Proposal for the Profile Essay

As we will discuss in class tomorrow, you need to start thinking about your interview subjects and your interview for the profile essay. This proposal below should help you to get thinking about your interview subject and the interview itself. By next Tuesday, 1 p.m., please respond to the following prompts by using the "Comment" function at the end of this post.

1. Identify three or four potential interview subjects. Please include the organization that the person's affiliated with as well as the person's title within the organization.
2. Why would the audience for your blog be interested in learning more about these different people and their work on this issue?
3. Besides the interview itself, what are other sources of information that you might be able to use in order to learn more about this person (e.g., websites, publications that the person has written, on-site observations, articles likely written about the person, organizations the person is affiliated with)?
4. What is the likelihood of you interviewing each of these subjects? NOTE: Make every effort to contact these subjects within the next week to see if they would be interested in being interviewed.
5. Provide the contact information for each of the interview subjects here. Email and phone are the most useful. If you need to keep your information confidential, please let me know here that you indeed located the information you need in order to make contact with this individual.
6. Identify dates when you would be able to/hope to interview your subject. Although you need to accommodate your subject's schedule, you should also consider your own academic/work/personal schedule and look at due dates in our course syllabus. You need to have a typed transcript of your interview by Tuesday, February 22, so plan your interview accordingly. If you have already scheduled your interview, let me know the date you have chosen.
7. What questions or concerns do you have about your interview?

Online Resources for Researching Public Issues

Conducting research strategically, effectively, and consistently is an important skill for any professional writer to develop. Consistently conducting research on your public issue throughout the semester will help you to deepen your knowledge of the issue, understand the nature of the problems you're addressing, develop strategies for alleviating these problems, and educating other readers who are interested in the issue.

Below, then, you'll find several different online resources you can use to locate print and online sources on your topic. Please use the "Comment" function to add links to and descriptions of other research resources that you think your classmates should know about.

Google Reader. This program is a Web-based aggregator--that is, it serves as an information FILTER that gathers updated and new information posted to websites and blogs. You can search via Keywords (click on "Add a Subscription" button and type in your keyword) and then "Subscribe" to any website or blog in order to have constant updates to that site delivered right to your Google Reader account. NOTE: Use your Blogger username and password to log into Google Reader.

WVU Library: Electronic Databases. While there are certainly databases that focus solely on some of the specific topics you've chosen this semester, there are several "Popular Databases" that could be very useful to your research this semester (see "Popular Databases" list in the upper-right-hand corner of this page):

• CQ Researcher: "In-depth reports and analysis on political and social issues, each covering a single theme and providing solid background information, with regular reports on topics in health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology and the U.S. economy. Each 13,000-word CQ Researcher report is a unique work, investigated and written by a seasoned journalist."

• LexisNexis Academic: Provides full-text documents from over 5,900 newspapers (including the New York Times), magazines, business, governmental, legal, medical, and reference publications.

• LexisNexis Statistical Insights: Access to statistical information produced by US Federal agencies, states, private organizations, and major intergovernmental organizations.

• NOTE: Also consider using the "Databases by Resource Type" list in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, particularly if you want to locate items such as statistics, newspaper articles, images.

Google Blogs. Search by "Keyword" for other blogs focused on your public issue. Remember, too, that you can then "subscribe" to the blogs you find via Google Reader.

U.S. Government Accountability Office. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is known as "the investigative arm of Congress" and "the congressional watchdog." GAO supports the Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and helps improve the performance and accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people. Use the "search" box in the upper-right-hand corner of the GAO homepage to search for documents related to your topic.



USA.gov. The U.S. Government's official web portal, which citizens can use either to learn how to access services or to explore topics of public interest. To do the latter, try any one of these three strategies: (1) Types keywords into the "search" box at the top of the homepage. (2) Follow the "Explore Topics" link on the main toolbar. (3) Clink on the "Find Government Agencies" link on the main toolbar.


U.S.-based "Think Tanks." "Think tanks" or policy institutes are organizations (often of the non-profit variety) that conduct research on and advocate for particular "sides" on public issues. Think tanks serve an important purpose in U.S. civic life because they are often more free to propose and publicly debate controversial ideas than elected government officials. Think tanks in the United States generally receive funding from private donors, and members of private organizations--you'll want to know something about the source of funding for any particular think tank from which you draw sources, as it likely shapes the perspective (e.g., conservative, liberal) that the organization often takes.


