writing research identity

Research Impact

In this guide.

• Getting Started

Your Researcher Identity

• Author Impact
• Article Impact
• Journal Impact
• Broadening Your Impact
• Resources & Classes

Taking charge of and managing your researcher identify is important to distinguish you and your work from other researchers. It allows you to track the impact of your research, increase the visibility of your work, and connect all of your contributions over time. Your researcher identity is formed by combining all of your research outputs (e.g., articles, books, datasets, conference proceedings, blog posts, etc) and its impact that may be aligned with or act as an author profile.

As a researcher, it is critical to have control in managing your researcher identity. Your researcher identifier can: 

• Uniquely distinguish your name (author disambiguation) 
• Improve the discoverability of your work
• Correctly accredit your work
• Collate all your research activities and outputs
• Collect and analyze your impact and metrics
• Promote your research
• Find collaborators
• Streamline your research workflow

Researcher Identifiers

• Claim your ORCID
• Add works to a record

As a researcher, it is important to uniquely attach your identity to your scholarly outputs and unambiguously associate your publications, funding, and other information to you. As an open, non-profit, interdisciplinary, and community-driven effort, ORCID iD helps you distinguish you from other researchers and ensure your work is correctly accredited to you. An ORCID iD is a unique persistent and interoperable 16-digit researcher identifier associated with you (much like an SSN number) throughout your academic and professional career. The term ORCID also refers to the registry in which the unique persistent identifiers are maintained. 

Increasingly, ORCID is integrated into the workflows for individuals, institutions, funders, and systems. Beginning in 2020, any individual who is supported by research training, fellowships, research education, and career development awards from NIH, AHRQ, and CDC will be required to have an ORCID.  Publishers  are also increasingly requiring ORCID as part of the manuscript submission process. 

ORCID is not a social media platform, a profile system, an online CV, or a content repository. However, it provides a transparent method of linking ORCID to research activities and outputs in key workflows that fulfill these functions such as manuscript submissions, grant applications, researcher profiles, and patent applications. 

While ORCID does not aggregate citation data, it captures a wide range of traditional and non-traditional research outputs such as journal articles, conference publications, books, datasets, patents, websites, methodology or technique, etc. You can authorize CrossRef and DataCite in your ORCID account to automatically receive updates to your profile when you publish with your ORCID. Authorize Stanford University as an alternative sign-in to use your SUNet credentials. Link other identifiers, such as Google Scholar, Scopus Author ID, and Publons to your ORCID profile to increase the visibility of your work. For more information, visit the ORCID guide . 

How can you use it?

Link your ORCID iD or generate a QR code for your resume, conference poster, webpage, social media, and email signature to direct people to your works. 

You can also use ORCID to connect a variety of profile systems and research related tools, such as SciENcv profile system and Dryad data repository. For more information, visit Use ORCID .

What is ORCID? from ORCID on Vimeo .

Claim your ORCID by registering at https://orcid.org/login with your Stanford credentials. Select "Institutional account" and search for "Stanford University".

There are three ways to sign-in into your ORCID:

• Login to  ORCID  with your existing ORCID credentials
• Stanford is an ORCID member and allows you to login to your ORCID account with your Stanford username and password (SUNet). Select “Institutional account” on the login screen to sign in with your SUNet. 
• You can use your Google or Facebook account as an alternative sign in.

Authorize Stanford University as a trusted organization to read, and/or add and update your ORCID record. Visit https://authorize.stanford.edu/orcid/ and follow the steps.

You can access an ORCID record as a stand-alone public profile in ORCID's database, and embedded in systems and tools for many databases and workflows.

