This week, we'll use the blog as a place to develop letters to the editor and improve each other's work. The required posting, thus, comes in two parts:
1) Identify three things, in a few sentences: the problem you see in the way science is being deployed in public discourse, why you think it's a problem that's potentially dangerous or harmful enough to merit your time in addressing it, and the publication you're looking at (ideally something local, in the Twin Cities area -- can be online or in print -- but potentially anything, anywhere that you can make a difference). The point of writing this little meta-commentary, before writing the text of the letter itself, is to inform your colleagues about what you're trying to do, so they can best evaluate how well you did it. Welcome to elaborate and discuss your thinking about your letter so we can understand and help you.
2) Write a draft of your letter to the editor (or part of it).
(For easy reference, here's the text from the assignment sheet: "Write a letter to the editor of that publication, in which you describe that problem, explain and analyze it, and propose a corrective. (Note: letters to the editor are, of course, for a general reading public. This is part of the challenge—how to communicate ideas such as semantic contagion, legitimation, biopolitics, and Cartesianism effectively, without using any jargon? And they are short—150-200 words maximum!)")
Finally, in your comments this week, offer some suggestions to help your colleague improve their letters -- what can be clearer? how could the arguments be strengthened? how might something be worded better? We're a sort of virtual writer's group. Let's make these as good as they can be!
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