesting because it relies entirely on anecdotes to support his claims. He does not cite statistics or external sources. Fried knows that office workers are the audience for this talk, and he engages them by telling stories they can relate to. For example, most office workers can relate to Fried’s anecdotes about meetings that were a complete waste of time or a boss who has a habit of interrupting them. He really strikes a chord when he compares interrupted work with interrupted sleep. In delivering his talk, he does not speak from the position of an authority on office work but from the position of a peer, as someone who has developed insights from experiencing office work directly himself. He wears worn jeans and hardly ever makes eye contact with the audience as he shuffles back and forth on the stage. His tone is conversational. All of this helps him convey the message that “I’m one of you,” and create the pathos that helps his audience emotionally connect with his ideas. Fried also knows that radical organizational change is hard to achieve quickly, so he offers some simple and practical ideas that his audience can try wherever they work. For these reasons, I think Fried’s rhetorical approach is effective in getting his audience to believe his argument.

Response to #2

Margaret Heffernan begins her TEDSummit talk “The human skills we need in an unpredictable world” (July 2019) with a story about a grocery chain that tried to use technology to improve its operations. It’s a story of good intentions with poor results and helps her illustrate the main theme that runs throughout her speech, and that’s: the expensive and inefficient human way of solving problems often delivers better results. Her objective tone and poise establish trust with her listeners, which is important because she wants them to understand that her subject is serious with implications for everything from climate change to financial crises to epidemics. To appeal to her audience and build up support for her claims, she uses a pattern of stories followed by ideas. These stories are her evidence, and she draws them from many different areas of life, such as the grocery store, home health care, and sports. These stories create pathos and emotional connection because her audience can relate to these scenarios and outcomes. In her story about home nursing care, Heffernan also incorporates data to support her argument, noting that after an experiment “patients got better in half the time and costs fell by 30 percent.” This tactic helps creates logos and appeals to listener’s sense of logic and reason. Heffernan is a polished speaker, and she is also very skilled at using rhetorical strategies to strengthen her argument and persuade her listeners to share her point of view.

Expanding the Canon Draft

After discovering that an astonishing 67% of full-time faculty at business schools are white, Professors Grier (a professor of marketing at American University) and Poole (a professor at the University of San Francisco) decided to dive deeper into why diverse groups are underrepresented. To do this, they conducted a qualitative study through interviewing professors in business schools. Through interviews, Grier and Poole were able to study five components of the Critical Race Theory which offered some explanation into why there is not a proportionate number of diverse faculty members to students. The elements include: unchanged race and lasting racism, the interconnected nature of race with forms of subordination, the idea of one dominant ideology, experiential knowledge and commitment to social justice. The interviews also revealed in detail about how many schools care about the ‘best athlete’ construct, where only outputs matter. Schools do not take into account inputs, or extra duties performed by many underrepresented staff, including mentoring diverse students and serving as members in hiring committees. Grier and Poole’s research found that in order to be successful in creating an inclusive environment, everyone must be enthusiastic and open to change. By documenting the issues surrounding diverse faculty in business schools, the professors hope other professors will reflect on their own environments, and advocate for change.

The research done by Grier and Poole is essential in understanding the reasons why there are not more faculty who are considered diverse. In my opinion, by understanding the reasons behind not having a more diverse faculty, people will be able to change components of their organization. For example, we need to start understanding and celebrating how many professors take on different tasks to promote diversity. The dominant ideology has never represented the underrepresented minority experience, yet has always served towards the best interests of dominant groups. Many may find it difficult to embrace change, as they are a part of the dominant group. By promoting change, they are not serving in their own best interests. Along with this, it is difficult for another person to truly comprehend another person’s experiences if they have never experienced them themselves. Being in a dominant group and promoting change through words is different than taking actions to promote change. As a result, many underrepresented groups may not feel as though others are advocating for change.

