Course 2. Writing Innovation Studio

Overview

Writing is an essential craft. Yet few, except professional writers, take the time to develop this skill. Writing clear, concise, and compelling arguments–knowing how to construct and tell a persuasive story–is crucial across industry and the digital world. Well-designed narratives can change the fortunes of a product, community, or company.

This is a practice-based course that will provide students with a set of word crafting tools and an online studio space to explore how to write for the public, industry colleagues, executive management, and academic specialists. Students will gain experience in creative writing techniques and storytelling, along with tools for working with diverse empirical data. They will learn how to transform given research material and ideas into compelling texts in a variety of formats, from press releases and executive summaries to podcasts and editorial blog posts.

Emphasis is on written communication, but spoken and visual communication skills will also be included. Students will learn how to present and write for both conventional text, and a range of multimedia and digital platforms.

This course is open to all Masters students. The course is taught in English and writing will be in English, but this is not a language course, nor are there language requirements. The only requirement is a willingness to experiment with writing, and a commitment to write regularly as part of the course.

Course Structure

The course is structured in 6 sections, each lasting 2 weeks. Each section will focus on a different writing format, and different writing skills.

1.  Summarising: How to read and condense an extended argument into a short abstract or summary.
2. Refining: How to write succinct and clear arguments for a high-level, executive audience, and develop good drafting practice.
3. Persuading: The art of persuasion and how to write with brevity and visual clarity on the page.
4. Data Working: What counts as good data, and how to use it in constructing text for the press and news.
5. Storytelling: Using techniques from creative writers and authors to construct more compelling arguments for a public audience.
6. Vocalising: Using oral and spoken voice techniques to improve your writing, and to produce a script.

Writing Focus

There is no empirical research required for this course. Instead, students will focus on an existing research project at the ITU. This project will provide the empirical data and the latest news that the student will reflect on in their writing. Students can choose which research project they wish to write about. Several research projects will be offered, such as the Alien Energy research project on renewable energy; or a Big Data research project involving industry partners such as the VIRT-EU project.

1. Syllabus

• Toolkit: Being Stylish
  These texts give some basic guidelines for good writing. We will be using and referring to them throughout the studio course.

Week 1

1. Strunk WJ and White EB (1979) An Approach to Style. The Elements of Style.
2. London, Boston, Toronto: Allan and Bacon.
3. Camp, Lindsay (2007) Understanding your reader. Can I Change Your Mind?: The Craft and Art of Persuasive Writing. AC Black, London.

• Toolkit: Peer Critique
  This toolkit will develop your skills in critical reading and writing. How to read and analyse different kinds of writing, from online news to journal articles; how to give clear and constructive criticism; what are the politics performed by different writing choices.

Week 2 

1. Bunn, Mike (2011) How to Read Like a Writer. Writing spaces: readings on writing. Volume
2. (Eds)     Charles     Lowe     and     Pavel    Zemliansky.     Open     source    textbook http://writingspaces.org/essays
3. Dumit, Joseph (2012) How I Read: Notes on reading modes sent to a grad class. Available from: http://dumit.net/how-i-read
4. Orwell, George (2000) Politics and the English Language, in Essays. New Ed edition. London: Penguin Classics. (First published in 1946).

Week 3

• Studio (No Reading)
• Toolkit: Visual Communication
  Persuasive and clear writing is not just about the words you use, but also the visual language. This toolkit will combine your skills in critical writing with visual media, to produce a document that is the essence of brevity and precision in communication.

Week 4

Calvillo N, Jiménez AC, Dias H, et al. (2010) infra(proto)types In The Air & what gets prototyped. PROTOTYPING PROTOTYPING. Anthropological

Research on the Contemporary   (ARC).  Available from: http://core.kmi.open.ac.uk/download/pdf/1446360.pdf

1. Ulmer JB and Koro-Ljungberg M (2015) Writing Visually Through (Methodological) Events and Cartography. Qualitative Inquiry 21(2): 138–152.
2. Williams, H. R. and Harkusm, D. (2003) Editing Visual Media in Beer DF (ed.) Writing and Speaking in the Technology Professions: A Practical Guide. New York: Wiley-IEEE Press.

Week 5

• Studio (No Reading)
• Toolkit: Making Facts
  What counts as good data, and how to use it in constructing accounts for the press and news. What is the difference between Fact/Fiction and how are they entangled in practice; how facts are made; what counts as empirical ‘good’ data; what is truth in terms of scientific fact making; how to reference and cite, and why we reference and cite.

Week 6 

1. Mellor F (2003) Between Fact and Fiction: Demarcating Science from Non- Science in Popular Physics Books. Social Studies of Science 33(4): 509–538.
2. Orr, J., (2006) ‘Falling Objects’ [an account of Orson Wells’ radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds] in Panic Diaries: A Genealogy of Panic Disorder. Duke University Press Books, Durham N.C.
3. Guin, U.K.L., (2004) Fact and/or/plus Fiction, The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination. Shambhala Publications Inc.