Add information about yourself to your ORCID record

Build your ORCID record by adding information about yourself and connecting your ids. Personal information you can add to your ORCID record include:

• Your name and other versions of your name
• The country where you perform your research
• Keywords related to you and your research
• Links to websites related to you and your research (e.g. faculty profile webpage, LinkedIn, Twitter)
• Email addresses you use or have previously used
• Other researcher identifiers (e.g. ResearcherID, Publons, Scopus Author ID)
• A brief biography

Add works to your ORCID record

There are  several ways  you can add works to your record: 

• Set-up auto-updates with CrossRef and DataCite .  If you include your ORCID iD when you submit a work for publication, Crossref and DataCite publisher members index metadata about the work. You can authorize Crossref and DataCite to automatically update your record when the content is registered and has a DOI.
• Add works by direct import from other systems. Select "Search & link" in the drop down menu to import links to your publications and other works from different databases and systems. This is the recommended process because it reduces errors and enables a reliable connection between your ORCID iD and your work.
• Add works with a DOI, PMID, or ArXiv id . 
• Import and export works via BibTeX . If you have existing bibliographies from your Google Scholar profile or reference management software (e.g., Zotero, EndNote), you export the data in a BibTeX (.bib) file and import it into your ORCID record.  BibTeX  is a platform-independent, plain-text format used for bibliographic citations.
• Add works manually .

In addition to profile systems like SciENcv, ORCID also integrates with a variety of other research-related tools giving you essentially a single sign and enabling you to share information about your contributions throughout your research toolchain. Below we've highlighted some tools that connect with ORCID that are widely used at Stanford Medicine.

Other Researcher Identifiers

• Google Scholar
• Scopus Author Identifier

There are various types of sites and services that are important in fostering your visibility. Use the comparison chart below to find the appropriate identifier for you. The Lane Medical Library recommends you claim an ORCID iD first before considering other identifiers. 

Google Scholar is a free tool you can set up using an email. It allows your profile to show up in the Google Scholar results when someone searches your name. Google uses a proprietary statistical model to try to tell different authors apart, so ensure you check that articles attached to your profile are really yours. One of the benefits of having a Google Scholar profile is its ability to aggregate multiple sources to generate a citation report on your impact. You can also create a Google Scholar profile for a group or organization. 

Where can you find it

Google Scholar profiles can be accessed via  https://scholar.google.com/  by searching for an author's name. Suggested user profiles will be displayed at the top of the results. 

How can you get one

There are two ways to create and sign into your Google Scholar profile:

• Go to https://scholar.google.com/ and click "sign-in" in the upper right corner. Sign-in using your SUNet. 
• Sign-in with an existing Gmail account or create an account with your Gmail. 

Click "My Profile" in the upper left corner to set up your account information. 

Adding works to your Google Scholar record

Google Scholar will most likely have indexed your work. It will provide you with groups of articles its algorithm believes belong to you. Select any group that is your work. If you don't see your work in a group, click "Search articles" and add your articles one at a time. 

Alternatively, you can add missing articles manually by selecting the "+" button in the grey toolbar above your listed articles.

Scopus Author ID is automatically created when an author has one or more publications indexed by the Scopus database from Elsevier. Scopus will link publications to the same profile based on affiliation and name. However, if the affiliation changes, the form of the name is different, or subject area varies, additional profiles for the same individual may be created. If you have more than one profile in Scopus, it is necessary to merge the profiles by contacting the Scopus team. Scopus Author ID also integrates with ORCID to direct users to both profiles.

Scopus Author ID can be found in the  Scopus database. Search by author or key terms to locate author profiles. 

It is automatically generated in Scopus when authors have more than two publications. If you have more than one Scopus Author ID, it is important to send a request to Scopus to merge the IDs.

Adding works to your Scopus Author record

Publications indexed in Scopus will be automatically added to your Scopus Author profile. Publications indexed in Scopus can also be added by request, if not linked automatically by its algorithm. 

Formerly ResearcherID, Publons is also a free tool as part of the suite of products offered by Clarivate Analytics who provides Web of Science and EndNote. It provides publication listings and citation metrics for publications indexed in Web of Science, as well as tracking of peer review work. Recently, Web of Science introduced a beta author search that algorithmically generates author records for authors who have one or more publications indexed in the database. You can claim a Web of Science author profile by registering with Publons. Based on affiliation, name variation, and subject areas, more than one profile may be generated for an author. Contact Web of Science to merge profiles. Like Scopus Author ID, Publons also integrates with ORCID. All former ResearcherID accounts are migrated to Publons and can be accessed via here .