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/01/06/faculty-members-color-see-illusion-inclusion

We already know why having faculty that is diverse in their views is important, as illustrated by Austin and Pisano, Gundemir, along with this clip:

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owogyWB_lqE

However, understanding what to change is essential in feeling the effects of a more diverse faculty. By understanding different aspects that explain why many organizations do not have a more diversified staff core, we will be able to reflect and change these components, eventually leading to a diverse staff that represents everyone’s backgrounds and experiences. In my opinion, Grier and Poole’s article is critical in helping us reflect on our surroundings and understanding that we all need to be supportive of change.

Expanding the Canon Draft

In Bowen, Havercamp, and Nye’s “A call to action: Preparing a disability-competent health care workforce”, from the Disability and Health Journal, the authors successfully illustrate two initiatives that would eliminate the failure of competence towards those who are disabled as well as their essential care. Being the largest minority group in the world, the authors of this article clearly understand the urgency of this issue. Bowen and the rest of the writers start by dissecting why the needs of those who are disabled aren’t met by evaluating the preconceived notion caretakers have towards them. It is stated that their misunderstanding is a result of a biased mindset, where caretakers believe those with disabilities have a lower quality of life and function and have low expectations for their health which results in less urgency towards proper care. We can see this same mindset in many forms, whether it attacks minorities due to their race, income, gender, and endless others. Bowen et al. state that disability training can address the improvement of accessible treatment and increase better communication and understanding. This will be successful IF there is a balance between intent and effect, where health care workers will have to be conscious of the similarity of their words and behavior, which leads to the authors’ two initiatives towards this issue.

The urgency of these initiatives also circles back to hopes of systematic change. The article mentions that the systematic organizational framework in this country has disrupted the development and growth of disability healthcare. The two initiatives given in this article to facilitate fair and accessible health care would establish learning objectives and core foundations for health care workers which would increase their understanding and urgency, as well as simply continuing education training and bettering it as a whole in hopes of competent health care for those with disabilities. These initiatives are set up by two frameworks, the Disability Competencies and the DCC (Disability Competenent Care). The Disability Competencies provides a set of skills and behaviors needed to provide accommodating health care towards those who are disabled. Through various studies, this framework was proven successful and applied to the full range of disabilities.The DCC offers structure in educating the health care workforce and addresses the patient as a person, not just by their disability.

Bowen et al. do not just analyze these initiatives and calculate their success and stability but recognizes the dire need for change at this very moment in time. The authors acknowledge that the incompetence seen is due to systematic instability and that their initiatives would develop a foundation for practical, real change. This mindset is crucial while tackling the unfair treatment of all minorities. The authors believe these initiatives need to be required and that healthcare licensure should be reevaluated the same way recruitment in the business workforce should. This adds to the understanding that this instability is systematic and has been seen repeated in different shapes and forms, usually all having similarities in oppression. It is safe to say that the authors are aware that using these tactics in other scenarios, letting go of assumptions, uplifting, and acknowledging those who are diverse would create small steps towards competent systematic change. If those who are meant to help a specific issue don’t, who will?

file:///Users/katemehne/Desktop/Disability%20and%20Health%20Journal.html

Discussion Questions Week 4

Response 1

Heffernan, a former CEO, attempts to explain the need for human qualities, as forecasting with technology cannot be solely relied on in the future. In the TED talk, Heffernan first attempts to connect with her audience by using a joke, in which coconuts are used in the reference as an example. I thought it was well done by Heffernan, as it got her audience interested in hearing more about what she had to say. After using examples of things that AI cannot forecast, such as when a group of high schoolers will need to buy coconuts, Heffernan uses “we” a significant amount. Heffernan is most likely referring to the human population due to how much she references human nature and the qualities that humans have, unlike technology. Along with using “we”, Heffernan does a fantastic job at blending in everyday real-world examples of why human qualities are essential. Heffernan does this by speaking about a hospital that had a strict schedule for each patient, which was changed to a more relaxed schedule based on what the nurse believed was necessary. A nurse who is sitting in the audience might be interested in hearing more about this topic. She uses other topics of individuals in the business world, thereby making other people within that field interested. By referencing a wide range of different industries, Heffernan can appeal to a variety of people in different areas, yet all have one thing in common. Efficiency does not always mean effectiveness, as numbers are not 100%, and cannot predict the future. She also used a personal anecdote where she said she spoke to some rising CEOs, asking who their friends were at work. The CEOs stated that they had no time for that, in turn not being able to create lasting connections with other meaningful people in the business world.

