This is a paper under a seminar class on the topic of “The Social Life of Innovation”. I have this draft finished, but I felt like it wasn’t strong enough. I felt like my paper is just lists of general ideas of innovative businessmen but it would be more interesting and with actual stories to back up my paper. So I am hoping that you could help me edit and add some specific examples to the paper. The paper is limit to 1,500 words, so while you are adding some new materials, you might need to cut of some parts as well.
Please help me out on this !!!
Here is the “instruction” the professor gave us for the paper.
Many of you have asked me in office hours or in hallways, how should I structure my op-ed?
The answer is….
…drumroll…
However you want! The op-ed is meant to be an informed and persuasive piece that conveys your point of view. So you should have: a point of view, evidence that your point of view should be considered, and an anticipation of and accounting for critiques of your argument. You may also choose to include personal stories and perspectives that lend your voice authority or grab the reader by making the issues relevant to daily life.
There are many possible ways to structure an op-ed that is fun and compelling to read.Feel free to use your creativity, as long as you find that other people are clear on what you mean.
For those of you who feel stuck and want a structure fill in for a first draft, here’s one possible outline to begin with:
I. I want to convince you that ________
II. I came to care about this issue when / through: _________
III. This is important because ________
IV. Other people understand the issue in the following ways: ____________
V. What they miss about the issue is: __________
VI. Evidence for my perspective ____________
VII. In conclusion: sum up and speculate about where to go from here
If you actually turn in a final op-ed with this outline, you probably won’t have a very good op-ed. Instead, you can use this structure if you’re struggling to get words down just to figure out your thoughts. Then you’ll need to read through, reorder, add interesting elements, cut confusing elements, etc to make a good final draft.
Here is the course description, hope it will gives you a better understanding about this course.
What is innovation? Why does it matter and to whom? What ways of living and making are marginalized in mainstream ideas of innovation? Who are the hidden users, assemblers, and consumers that shape our technological lives? This class investigates how innovation works in practice, beyond stereotypes of the hero inventor and visionary designer. We will examine what counts as innovation, whose work counts as innovative, and how spaces of technological production are structured by gender, race, class, and colonial histories. The seminar will include intensive reading, writing, and a policy analysis project.
“The task is to expand the frame, to metaphorically zoom out to a wider view that at once acknowledges the magic of the effects created while explicating the hidden labours and unruly contingencies that exceed its bounds.”
— Anthropologist Lucy Suchman on the magic and hidden labors that make technology work Human Machine Reconfigurations, p. 281
Thank you for you time and your work!