Click on WoS search results to view abstract and author profile or use “author search”

Register to get an ID https://publons.com/account/register/  Can use a single login for Publons, EndNote, and Web of Science Integrated with ORCID 

Adding works to your Publons record

• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: Author Impact >>
• Last Updated: Nov 1, 2023 2:50 PM
• URL: https://laneguides.stanford.edu/researchimpact

Developing Multilingual Writing pp 103–138 Cite as

Constructing Writer Identity: Self-Representation

• Hiroe Kobayashi 22 &
• Carol Rinnert 23  
• First Online: 15 February 2023

302 Accesses

Part of the book series: Multilingual Education ((MULT,volume 42))

Developing writers often struggle with one kind of interactional metadiscourse, which conveys images of the writer’s identity directly to readers, known as self-representation (Hyland, Stance and voice in written academic genres. Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp 134–150, 2012). In this chapter, we explore how writers project their writer identity by referring to themselves in their texts. In English, such self-representation is best seen in first-person pronouns, whereas in Japanese, pronouns are optional and much less frequent. However, in both languages, first-person opinion qualifiers (such as “I believe …”) serve the function of representing the writer’s attitude toward the opinion expressed. Our analysis first examines the use of six functions of first-person pronouns (Tang, John, Engl Specific Purposes 1:523–539, 1999) in 82 English essays. We then compare first-person opinion qualifiers in 82 Japanese and 66 English argumentation essays. The findings reveal complex patterns of changing self-representation across groups and languages. Overall, the use of pronouns in English moves from personal (“I”), to more objective (third-person or impersonal), to more reader-inclusive (“we”). Dominant opinion qualifiers in both languages change from affective (“I like/want”) to self-reflective (“I think”), later adding performative (“I agree”) and non-use of a first-person qualifier, suggesting a gradual development in the writers’ stance toward the given issue from personal to more objective, nuanced, and implicit.

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We found a statistically significant difference among the groups according to one-way ANOVA tests for first-person pronouns ( F  = 10.473, df  = 5, p  = .000) and for combined first- and second-person ( F  = 13.449, df  = 5, p  = .000). Post-hoc Scheffé tests showed significant differences in first-person frequencies between the Novices and Experienced Group 2 ( p  = .000), Group 3 ( p  = .044), and the North Americans ( p  = .000), as well as significant differences in the combined pronoun frequencies between the Novices and all other groups (ranging from p  = .000 to.024) except Returnees, and between the Returnees and Experienced Group 2 ( p  = .004), Group 3 ( p  = .046), and North Americans ( p  = .000).

We can speculate that the Returnees may have learned to address their classmates with “you” in discussions and debates in their overseas classes, and then transferred this practice into their writing.

In fact, there were no instances of this category in Tang and John’s ( 1999 ) data either, which they attributed to the fact that their writing task assigned did not involve collecting and analyzing empirical data.

On reflection, we realize that some of these personal perspectives might have fit Tang and John’s ( 1999 ) “originator” category, but we tended to limit that category to original opinions, rather than personal observations. For example, we put “ I cannot imagine anyone who would rather live alone or in a nursing home than with his or her own family.” (NA-8) under “personal” perspective, whereas it might have been categorized under “originator” in Tang and John’s study.

The term “performative verb” may be considered controversial in current Speech Act theory, with “declarative verb” being the preferred term for the same function (linguist Susumu Kubo, personal communication, April 17, 2022). Nevertheless, we decided to keep the term “performative” to avoid possible confusion with the traditional grammar term “declarative” (vs. “interrogative”) sentence.