The most critical part about her speech though is that she spoke more in a conversational tone. She did not bring up any relevant statistical evidence in her examples, rather she spoke through the reasoning. Technology, on the other hand, would solely rely on numbers, not human intuition. For this speech, Heffernan only relies on human interaction and appeals to the audience as “we” to illustrate the need for human interaction and emotions to be involved in organizations.

Response 2

Heffernan chooses to work with evidence in the exact opposite way that AI would work to form an opinion. Instead of using numerical data to back up her findings, Heffernan relies almost only on anecdotes in different organizations to prove her point. To make her points more effective, Heffernan develops her ideas by initially stating what she believes to be true, which is that we must not rely on technology completely, as humans are useful due to their ability to form connections and have emotions. After doing so, Heffernan chooses to use a real-world example to illustrate this point. For example, Heffernan states that having an efficient well-laid schedule may not be effective. Nurses discovered this after following a strict schedule only allocating a small amount of time for each patient and then turning to a schedule where they were able to spend as much time as they would like to with any given patient. After switching schedules, the cost went down while patient recovery times also improved.

Heffernan throughout the speech keeps us on our toes, as she speaks on the fact that no one knows when the economy is going to tank, or when the next epidemic is going to happen. Although this talk happened in 2019, I think it is really interesting. No one ever could have imagined that the COVID pandemic would happen in 2020, as we really could not predict it. Being able to look back on this video two years later is fascinating to me because it solidifies her point that forecasting and technology cannot predict everything in life, especially because ”Efficiency works well when you can predict exactly what you are going to need. But when the anomalous comes along… efficiency is no longer your friend.” She speaks about how there are organizations that help research vaccines and variations of sicknesses or diseases. If we did not already have research on other diseases such as SARS, then we would not have been able to develop a vaccine as quickly. However, due to some amazing researchers who continued to research SARS a vaccine was developed fast. Some may not have thought that it was efficient to be studying something that was not impacting our society at that present moment. However, it became effective in the long run and helped develop a vaccine.

Another reason why Heffernan is so successful at conveying her thoughts is because of the way that she addresses her audience. She addresses the audience as “we” because both she and the audience have emotions and are people. One of the main points that she tries to illustrate is that the thing that makes an organization successful is the people within it. I believe that her speech was less of an argument and more so went through a step-by-step process of her ideas, which were laid out through logical reasoning and stories.

By using both imaginary and real-world anecdotes to convey her point, Heffernan does a fantastic job at conveying her point about why technology cannot be fully relied on. I enjoyed listening to this TED talk especially because it aligned with many topics covered in my management classes last semester.

Discussion Questions WK 6/28

In Jason Fried’s Tedtalk “Why work doesn’t happen at work” he mainly uses comparisons to help his get his point across that work doesn’t happen at work because of the various distractions present in the office. One of his comparisons was that when a person is trying to sleep they need to be distraction free so they are able to have a good nights rest. Fried says this is the same case for work as well, you must be distraction free to get your best work done because you won’t be able to get deep into your work (or your sleep) if you are constantly being interrupted. He gives examples of distractions that are present at work that aren’t at other places like work meetings or frequent check-ins from managers.I think that by making these comparisons Fried gets across his message that people do their best work on their own schedules when they are in control of their environment.