Week 7 

• Studio (No Reading)
• Toolkit: Executive Clarity
  Many people you will write for will have little time to read. We focus on the role of texts in workplaces, and examine ways of analysing them. What constitutes a succinct and clear argument, for an intelligent audience who may know nothing about what you are trying to convey? We focus on writing for high-level, executive management audiences, and the skill of writing effectively at speed or in collaboration.

Week 8

1. Law, John (2007) Pinboards and books: Juxtaposing, learning, and materiality, in: Education and Technology: Critical Perspectives, Possible Futures. Lexington Books, pp. 125–149.
2. Bloomfield, Brian and Theo Vurdubakis (1994) Re-presenting Technology: IT Consultancy Reports as Textual Reality Constructions. Sociology 28(2): 455- 477.
3. Strathern M (2006) Bulletproofing: A Tale from the United Kingdom. In: Riles A, Biagioli M, Brenneis D, et al. (eds), Documents: Artifacts of Modern Knowledge, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Week 9

• Studio (No Reading)
• Toolkit: Storytelling
  What makes a both compelling argument, and a compelling story? Using techniques from creative writers and authors to construct more compelling arguments for a public audience, this toolkit will provide a framework for writing both good empirical arguments and good stories.

Week 10 

1. Sagan, C., Druyan, A. (1997) The Baloney Detection Kit, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Ballantine Books, London.
2. Hart, Jack. (2012) Story Narratives. Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction. University of Chicago Press, Chicago; London.
3. Tsing, A., Ebron, P. (2015) Writing and rhythm: call and response with Anna Tsing and Paulla Ebron. Journal of Royal Anthropology Institute 21, 683–687.

Week 11

• Studio (No Reading)
• Toolkit: Publication Ready- Form & Function
  Develop your editorial skills to refine and sharpen your writing so that it is ready for publication and to ‘go live’. How to make choices about writing formats and functions that can alter its effects in the world; philosophy of scientific writing and identifying its effects on all empirical writing practices in academia and industry.

Week 12

1. Watts, L (2014) Liminal Futures: A Poem for Islands at the Edge, in: Subversion, Conversion, Development: Cross-Cultural Knowledge Exchange and the Politics of Design. MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
2. Marshall J (2000) Finding Form in Writing for Action Research In: Reason P and Bradbury-Huang H (eds), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE Publications Ltd.
3. King S (2000) On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

 

Week 13 

• Publication Ready- Form

1. Shapin, Steven. (1984) ‘Pump and Circumstance: Robert Boyle’s Literary Technology’, Social Studies of Science 14: 481-520.
2. Balsamo A (1999) Reading cyborgs, writing feminism. In: Wolmark J (ed.), Cybersexualities: A Reader in Feminist Theory, Cyborgs and Cyberspace, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
3. Le Guin, Ursula K. (2004) Unquestioned Assumptions. The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination. Shambhala Publications, Boston MA.

 

Project Box Contents: 

1.     Academic paper 1 – Baldini, G., Botterman M, Neisse R and Tallacchini M. (2016) Ethical Design in the Internet of Things. Sci Eng Ethics online first

2.     Academic paper 2 – Peppet, S. (2014) Regulating the Internet of Things: First Steps Toward Managing Discrimination, Privacy, Security and consent. Texas Law Review 93:85.

3.     Academic paper 3 – Shin,D. (2014) A socio-technical framework for Internet-of-Things design: A human-centered design for the Internet of Things. Telematics and -informatics 31:519-531.

4.     Project Proposal – Values and Ethics in Innovation for Responsible Technology in Europe (VIRT- EU)

5.     European Commission, Data Protection Working Party WP223. Opinion 7/2014 on the Recent Developments on the Internet of Things

6.     URL Links

1. IoT council, a think tank for the internet of things: http://www.ethicsinside.eu/
2. Video from the launch of the VIRT-EU project: https://itu.dk/tip/virt-eu-launch-video-live/
3. Peter McOwan 2014 When Fridges Attack, edited presidential lecture of the Mathematical Sciences section of the British Science Association
4. https://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures- in-numberland/2014/sep/08/when- fridges-attack-the-new-ethics-of-the-internet-of-things
5. Ethical Programming:http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240242453/IoT-and-smartdevices- need-ethical- programmers-says-Gartner
6. Berkeley School of Information. The Ethics, Privacy and Legal Issues around the Internet of Things: https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/projects/2015/ethics-privacy-and-legal-issues-around-internet- things (including links to paper and presention on ‘Guiding the Future’)
7. Check Your Settings: Alexa: http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/7/14200210/amazon-alexa-tech- news-anchor-order-dollhouse http://fortune.com/2017/01/09/amazon-echo-alexa-dollhouse/
8. Blogpost on hacking lightswitches: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/40505.html
9. Forbes:      On      the      Ethical     use      of      Data      vs.      the      Internet      of       Things: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2016/12/21/on-the-ethical-use-of-data-vs-the-internet-   of- things/#1093c7407853
10. The Internet of Things: 7 Challenges: http://www.datamation.com/data-center/the-internet-of- things-7-challenges.html. A broader look at the implications

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