techladymafia:

Created by: Engineering Degree

Straight Out Of Flint: Girl Boxer Aims For Olympics

Sixteen-year-old Claressa Shields has a dream. She’s in London, at the Olympic finals for women’s boxing, when the announcer calls out, “The first woman Olympian at 165 pounds — Claressa Shields!”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1978/03/writing-typing-and-economics/5165/

Marshall McLuhan once said, or is said to have said, that clarity of expression betrays an absence of thought. Not necessarily so says the author of more than twenty books, innumerable essays and reviews, and the recent television series “The Age of Uncertainty.” His advice to would-be writers combines considerable thought with laudable clarity.

http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/seven_deadly_sins_of_impact_evaluation

1. Immaturity. Per the anecdote above, don’t pursue impact evaluation until you are crystal clear about your organization’s target population, approach, and outcomes, and have internal data that shows you are consistently reaching that population, delivering intended services, and achieving intended outcomes. If you’re not sure that’s happening and want some help, you’re a good candidate for a formative evaluationwhere, for much less time and money, third-party evaluators will take a “peek under the hood” and suggest how you can improve your model to get it ready for impact evaluation.

2. Deference. Some nonprofit leaders assume that the evaluator should dictate what the evaluation entails—either because the evaluator is the expert, or out of concern that they not be seen as influencing the study. But the truth is, unless you articulate up front what decisions you hope to make coming out of the evaluation (or conversely, what questions you would like to answer), the evaluation will probably not be very useful. No work of any kind should begin until there is clear agreement on what the study will and will not address.

3. Narrowness. Impact evaluations are often designed to answer one question: Do beneficiaries achieve greater outcomes than similar individuals not receiving services? But far too few studies are adequately designed to answer the critical follow-on question: Why or why not? So the nonprofit is left with little to no guidance about what to replicate (if the evaluation is positive) or what to improve (if it wasn’t). If you pursue an impact evaluation, make sure evaluators gather data on the inputs (context, staff, beneficiaries, etc.) and outputs (services accessed) of your program, and that they explore qualitative methods (focus groups, in-depth interviews, etc.) that can help interpret the quantitative data they collect.

4. Isolation. Most nonprofits assume an impact evaluation has only two parties: themselves and the evaluators. But creating an evaluation advisory committee in advance of an impact evaluation is a good idea. Often these are volunteer committees comprised of prestigious experts in the nonprofit’s field (other evaluators, academics, practitioners, policymakers, etc.) who can advise on the types of thorny issues this post describes. They might meet just three times—to review the evaluation’s design, interim results, and conclusions—but their advice can be critical to ensuring a useful evaluation.

5. Myopia. Those new to impact evaluation assume they will receive a “pass” or “fail” mark at the end. In truth, nearly all evaluations result in something in between. If your organization doesn’t get an A+, don’t assume that you’ve failed. Instead, before getting started, ensure you develop a shared understanding—among staff, and with funders—of why you are undertaking the evaluation and what the possible outcomes might be. Funders in particular need to recognize the bravery it takes to submit one’s organization to outside scrutiny, and not automatically walk away from organizations that receive a B or C, so long as they have a serious plan in place to improve.

6. Finality. Many nonprofit leaders seem to think that an impact evaluation is a one-time exercise. In truth, the most successful nonprofits see measurement—including impact evaluations—as an ongoing exercise in trying to get better, not a “one and done” deal. They constantly measure because they are constantly testing their models in new sites, new contexts, and with adaptations to improve quality or lower cost.

7. Self-exclusion. Some nonprofit leaders equate impact evaluations with randomized control trials and assume that if a comparison group doesn’t naturally exist for their work, then impact evaluation is not for them. In truth, there has been a significant amount of innovation in measuring the impact of complex interventions such as advocacy, neighborhood revitalization, and capacity building. While impact often cannot be “proven” in the specific, statistical way it can with randomized control trials, evaluations in such environments can nonetheless result in significant insights about how well an organization’s programs are working and how they can be improved. If the organization is ready for an impact evaluation on all other fronts, it’s worth exploring the possibility.

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/writing-professional-query-letter/

Write To Impress

Begin the letter by addressing the editor. Be formal, and never use a first name – be it yours or the editor’s. Your introduction must attract an editor’s attention, and should give him or her enough motivation to read the whole letter. Make it short, but effective and ideally no more than four sentences long. The first part is generally an attention grabber. There are various methods of writing the introduction. Some writers ask questions or identify a need, then produce the solutions for it, bringing his services into the picture.

Pitch Ideas

The second paragraph should tell an editor how the article will be written. Include the title of the subject, which will give the reader idea about the topic you intend to cover. The pitch is essentially a brief proposal.

Explain The Ideas

You should also have a paragraph that defines the work. It should contain a full account of how the writer intends to present the topic. Include the sub-headings, complete details and the flow of the topic. Even at this stage, it is already important to figure out suitable sub-headings, for the end-product. Explain each sub-heading in brief.

List Your Achievements

You should also list your achievements in the writing world. Present a brief detail on your past work, and if possible, the links to articles that are available on the Web. Name only the pieces that will help the cause. You can briefly touch on published work in magazines or books to enhance your standings. Mentioning the academic degrees that you have, especially in field related to what you will be writing, will also help in establishing your credibility.