Author: ksoakes

In this article, Alison Wynn (a researcher at Stanford) summarizes her own recent article, in which she analyzed the findings of a year-long case study of a Silicon Valley tech company’s gender equality initiative.

As is typically the case with summaries, an author is trying to do justice to the original text (representing it for what it is), while also working toward their own distinct purpose. Here, for Wynn, that is bottom-lining the findings for a different audience and objective–trying to open up a new kind of conversation around the role that organizations (and not just individuals) must play.

Pay attention to how she works with research in here. Within this article, Wynn provides a lot of linked resources, which function both as a sort of bibliography (here are some of the sources I’m working with…) and as a reading list for those who want more (if you think this is interesting, check this out….). Consider the first one, which links to this article, itself a compendium of a whole bunch of different sources.

Giving her readers access to this lets Wynn build upon that informational foundation without taking up a lot of space in her text. It also gives interested readers a lot more to work with (and a lot more reason to trust Wynn as knowing her stuff). Each of you will follow up on one of the other resources she links and give us a sense of what’s in there and how it’s valuable (both to Wynn and to us, readers who might be looking to use this new knowledge).

Also pay attention as you read to her section headings–she’s setting up a careful logical chain. These headings are kind of like breadcrumbs (think Hansel and Gretel) for the reader to follow 

We can learn from that, of course, about a way to organize our ideas to make them as usable as possible for our readers. As we head into Unit 3, that’s going to be an important consideration–not just writing for ourselves or for me (a teacher reader), but for an audience who needs to hear what you have to say and needs to be able to act on it or make use of it in some way.

Once you’ve read through Wynn’s article, follow up on your assigned link (see the announcement on Blackboard for those assignments). Then, post your responses to these 2 questions (everyone should answer both):

1. Give us a capsule summary of the linked article/resource that you explored. What is it? what’s in there? what’s valuable about it? what does it add to Wynn’s article?
2. Who do you think would most benefit from reading this article, and why? (in other words, who do you think her target audience is or ought to be?) Select one passage (a sentence or two) from the article, and explain why you think this segment would work especially well for that group of readers. Please quote the passage in your response.

We’re diving into a series of conversations this week–around the physical design of office spaces, around the issues you’re exploring in your own inquiries, and around the very work of research and pulling together a range of perspectives. Let’s continue all of that work on the blog.

For this week, everyone should respond to #1 and then choose 1 of the other 2 questions to answer. Your initial posts are due by the end of the day on Thursday, and then I’ll ask you to log back into read through your classmates’ posts and respond as you wish.

1. With the due date approaching for your research portfolio, it’s time to start practicing writing about your sources. Please compose an annotation for 1 of your sources, following the guidance on the unit 2 assignment sheet. This annotation should be 2 paragraphs long–1 of summary, 1 of analysis/ discussion of how this source will be useful to you. The draft is good practice for you, and provides me an opportunity to give you feedback on adjustments that you might want to make as you continue to work toward the portfolio (which is due next Wednesday, 8/4)
2. Choose one of the responses from “Readers respond: open offices are terrible for women,” and consider how the writer builds upon the ideas in the original article (“The subtle sexism of your open office plan”). Use Harris’s terms from chapter 2 of Rewriting to describe what you see this writer doing (i.e. extending, illustrating, etc.) and what intrigues you about that. How does this person open up a new line of inquiry with their response?
3. In the reader response piece, Katharine Schwab introduces those letters with a brief overview of some of the patterns she detects in their feedback. This segment includes some jump-out links to other related articles, and then segues into a selection of letters that focus on the gendered implications of open office plans (the impacts that disproportionately affect women). Thus, Schwab facilitates a complex discussion with many participants, but it’s by no means exhaustive. What else would YOU want to inject into the discussion? What is an issue/perspective you think is not currently represented here? (You can draw on your own experience if you wish, or conjecture as to what others might wish to incorporate, but offer up another take on this using one of the templates from They Say/I Say, any chapter.)

Please categorize your post as “discussions/homework,” and tag it with “unit 2,” “weekof7/26” and [your name].

We’re going to take it a little easier this week on discussion–please respond to both of the questions below by Wednesday, 7/21; you do not need to reply to your classmates’ posts, though I certainly encourage you to read through what others have to say.

In “Changing organizational culture,” we see a rather different type of writing, one that’s pretty approachable and readable, but still presenting intensive research in a way that’s geared toward a very specific audience. What we’re looking at here is a trade/professional journal. Like scholarly journals, they often include peer-reviewed articles, but they’re designed for practitioners (in this case, in the workplace safety industry) rather than for other academics. The end result is detailed research that’s usable for people working in this field.

In part we’re looking at this article as a sample of a genre that might be useful for you to consider for your own inquiry. SUMMON (the SU Libraries’ search tool) allows you to select “trade publication” as a Content Type option in an Advanced Search. It can be really helpful to see what folks within a given field are talking about, how they’re making use of current research, developing best practices, implementing ideas, etc. The material there tends to be very current material from experts–good stuff to use when you’re trying to understand the implications of a particular issue.

And we can also learn some lessons from this text about how to develop an argument that will reach our readers. Wong does a solid job of making explicit connections between theory and practice as she translates this material for a non-academic audience. Let’s home in on how she makes this work.

Please respond to both of the questions below for this week’s discussion.

1. Wong is entering a conversation around diversity (including the business case and the ethical case folks have made for diversity) and inclusion that was going on long before she showed up. What does she have to add to this discussion? Focus in on 1 particular contribution you see her making to this larger conversation. Name it, explain it, tell us where to find it, and talk about what you think is significant about it.
2. Review chapter 8 of TSIS, which is about connecting the parts. Locate a place in Wong’s article where you see her doing this important work, and identify the TSIS moves that you see her using in this segment. Again, point us to a specific passage, and talk us through what she’s doing there and why it matters.

Categorize your posts as “Discussions/Homework,” and tag with “unit 2,” “weekof7/19,” and [your name]. And kindly throw us a little personal update–what have you been up to this past week? (highlight, lowlight, lesson–whatever you’ve got to share).

Here’s a little highlight for me:

My youngest son is a total gearhead–loves cars more than anything–so we took him to the Syracuse Nationals Car Show this weekend. It was just nice to be back at the NYS Fairgrounds after a couple of years away. (Plus, there were gyros!) I’m not a car nut, but I am a history buff, so this one really caught my attention. In 1917, a guy from New Hampshire patented an add-on kit to transform the Ford Model T into a snowmobile. I’ve never seen or heard of this, so it was fascinating to see it in real life!