Analysis 1

The goal of each analysis in this class is to write a critical, persuasive, and personal argument that critically examines some aspect of an information system in the world. Your argument should substantiate its claims, using evidence such as:

• The readings in this class,
• Other resources in the world (academic publications, news podcasts, including those cited in book), and 
• Your own lived experience

These arguments can take many forms: an essay, a comic, a video, or other media you'd like to use. The requirements are in what you're communicating, not how you're communicating it. A good guideline for length or amount of content is ~1,000 words, but there is no penalty for being above or over that, and other media might be different. Focus on the rubric for the assignment, not the length.

One example is an Opinion column in a journalistic newspaper or magazine. Here are some examples that I curated from the July 20th, 2023 NY Times Opinions page:

• Chavi Karkowsky writes about the unequal outcomesLinks to an external site. that emerge from administrative barriers in health care. 
• Jane Coaston talks about the way increasing percentagesLinks to an external site. of queer identifying people is weaponized rhetorically to deny LGBTQ rights
• Emily St. James writes about book bansLinks to an external site. in U.S. libraries
• See below for an example that Amy wrote.

Notice how all three of these leverage lived experience, research, and other writing, each to make point. That's what I expect you to learn to do this quarter, by writing, 1, 2, 3, maybe 4 of these, until you're feeling like you can do it relatively well, and evaluate them fairly well.

How can you go about forming a good argument? That requires many things: thinking about yourself, your lived experiences, about the reading in the course, about other things you're reading and listening to, coming to class to engage in discussions with other students. The more you immerse yourself in the ideas of the course, the more you'll have to say. Once you think you have a point you want to make, outline your argument and the sources you want to use, draft it, get feedback on it multiple times from peers, and when you're feeling it's ready for a grade, submit.

You can do this alone or in groups. Groups will get the same grade on their submission. If you choose to do something in a group, we strongly recommend no more than 2 or 3: it's hard to coordinate contributions from that many people. You can form or disband groups as you please, for any of your work, without notifying us. The first time we will know about it is when you submit, because it should have all of the group member's names on it (though you will submit individually). 

When you submit your lab section TA will read yours and provide detailed feedback. They'll also give it a score from 0 to 4 on the rubric below. Analyses may be strong in area but weak in another. TAs can grade on tenths of a point to reflect this, using their own discretion to judge how well each was met and how to weigh each in relation to the specific goals of your analysis.

Note: grading and feedback is subjective. We manage this by having your peers review, and having regular TA meetings where we audit for consistency. This doesn't mean that everything will be perfectly consistent — I don't think that's actually possible — but we hope that it will be consistent enough for your final grade to have meaning.

When to submit

The only deadline is Friday before finals week, 5 pm. Nothing submitted after that will be graded.

However, I highly encourage you to submit something (nearly) every week. After each Thursday at 5, the TAs will assign peer reviews, and grade any submissions from students who've completed their peer reviews. So each Thursday is another attempt to get a higher grade on an analysis or design submission. Think of those Thursdays as your deadlines. You only have 10 of them.

Examples

See our growing list of examples.