Month: August 2021

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 do your best 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.

Draft- Julia


Project-Draft-PDFDownload

This article attempts to inform the reader about a few factors that play into female underrepresentation in STEM. Although it does not cover everything, it attempts to show that many factors are just simply out of our control. Some factors are still within our ability to control. It is important to focus on what we can change in life so that we can grow.
My intended audience for the article is college students who are about to enter the workforce. It would probably be found in a school newspaper, where readers enjoy reading about various subjects that may impact them. I think that it is beneficial to target a specific audience because it makes that segment population interested, and feel like they matter. No one wants to read an article if they are not directly addressed, especially if it does not impact them. In a few years, college students will be entering into the workforce which is why it will be important for them to understand that promoting diversity and equal representation is crucial.
The article takes on a popular article format because I believe it is easier for readers to understand the main point. It conveys a clear and concise message, unlike a scholarly article. I also like how it takes on a little more of a conversational tone, but still has a slight sense of formality within it.
Thanks for reading my project. I look forward to reading any comments or suggestions!

Response 8/18

My project will be directed at young people entering the workforce. The goal is to educate future employees on how to proactively identify and address issues of sexism and sexual assault in the work setting. 

The form of my project will be an infographic. The example I located explained how to stop the spread of germs (specifically respiratory diseases like COVID).  I like that infographic I located incorporated a combination texts with visual elements. This style can be very informative yet can be an easy and engaging read. However, this infographic has less text/facts than I would like to include. The content within this source has the ability to show more visually with pictures than my topic will.  I do like the conciseness and organizational components  of this graphic because it effectively gets the main points across. I also thought the color scheme worked well. I enjoy making infographics and am excited to see how mine turns out. 

https://www.tmcc.edu/sites/default/files/documents/ehs-coronavirus-infographic.pdf

(Mine was a PDF so it would not embed)

Draft- Oumou

https://create.kahoot.it/share/diversity-does-not-mean-inclusion/bf138868-cb58-41ee-84f4-900b0a3dd30f

This is the link to the kahoot I created.

These are the sources that I used.

kahoot-sourcesDownload

I like this method because it allows the audience to be to able to contribute to the discussion. The only portion that is timed is where the audience would pick their answers but afterwards they can take all the time they need asking questions or taking notes on the slide that follows. I was able to include slides which further explain the answers to avoid confusion.

Project Proposal – Tim

My project will be examining why the academic field of history is lacking in ethnic diversity as well as the range of global history taught in secondary education. In terms of the employment of ethnic minorities in academia in the field of history, I wish to understand if the employment today reflect the reality of the population demographics of the West. For example, this project aims to discover the historical education curriculum in places such as Great Britain, and how much of it reflects the nation’s colonial past and the diverse populations that played a major part in the trajectory of the country’s modern history. A closer example would be the United States, and how much of the historic content taught in classes are spent outside of the domestic issues and the Second World War. This study will also look into the benefits of a more diverse employment of ethnic minorities who can shed new light on their experiences as well as their respective ethnic group’s contributions to the history of their adopted homes. Another topic this project will look into is how the history curriculum can change to adapt to a more diverse America today. Perhaps through this project’s research, I can present a better reflection for the field of history.

Research Plan: Tim

What question is guiding your research?

The main question that I am focusing on for my research is why there is a lack of observable diversity in the field of historical education, both the educators themselves and the content taught in classes. My research will look into how historical education and the employment of ethnic minorities in said field will change based on current information.

Why this question?

There are a few reasons I picked this specific topic, given that I am very interested in the field of history and have already begun creating content which aim to increase general interest in this field and expand the availability of niche parts of history to a larger audience through media. And having experience attending both secondary school and university-level courses related to historical education, I realized that the representation of minorities in that field is not very visible and that there needs to be an improvement in the diversity of topics (especially related to history outside of the West, e.g. Africa, Asia and Oceania).