2)Margaret Heffernan’s use of real world examples allows her to effectively support her claim . Heffernan began by talking about an American Supermarket which switched over to functioning more digitally in hopes of making the store more efficient. She contradicts the idea that it would be more efficient by mentioning that the machines could not do what employees could, things such as predicting when a kid would knock something over, or when someone would drop things. Heffernan said that efficiency is only beneficial when you can predict exactly what is needed, but when the unexpected happens efficiency is not longer an asset. She reasons that this same reason is why “Companies are blindsided when plastic straws and bags and bottle water go from staples to rejects over night.”. We spend too much time relying on things that we do not consider having any alternatives in case these things unexpectedly don’t work out. By including all of these real world examples Heffernan is then able to support that every time we lean on technology to do the things that we can do ourselves the trade-off becomes increasingly steep. Margaret Heffernan is able to utilize this information to express that the idea of efficiency makes us necessarily on Technology which us from working at our full potential.

Discussion Questions Week 4

In Fried’s TED talk, he discusses the reason people do not get work done at work. All three of the TED talks were relatable but I felt that Fried’s was the most because of the way he explained distractions and the way he compared work to sleep. I think that the talk as a whole is significant for many reasons, I also think that the way Fried presented his argument is important because the way that an argument is presented can have an effect on the response by the audience. He gave example after example and explained why each example happened which allows his listeners to actually picture an event that he is describing. He uses so many different types of examples that most people should be able to related to. Even if you are someone who does not work in an office, like a student for example, you can relate to be interrupted by your phone or by your teacher. I found the overall topic to be interesting and significant because work and sleep are things that people do everyday and will do for the rest of their lives.

In Fried’s talk about doing work at work, he provides evidence that most people have most likely experienced. He discusses where and when most people claim they are the most productive by giving some examples of answers to the question he asks, “where do you go when you need to get something done?”. Fried also gives scenarios where people get distracted so they physically can’t do their work. Every piece of evidence that he gives, it is very clear as to how it supports his argument. For example, when 10 people are in a meeting for 1 hour, that is 10 people whose work was interrupted and 1 less hour of work that they are going to get to do. So, as Fried explains, thats 10 hours of work that the company is losing. He walks the audience through all of the examples and evidence that very clearly prove his point. What I found to be the most effective about his argument is the fact that he used a wide spread of examples, the more examples he uses, the larger amount of people are going to relate to it.

Discussion Questions Week 6/28

Response to #1

In Relata Selecl’s TED Talk, I first noticed how honest she was. She would say phrases like, “I wasn’t sure what quote to share with you.” By being honest like this, Selecl makes her speech very relatable for the listeners. She also uses “we” and “us” a lot, which creates the same impact. Salecl also used many examples from personal experiences or her friend’s experiences. This way, many listeners can realize they have seen themselves in similar situations or have seen someone they know in these situations. By doing this, she created laughter. She also created laughter by the way she worded her points. For example, Selecl says, “She was so good at selling cars that then she sold airplanes.” Her friend did not sell airplanes, but it was a clever phrase used to engage the audience. Then, after this laughter, she got more serious about her point. Selecl went into an analysis of choices, then circled back to her own experience with a stranger. She started with a funny punchline that this person needed a sperm donor, which created laughter once again from the audience. However, again, she got more serious after with her tone and talked about how this woman has chosen bad men in her life and how these choices have been risk and stress-provoking. Selecl was very clever with her speeches structure; she creates almost a bond with the audience by using words like “us,” “we,” and presenting stories that most people in the audience could relate to. Using universal terms and ignorance, anxiety, stress, individual choice, and a “veil of obviousness.” A very successful tactic Selecl used was also bringing it back to herself and even asking herself questions. This creates more of a bond with the audience because it shows even the speaker still has questions and that people aren’t alone.

