Category: Taking It Public

Project Draft- Intersectionality and Bias

Project-DraftDownload

My Project Draft is not in a poster layout just yet. This is because I wanted to focus on my writing first and plan that out before focusing on graphics and visuals. However, when both are incorporated, I think the message will be even more compelling.

As noted before, my poster’s audience is students our age, who are usually pretty busy but find themselves passing the time in a hallway or elevator and can read and retain information. I believe our generation is crucial for who needs to learn about this topic and spread it. As a result, I may find myself cutting down some information when I lay out my poster since information should be briefer to be intrigued. That has been my struggle, but I am eager to get started on the final project and attempt to incorporate effective visuals and effective writing.

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!

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

For my unit 3 final Project I plan on constructing an infographic that depicts the historical and current problems members of LGBTQIA+ community in corporate America. I also intend on including some resources that help to stress the importance of equal opportunities for Queer individuals. The most important sources that I hope to find are first hand testimonies and scholarly articles/ journals. Articles and journals are rich in statistics and other information that can be easily represented visually while conveying the magnitude of inequality on part of Queer people in the workplace. Hyperlinks will also be added to the reference of the infographic, however, I also plan on using quotes from blog posts that exemplify what it is like to work in an inclusive environment vis-à-vis one that lacks capital for members of the LGBTQIA+.

I want to keep my writing engaging and easy to read because I want to reach a wide audience. There will be some information for Queer individuals who want to learn about how inequity takes shapes throughout various professions, however my target audience are people who identify as allies to the LGBGTQIA+ community. The purpose of my writing will be to bring awareness to a topic that is well known amongst the people who it directly effects but is no taken into consideration by those it does not. I want to provide reliable information for those who might not be aware of the inequalities and want to take steps in correcting them.

Writing in a conversational tone

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

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

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

So, a few words of advice

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

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

Unit 3 Draft

Creating this I intended for my main audience to be people working in an office or community where there are or could be people who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community. I feel, however, that everyone could benefit from reading and learning the information that I learned. I think that it will open most people’s eyes into seeing that they did not know as much as they thought they did, the same way it did to me. I would like people to take what I researched and apply it to their daily lives as they communicate with people whose backstories they do not know, or even do know.

Overview for Week of 8/16

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

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

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

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

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

Content
Has clear research focus/question/2
Provides appropriately detailed examination of research focus/question/2
Provides background/examples appropriate for target readers/2
Includes discussion of/implications for workplace culture(s)/2
Utilizes and appropriately references source materials/2
Subtotal/10
Presentation of information
Clear visual organization of ideas/information—constructed for easy comprehension by readers in the situation you have outlined/1
Makes effective use of visuals (graphics, images, pull-quotes, white space/background, other) to enhance reader understanding and interest/1
Text is not marred by proofreading errors/1
Language is clear, engaging, and audience-appropriate/2
Subtotal/5
TOTAL: /15

Your draft (with brief accompanying statement explaining the rhetorical situation for your text) is due by the end of the day on Thursday, 8/19. Please post this to the blog. You’ll each read and respond to at least two of your classmates’ drafts by the end of the day on Sunday, and will begin revising your drafts based upon their feedback, even as you are waiting for additional feedback from me.

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

So here are this week’s tasks:

Reading

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

Writing

  • draft of your Unit 3 research project (post to blog as link or attachment by Thursday, 8/19)
  • revision worksheet–considering and reconsidering your own draft as you await feedback from me and from your classmates (due by Sunday, 8/22)
  • discussion work as outlined in the post below:
Discussion prompts for Week of 8/16

Project Proposal

My project will be examining the experience of women in the workplace. I am going to narrow my focus in on the discrimination and sexual harassment women endure every single day. I then would like to include information about BIPOC women and how that changes the experience even more. I hope to not only educate people on what this is but provide further information on how to identify it and how to not be a bystander. In other words, I would like this to do more than list off facts. 

I want to present my information on an infographic because they are very informative and easy to read. However, space is limited so I will have to identify the most important sub-areas to cover. Since I did not cover this personally in Unit 1 or 2, I have to start from scratch with my sources. I want to include quotes of first-hand accounts as well as statistics to strengthen my argument. My audience will be young people entering the workforce. 

As a woman, I think this topic is important to discuss because it affects our ability to feel safe, comfortable, and perform at our highest abilities. For some reason it is 2021 and this is still a daily issue.

Project Proposal – Dylan

My proposed project is to create a blog focused on the ways artificial intelligence is being used in human resources with the mission of advocating for more transparency around how it is used and more accountability from the organizations that are using it. My goal is to create a “home” or resource center for this topic where interested parties can gather to get and share information and potentially mobilize to change public policy. My target audience would be anyone concerned with protecting worker and civil rights, including the workers themselves, but more specifically individuals who have some authority to make change, such as disability rights activists, social justice activists, journalists, people working in employment law, and elected officials.

Given the amount of time left in the summer session, I envision launching a basic framework for the blog that will include a welcome message to explain the major issues and stakes related to AI in HR and to inspire others to participate in creating a community with me. My message will include embedded links to relevant supporting sources. In the blog framework, I will also create a subsection for Recommended Reading, where links to important research and articles can be found, and a subsection for an Advocacy Toolkit. I’m still trying to decide exactly what would go into these sections, but I know I want to at least provide readers with a few recommendations for practical things they can do to help the cause. I would love to spark a movement that would lead to real change.