How will your professional/internship/organizational/course work inform your inquiry?

Certainly my experience within the field of history allowed me to see for myself the lack of ethnic minorities within the field. Although I have spent most of my life in Hong Kong and it is only natural that most of the other students are of Chinese descent, but it was during my trip to Virginia for an international history bowl competition where I discovered that the vast majority of participants in the US were white, and not indicative of the statistics of the ethnic makeup of the country. While I am not blaming academia or anyone for this reality, I do hope that more of the ethnic minority population of the states can become interested in the wider scale of history, and not be limited by the narrative of a nationalistic viewpoint that began in 1776.

What fields matter most in your inquiry?

Almost definitely the field of history. However, I will also like to look into fields related to that such as archeology and museum studies. In a wider view of things, I will also like to touch upon the diversity of educators in academia since it will certainly be related to my area of interest.

Discussion Week of 8/16

In this type of writing, its most influential and distinctive features would be stylized words that stand out over others. In this example, it would be, “Be An Ali”. The “A” in “ali” forms part of a wheelchair graphic. The poster demonstrates how to support those with disabilities and succumb to ableism and judgment. While stylized words look nice, the effective ones usually have a double meaning like this behind them. They are incorporated in a way that makes viewers remember the words and the special effects that go with them. In this specific example, this poster is linked for people to print out and put up as flyers, being pretty spot on when it comes to my desired genre.

This example works well because it is bold and clear and includes subtexts that encircle “Be An Ali”. To grab readers’ attention, there first needs to be the main subject displayed. When it comes to my topic, intersectionality and bias could get tricky since there are two. I am afraid readers won’t know where to look, become overwhelmed, and move on with their day, not retaining any information. So, my challenge will be to incorporate the two together and somehow display their co-existing features. Intersectionality and bias overlapped with my research, which I verbalized, which I now need to demonstrate graphically.

What I like about this poster the most is its simplicity. There is one main focus here, and subtext helps support it. Light graphics are an excellent addition, and I bet viewers would remember the poster more due to these. However, I do not believe this example is 100% successful. The simplicity is a little overdone, with words not very organized, just surrounding the poster’s title. Yes, they are categorized but with mini headings. For my poster, especially after viewing this one, I want to set up my words in a very strategic way. I am not sure yet what this entails, but I know graphics will be incorporated to tell a straightforward story to the viewer. Not only do I want this to be straightforward, but meaningful and impactful.

I also want certain subjects of text to bounce off of each other and connect. In this example, the text is written the same way bullet points would be. I want my bodies of text to co-exist with each other, presenting a cohesive overall body of text. There are a lot of design strategies that I have been brainstorming that I plan to experiment with. Being a design major myself, one of the most important things that I have learned and have continuously seen through successful design is that graphics have the power to spread a message sometimes more than words. With this graphic and text combination, I believe my poster could be compelling. I do not want to lose sight of one over the other but simultaneously incorporate the two to enhance each other.

ally_poster_finalDownload

https://www.nccsdclearinghouse.org/nccsd-posters–products.html

Expanding the Canon

In “Creating culturally responsive environments: ethnic minority teachers’ constructs of cultural diversity in Hong Kong secondary schools”, Ming-tak Hue and Kerry John Kennedy wanted to tackle the challenge of Hong Kong’s increasingly growing ethnic minority students and how the teaching environment can adapt to this changing reality. Part of Hue and Kennedy’s research included interviewing secondary school teachers of varying ethnic minority descent, ranging from Canadian to Pakistani. The researchers then used their responses to create a model to allow educators to re-manage their teaching habits and deepen their understanding cross-cultural education.