Federally funded research and development centers. From Wikipedia: "The government funds, wholly or in part, activities at approximately 30 Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs). FFRDCs, are unique independent nonprofit entities sponsored and funded by the U.S. government to meet specific long-term technical needs that cannot be met by any other single organization. FFRDCs typically assist government agencies with scientific research and analysis, systems development, and systems acquisition. They bring together the expertise and outlook of government, industry, and academia to solve complex technical problems. These FFRDCs include the RAND Corporation, the MITRE Corporation, the Institute for Defense Analyses, the Aerospace Corporation, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and other organizations supporting various departments within the U.S. Government." 


ThinkBank. ThinkBank is an online database of articles published by US-based think tanks.


Federal Advisory Committees. Federal Advisory Committees are quasi-governmental agencies that advise the U.S. President and the wider Executive branch of the federal government. These committees or commissions almost always focus on a specific issue, like special interest groups, but they come under more governmental oversight and are requirement to make their formal records open to the public. This site always you to search by "Committee Interest Type" (search via a pull-down menu") or by keyword search (enter keywords into the "Search in Documents" box). 

Exploring Possible Public Issues for Course Writing Projects

I. Generating Ideas for Possible Public Issues
Here are some ideas if you’re having a difficult time choosing an issue:

• Scan local, national, online newspapers: what are the pressing issues right now? What are people writing about? Slate Magazine, the Dominion Post, the Charleston Gazette, or the Pittsburgh Post Gazette might be especially helpful.
• Read the Daily Athenaeum: what is going on on campus that has students, faculty, or the administration talking?
• Check out catalogs of liberal activist bloggers or conservative activist bloggers: what issues are people blogging about?
• Talk to your friends, family members: what concerns does your peer group have? what concerns does your family have?
• Think about your major: what issues might you confront as you pursue your major/career?
• Consider your personal interests (biking, greek life, entertainment, cooking, children, or on-line gaming, to name just a few). What discussions/issues emerge as you think about these interests?

Give yourself some time to really think through and about these questions, so that you choose an issue that really excites you.

II. Thoughts & Suggestions on Issue Selection

The issue you choose to address over the course of this semester is key to your success in this course and to your success as a public writer-citizen. Therefore, you want to keep these ideas in mind as you choose your issue:

• Your issue should be debatable. Your job is to inform an audience about an issue they do not know about and/or persuade that audience to take action concerning this issue. Therefore, you want to choose an issue that people need to be informed about and/or that people might change their minds about.
• Possible topic: President Obama’s nationwide volunteer program  
• Impossible topic: The earth is round.

• Your issue should be contained. You want to choose an issue you can grasp over the course of the semester. Therefore, writing about the government’s economy would be a difficult one to address. Writing about WVU’s fiscal responsibility, undergraduate student debt, or the federal government’s student loan policy would be more tenable. Thinking local is good idea.

• Your issue must have an interested and possibly local audience.  The best student projects are those that engage the local community. In making this choice of audience, students can gain a thick sense of their audience and their concerns.

• Your issue must be important to you. Remember that you will be writing about this issue all semester long. Be sure to choose one that interests and excites you. Those are the issues that will inspire effective writing, thinking, and civic engagement.

Course Issue Proposal

By Thursday, January 20, select a public issue that you want to research and write about this semester. Using the "Comment" function below, write more about your topic in terms of these ten questions. If you would like to download and print a copy of these questions, click here.

1. What issue have you decided to address throughout this semester?
2. Why have you chosen this issue? What investment do you have in the issue?
3. Why is this issue worthy of public discussion? What’s at stake? Why should people care about it?
4. What debate is at the heart of this issue? What do you want to persuade your audience to see/do? What do you want to inform them about?
5. How can you ensure that this issue is “contained”? In other words, what is it about this issue that makes it large and complex enough that you can engage a debate but small enough that you can handle it over the course of the semester?
6. What knowledge do you already have about the issue? Tell me what you already know.
7. Who is your target audience for this discussion? Who is most likely to be interested in this topic/issue? 
8. What do you feel this audience knows about this issue? What is their perception/understanding of this issue?
9. You will need to interview someone about this issue. Who might you interview?
10. What questions/concerns do you have regarding these projects, this issue, or the course?

Course Blog Assignment #1

By Tuesday, January 18, post your 300-word response to this assignment via the "Comment" function below.

Part #1. Reflect on the Mark Tremayne reading and also survey the following public interest blogs:

http://www.enviroblog.org/

http://endangeredspaces.blogspot.com/

http://climateofourfuture.org/

http://www.urbanbranches.blogspot.com/

Student blog: http://jjackson.edublogs.org/

How would you define a public interest blog? What are the bloggers’ priorities and objectives? How is (or isn’t) the blog functioning as a media source?

Part #2. Focus particular attention on the student blog. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this blog? What did you learn from it?