The view of “ to omou ” and “ to kangaeru ” as offering a personal opinion can also be supported from a linguistic perspective. Japanese writers sometimes make the first person explicit together with the particle “ wa ” when they use one of these phrasal verbs, like “ watakushi-wa hitori tabi no hō ga ii to omou/kangaeru ” ( I think that it is better to travel alone). The function of the particle “ wa ” is complex and is understood to have at least two main functions in Japanese: As a topic marker, meaning “about myself” or “regarding myself”; and to limit the subject of the verb to exclude other possibilities, which can be considered a contrastive function, similar to one of the functions of strong stress in spoken English. Thus, using “ watakushi-wa ” (“I” plus the particle) explicitly in a position statement can make it clear that that the opinion is the writer’s own, not anyone else’s.

The use of first-person pronouns in English academic writing is still controversial among L1 English writing teachers, and the advice given to writers is not always consistent. In fact, some English composition teachers and materials advise students not to use “I think” when expressing their opinions in their essays, either because it is unnecessary or because it is too informal. For example, one textbook advises against using such phrases as “I think” and “In my opinion” because the whole essay represents the writer’s own perspective (Baldwin et al., 2007 ). This kind of instructional advice may dissuade some writers from using both “I think” and “I believe” in their formal English writing.

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Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, Higashi Hiroshima, Japan

Hiroe Kobayashi

Faculty of International Studies, Hiroshima City University, Hiroshima, Japan

Carol Rinnert

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Kobayashi, H., Rinnert, C. (2023). Constructing Writer Identity: Self-Representation. In: Developing Multilingual Writing. Multilingual Education, vol 42. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12045-9_4

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Through the act of writing, we embark on a journey of self-discovery. Whether it’s journaling, personal essays, or creative fiction, the act of putting thoughts into words allows us to explore our inner landscape, aspirations, fears, and emotions. Writing becomes a private sanctuary where we unveil the depths of our being, helping us to better understand ourselves and find meaning in our experiences.

Identity Formation through Cultural Narratives

Writing plays a significant role in shaping our cultural identities. Stories, folklore, and historical accounts passed down through generations form the fabric of our collective identity as a group or community. As we read and write these narratives, we weave ourselves into the rich tapestry of our cultural heritage, connecting us to our roots and forging a sense of belonging.

Writing and Personal Narratives: Owning Our Stories

Each individual’s life is a tapestry of unique experiences, and writing allows us to weave these experiences into our personal narratives. Autobiographies, memoirs, and personal blogs enable us to reflect on our journey, successes, failures, and personal growth. By owning and sharing our stories, we not only shape our identity but also inspire others to embrace their own narratives, fostering empathy and understanding.

Writing and Group Identity: The Power of Shared Words

Writing also plays a central role in forming and strengthening group identities. Whether it’s through shared values, political ideologies, or common goals, the written word unites individuals in a collective identity. Group members find solidarity in written manifestos, mission statements, and shared literature, amplifying their voices and mobilizing action.

The Duality of Writing and Identity: Adaptation and Reclamation

Writing is a fluid expression of identity, enabling individuals to adapt, negotiate, and reclaim their sense of self. In multicultural societies, individuals may navigate multiple identities, crafting different narratives to accommodate various cultural contexts. At the same time, marginalized groups may reclaim their narratives through writing, empowering themselves and challenging dominant narratives that have misrepresented or silenced them.

Empathy and Understanding: Bridging Identity Divides

Through writing, we can step into the shoes of others, fostering empathy and understanding across diverse identities. Literature, in particular, provides a window into different worlds, cultures, and perspectives, broadening our horizons and challenging preconceived notions. In this way, writing can bridge divides, break down barriers, and foster a more inclusive society.

Writing is a profound tool that shapes and reflects our identities, both as individuals and as part of larger communities. It empowers us to explore the depths of our inner selves, strengthen our cultural connections, and own our unique stories. As we embrace the power of the written word, let us recognize its potential to foster empathy, understanding, and inclusivity, making the world a place where diverse identities are celebrated and united in the common thread of humanity.

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2.5 Writing Process: Thinking Critically about How Identity Is Constructed Through Writing

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the importance of communication in various cultural, language, and rhetorical situations.
• Implement a variety of drafting strategies to demonstrate the connection between language and social justice.
• Apply the composition processes and tools as a means to discover and reconsider ideas.
• Participate in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.
• Give and act on productive feedback to works in progress.

