Please edit the assignment based on the included rubric and pro-forma/sample, and try to find an angle to incorporate Shaw’s work (also attached).
Assignment:
In the style of an NYT opinion/editorial (900-1,000 words w/embedded links), explain an instance of digital inequality from the news in the past five years and make a case for how to fix it. Scan the opinion sections of newspapers like New York Times, Wall Street Journal, as well as news magazines like Slate, Wired for inspiration.
Style Guide:
While op-eds are often written in a persuasive and catchy style, high-quality op-eds also give readers a reason to trust you and your opinions, so your statements need to be grounded in facts, research reports, reporting, and scholarly sources. But, unlike research papers, op-eds don’t have bibliographies, so you’ll need to follow the conventions of this format and find other ways to incorporate your sources. This can be through links, quotes, or images that support your explanation and/or solution. If your op-ed doesn’t contain trustworthy facts, why should your readers trust your opinions?
You don’t need to come up with a new solution to the inequality you explain. Look around for groups, projects, art, writing, activists, scholars, etc. who are taking an approach to solving these issues that follow from your explanation.
If you have a personal connection to the topic, don’t shy away from incorporating it when it supports your credibility to speak on the issue you’re writing about – see the Op-ed Project on “owning your expertise, and how to use a dramatic anecdote as your “lede”.