Response to #2

In Margaret Heffernan’s TED Talk, she started her speech with evidence. However, this may have blown over some people’s heads since it was an overview of an experience and ended up being evidence of “dealing with the unexpected.” When Heffernan talks of defying forecasting, she then says an example of this would be when the Bank of England says, “There might be another crash, but we don’t know why or when.” I noticed that some of her evidence did not have to be scientific or relate to a specific event. Heffernan mentions that we don’t know when or where there will be a forest fire, proving her point that we can’t rely on technology for it. Using examples like these where technology is not included in predicting things, Heffernan concludes her introduction by stating that efficiency actually stops us from adapting and responding as humans. This leads into the main section of her speech, asking if efficiency does not help us, what skills will? She gives an example of how we know there will be more epidemics in the future, but we don’t know when and where, but we can prepare. We can prepare with vaccines and safety measures. Heffernan explains that we won’t use them all with an abundance of vaccines, causing these actions to be inefficient. However, she states that this is robust because it creates more options. Heffernan’s “evidence” is hypothetical and does not rely on scientific or scholarly sources. However, I think this was intentional because her whole argument is about relying on ourselves to adapt and grow, not on efficient technology. By using human experiences as “evidence,” she supports her own argument. Heffernan also gives an example of banks, stating that now they hold more capital, being inefficient. However, it protects the system. She also uses climate change as an example, stating that they are forming multiple solutions, and uses the same approach towards trade wars. By dissecting all of this “evidence,” Heffernan’s point is that we can’t rely on something that is “efficient” because we can’t predict the future, we can’t predict outcomes, and it would be better to be “inefficient” and have multiple solutions and preparations for different scenarios. In her Netherlands nurses example, there was an experiment example where the nurses decided what to do with the different patients and how to treat them, causing them to get better in half the time. The nurses had no idea how easy it would be to create this solution since it was not something one could figure out by sitting at a desk, looking at a screen, or analyzing data. Since Heffernan used hypothetical evidence to start, this evidence example was placed perfectly in her speech to prove her point and prove that this type of inefficient thinking actually works. Heffernan did a great job at building a climax in her speech and presenting evidence in a way where the audience could engage by thinking critically about universal experiences with Heffernan’s presented mindset.

Considering the value of scholarly literature

Scholarly journals are different in some important respects from popular magazines, the kind that you see at the checkout line at the grocery store or on the display in a bookstore. You can see some of those differences just at a glance–

non-flashy covers (really the opposite of flashy–like this: )
few to no advertisements (and those that are present are typically announcements about various professional conferences and publications)

Those visual differences are just the tip of the iceberg. Here are some other critical differences between scholarly publications and popular magazines:

authors published in scholarly journals are credentialed experts in their respective fields who typically specialize in certain topics–as opposed to professional journalists who might write about a range of topics that they haven’t spent years studying, maybe a different topic every week or every month
articles in scholarly journals are aimed at a fairly narrow audience of other scholars/professionals in that field who will understand the often highly-specialized jargon they employ (and who can make sense of their various graphs, charts, formulae, etc.)–as opposed to popular magazines that aim for a broad readership to increase circulation/sales
authors of scholarly articles must demonstrate the legitimacy and solidity of their research to their readers, and so you’ll see in-text citations for their detailed data and analysis–as opposed to popular publications that are not so focused on clarifying their research methods and giving readers access to all of their sources
articles in scholarly journals have been peer-reviewed, read by a panel of other experts in the field who have endorsed their methodology as sound and their findings as important contributions to the field of study before agreeing that it should be published–as opposed to popular magazines where there is not such a rigorous process of critical review

What about professional journals?

Professional journals are a bit less stodgy in terms of their visual appearance and a bit less rigid in their review process, but are nonetheless going to feature work by practitioners who are experts in their field, as opposed to journalists who may be more free-range in their topics. And they will typically utilize a pretty research-heavy approach to share information with their readers, other practitioners in the field, who are intent on staying on top of the latest news and research. They may be a bit flashier in appearance than scholarly journals (more images, more reader-friendly formatting), but are still going to have very visible research in the form of footnotes or in-text citations/links and a references list.

You’ll find easy access (and some research assistance) on the SU library website.

Your focus for this Unit 1 canon addition is on scholarly or professional literature because this is where the most up-to-date research is best documented. Given our purpose–to deepen our understanding of issues related to diversity and organizational culture–one of the best ways we can do that is to dig into this recent material.