Even though it is well known that Hong Kong is an international city, the vast majority of the population belong to the Chinese ethnicity (as high as 95%), while there is a growth in ethnic minority students within the public education sector (School of Education Statistics Section, Education Bureau, 2012). However, while this number only makes up 1.94% of the city’s primary and secondary students, the more important issue faced by the educational system is that there is a quick growth of non-Chinese speaking students, from 0.71% (2008/2009) to 1.43% (2011/2012). However, many of the city’s schools are not prepared to tackle this problem, and the combination of a lack of ethnic minority teachers as well as the tendency for ethnic minority students to underperform educationally remains a major problem.

Studies have shown that there is a gap between ethnic majority and ethnic minority students’ in terms of academic performance and employment opportunities (Darling-Hammond, 2006; Frankenberg, Lee, & Orfield, 2003), and that in order to close the gap, the social connection between ethnic-majority and minority students needs to be achieved by the host society (Stanton-Salazar, 1997; Yosso, 2005). To achieve this, several Hong Kong schools already looked for ways to respond to the cultures of ethnic-minority students, and mainly of those who come from low socio-economic backgrounds. While in many Western countries the increase of ethnic minority teachers to assist ethnic minority students is common, that is not so much the case in a relatively homogenous city like Hong Kong. However, one of the most important aspects of having ethnic minority teachers is the understanding and help they can offer to the students, such as dealing with racism, increasing tolerance, the promotion of multiculturalism, slowly ridding cultural stereotypes, and increasing the perception of Hong Kong as a multi-ethnic society.

The study among the interviewed teachers also looked into the experiences of ethnic minority teachers through a social construction of reality. There were three parts to this experience that Hue and Kennedy looked into, which were the changes in space (the community of ethnic minorities), the place (classrooms), and the time spent in classrooms. This was done to allow the teachers to relive their former teaching experiences and explore a narrative to help their future in assisting minority students.

The findings then showed that teachers from an ethnic minority background became even more aware of their own ethnic identities as well as becoming more aware of the “minor acts of racism” within Hong Kong’s educational system as well as the larger society. The goal was then to transform the educational system according to the idea of “cosmopolitanism”, the idea that in order for Hong Kong to become recognized as a truly international city, it must create a space for non-Chinese speakers to take part and feel accepted. Part of this can be achieved with tackling Hong Kong’s trilingual problem in education, since ethnic minority students will have to become fluent in the official languages of Cantonese/Chinese, English as well as their native tongues. The ethnic minority teachers explained that in order to truly help the non-Chinese speaking students reach academic success and attend tertiary level education, English and more importantly Cantonese (the native language of most of Hong Kong’s population), must take part in their daily lives.

I specifically chose this article because it is directly tied with the readings that we have done in the past week, how diversity is becoming more and more important because our perception of it is also becoming more clear. Being from Hong Kong and having friends of ethnic minority backgrounds, I believe that the research shown in this article is essential to assist Hong Kong’s population in moving forward from the traditional belief that the city is universally Chinese-speaking.

Article:

Hue, M.-tak, & Kennedy, K. J. (2013). Creating culturally responsive Environments: Ethnic minority teachers’ constructs of cultural diversity in Hong Kong secondary schools. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 34(3), 273–287. https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2013.823379

Discussions/Homework Week of 8/16

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/browncenter_20161209_teachers_memo.pdf

The writing in this memo is conveying brief yet critical information quickly to multiple individuals at once. While it is not as formal as a business letter, it is professional since it includes action items for the intended recipient.  This particular memo is divided into three general sections: The situation, Recommendations and Conclusion.    

First the memo gives a quick introduction to the memo’s purpose. In my example it is talks about teachers being among our most valuable school resources for improving student learning.

My introduction would go something like this:

One in four individuals in the United States have a disability, which equates to 61 million people (CDC, 2021). For many of these individuals, disclosing an invisible disability in the work environment is an extremely complex dilemma. It can enable maintaining or obtaining employment, however disclosure can result in losing employment or to not being hired, due to of discrimination and stigma.

The next part of the memo is the situation. The situation gives an overview of the topic and provides the reader with a general outline about the overall purpose. The memo is clearly written by people in academic institutions with certain philosophies of education. The tone of the memo is polite and is written in a formal manner.