Please see this post for some more guidance on assembling your draft.

Drafting your Unit 1 blog post

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been working with a shared body of readings that have given us some insights into workplace cultures and, in particular, the challenges, complexities, and value of diverse workplace cultures. Now that we’ve got a foundation of knowledge, it’s time to build on that by expanding our reach into some of the questions and issues these readings have raised for us.

Each of you is contributing to that expanding body of knowledge by suggesting an article to the rest of us. Your Unit 1 blog post will provide a summary of this text in addition to your commentary about what we can learn from this text and why it should be part of our shared canon of work on organizational culture and diversity. Read on for some pointers.

Let’s think first about the summary piece.

Unlike the other summaries that you’ve been writing, your readers (us) have not read the piece that you are summarizing, so that really raises the stakes for the work that you do in your summary. We’ll be totally reliant on your explanation of what this source is, what it does, and what it says, so please be sure to read through the comments that you’ve gotten from me on your prior summaries, to review the Handout on summary here or on Blackboard, and to consider what we’ve learned from the TSIS and Harris readings.

A few reminders:

We need to know precisely WHAT you’re summarizing—what kind of text is this? Can you tell us a little something about the author and/or publication that would help us understand something about this piece?

We need to know what the authors are DOING in this text—are they reporting a list of facts? Are they making an argument? Have they conducted their own research? Reporting someone else’s findings? Responding to some other argument they disagree with? Diving into a public controversy? The authors might have several purposes in their text—help us to understand what their purposes are (to use Harris’s term, their project) so that we can really get what this text is. Verbs can really help you here–select action verbs that really help to pinpoint the work the author is doing (arguing, advocating, explaining, addressing, debating, contesting, etc.)

We need to see the BIG PICTURE of what the author is saying—as a rule, we don’t need the sequential play-by-play, but we do want to have some clarity on the overall point of the piece, as well as the major sub-points that add to our body of knowledge.

Make sure you name the author and article you’re discussing—there should be no ambiguity here. And if there are multiple authors, credit them all the first time, and thereafter, you can use the first author’s last name and “et al” if there are 3 or more authors. (Technically, APA style requires that you only use “et al” if there are 6 or more authors, but come on….. If you’re submitting for publication in a professional or scholarly journal, follow that rule, of course; elsewhere use your judgment.) Please include a full bibliographic citation at the end of your blog post, detailing all the publication information for this particular article. (Again, remember to consult the assignment sheet for the criteria that your source must meet.)

Let us see what you’re working with–use the “Add Media” button to provide us with direct access to the article you’re contributing. If it’s a web-based source (on the open web), insert the link using that button. If the article is from a subscription database, please link it as a PDF. See my post from earlier this week, linked here, for instructions on how to do that.

Now, let’s think about the commentary piece. Think about your audience and your purpose.

Remember that you know what we know–that shared body of knowledge built from the texts we’ve read together. Feel free to draw connections/contrasts with other pieces we’ve read and discussions we’ve had.

Write in your own voice–you don’t have to adopt the scholarly tone of the articles that you’re working with. Write as if you’re speaking to us. Be direct.

Remember that your task here is expand our knowledge, to complicate the discussion we’ve been having by injecting something new and explaining its significance. Tell us what you think this article means, what you think is important about it, why you think it matters, what you want us to learn from it.

So that I can provide line-by-line comments on your draft, please email it to me as a .docx or .pdf file. Then please also post your draft to the blog. You should categorize your draft post as Expanding the Canon, and tag it with “draft,” “weekof6/28,” [your name], and “canon.” This will help me and others to easily identify what’s what.

One final request–please double-check all of your recent posts to ensure that they are properly categorized and tagged, and edit them as needed. When I’m grading posts, I sometimes have to go hunting to find your work, and that’s not especially helpful. You’ll find the instructions for tagging and categorizing in each of the prompts, which you can easily access by clicking “prompts” on the tag cloud. Contact me with any questions.