The memo says “In order for students to benefit from good teachers, school systems must recruit, prepare, improve, and retain excellent teachers and distribute these excellent teachers equitably across schools and communities. We currently face challenges across these areas.”

My situation might be:

The lack of disclosure by employees indicates they often feel the need to disguise their disability during the recruitment process as well as during the rest of their employment. Having a disability is different from the norm and thus obvious in a damaging way from others. With this potential stigma, individuals are afraid to disclose their disability, lest it adversely affect their employment relations and career prospects.

The next part is the recommendations. Recommendations are the point of the memo. Recommendations should be persuasive however all recommendations need support. As such the memo will encompass straightforward recommendations with support material immediately following or support for the recommendations, with data.

My recommendation might be:

The disclosure process is complicated, and the result is influenced by numerous factors.

For example, HR managers are an important stakeholder group who have mainly negative attitudes and behavior regarding disabilities. Since their job is to act on behalf of their organization, their attitudes and behavior may not change until organizations at the level of management change.

In the memo it starts out with “The federal government can increase the effectiveness of the teacher workforce through efforts to recruit, prepare, improve, retain, and more equally distribute excellent teachers. In keeping with the broader federal role in education, the federal role in teaching policy involves investments in capacity building and knowledge generation.”  After that a series of recommendations are listed.

The final part is the conclusion. This sums up the point of the memo. It is clear cut and succinct.

“Teachers are the most important school resource for improving educational opportunities for students. We recommend six steps for the federal government to improve the teacher workforce, particularly in the most difficult-to-staff schools:”

My conclusion might sound something like this.

People with invisible disabilities are in a susceptible position as they choose whether or not to disclose their diagnoses. If recipients of these disclosures are supportive, this could create a more positive experience for the individuals disclosing.

However, it should be noted that multiple studies have shown that disclosure during the hiring period resulted in fewer invitations for job interviews (Hipes et al, 2016).

Positive outcomes of disclosure include:

– Improved relationships with colleagues and supervisors

– Authenticity

– Work environment support

– Friendly culture

Negative outcomes of disclosure include:

– Facing stigma

– Discrimination

Overall, as I evaluated this memo, I envision something shorter and more succinct. However I want to make sure I include research as it is to be directed to professionals in the field.

References:

Disability Impacts All of Us Infographic | CDC. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Retrieved 16 August 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html.

Hipes, C., Lucas, J., Phelan, J.C., White, R. (2016) The stigma of mental illness in the labor market, Social Science Research, Volume 56, 2016, Pages 16-25, ISSN 0049-089X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2015.12.001.

Discussions / Homework Week of 8/16

I’ve decided to share an example of an online magazine article from the Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2021/08/how-to-work-with-someone-who-creates-unnecessary-conflict?ab=hero-main-text . What’s distinctive about this type of writing is that it offers advice and it’s written in the first person. So, although this piece is meant for anyone who works in or owns a business, and is published in a business magazine, the author makes it friendly and as though she were having a conversation with a colleague. She also breaks down her advice into chunks with explanatory headers. The author quotes experts, as well as the experiences of those in the workplace, and includes links to research and other relevant articles. I appreciate the conversational tone and, as I too plan on doing, the links to other articles. These links help to provide evidence to back up her statements without changing the flavor of the article into something more scholarly. This made me realize that what I’ve written for my project so far might need to be tweaked a little to sound more advisory and less explanatory. I also like how the author used several case studies to demonstrate the issue being discussed. I think I may lean on some examples of situations I’ve encountered as a union rep. as my own case studies. In the sample article, there are step-by-step instructions on how to tackle the stated problem. Later, the author offers best practices that are being used successfully by other companies. I probably won’t be able to offer step-by-step instructions, but I will be able to suggest what can help create the cultural change I want to see in organizations.