Now it’s your turn to join this cultural conversation. As you write, keep your audience in mind as well as the principles of inclusivity and anti-racism that you have learned about. Consider how you can share your personal experiences, ideas, and beliefs in a way that is inclusive of all and shows sensitivity to the culture of your readers.

Summary of Assignment: Cultural Artifact

Choose an artifact that symbolizes something about a culture to which you belong. This might be a physical object that you have, or it may be a metaphorical object, such as Du Bois’s color line or veil, that represents something larger about your culture. Write approximately 350–700 words describing it, using sensory detail and explaining its meaning both to you personally and within your culture. To begin your thinking, view this TEDx Talk for a discussion of cultural artifacts and narrative led by artist David Bailey.

Another Lens 1. Choose a space that is important to a cultural community to which you belong. While visiting this space, conduct an hour-long observation. Respond in writing to these items: Describe the space in detail. What do you see permanently affixed in the space? What activity is going on? How is the space currently used? What is the atmosphere? How are you feeling while conducting your observation? Then, do some brief research on the space (using the Internet, the library, or campus archives), and answer these questions: What is the history of the space? When was it established, and under what circumstances? How has this space been used in the past? What is your response or reaction to this history? Then write a passage in which you highlight a unique feature of the space and your cultural relationship to it.

Another Lens 2. Considering Du Bois’s theory of double consciousness, explore the ways in which you may experience competing identities or competing cultures in your own life. What experiences have you had or witnessed where language clashed with or supported your identity or culture? What happened? How did others react? How did you react? What insight does your experience offer on this discussion of rhetoric and the power of language to define, shape, and change or give birth to identity or culture?

Quick Launch: Joining the Dialogue

You may choose to use journaling to develop your language use and voice. Journaling, or keeping a written record of your thoughts and ideas, can clarify your thoughts and emotions, help you better understand your values, and increase your creativity. The following two journaling techniques should help you get started.

Character Sketch and Captured Moment

Because your cultural artifact may be tied to a person, a character sketch might help you think about its significance. A character sketch is a brief description of a real or fictional person—in this case, likely someone you know or even yourself. In it, you describe the character’s personality, physical traits, habits, history, relationships, and ties to the cultural artifact. You may include research about the character to introduce readers to them. Use the following format if you need more guidance:

Character Sketch

• Anecdote about the character
• Most important traits
• Physical appearance
• Ties to cultural artifact

A character sketch of your grandmother might read as follows.

student sample text My first memory of Nonna materializes in the kitchen, where we are baking Swedish cookies together. She carefully shows me how to measure ingredients, stirring with her hand over mine in her deep “cookie-making” bowl. Nonna is a slight woman with a big heart full of kindness. She teaches me many skills, both in and out of the kitchen, that I still use today. Some have proven to be life lessons. She never met a stranger she didn’t like and often said it takes more effort to be unkind than kind. Because of Nonna, the Swedish cookie has become a metaphor for my life. The ingredients of one’s life make up an identity, and the combination is always delicious. end student sample text

Another journaling technique is to record a captured moment through the examination of a cultural artifact. This exercise lets you use an artifact as a means to look at an event in your life and create a written piece that captures its importance, emotion, or meaning. Select an artifact and an experience. Think about what they mean to you. What do you remember, and why? Then go deeper. Analyze the long-term meaning of it in your life. Try to recreate the artifact and then the experience in your mind, and relive the sensations you experienced in the moment.

Choose the Artifact

Begin your assignment by choosing your artifact. You may take inspiration from W. E. B. Du Bois’s image of the veil in the annotated sample in the previous section. Or, going back to the beginning of this chapter and Sequoyah ’s syllabary, you may choose to take inspiration from something linguistic, an expression or a way of talking that is associated with your culture. You may choose an artifact that, like the veil, has metaphorical significance. Or you may choose a more tangible artifact, such as a religious symbol, a traditional clothing item, or any number of objects related to your chosen culture.

Once you have chosen your artifact, do a prewriting exercise called a freewrite . In this activity, set a time limit (say, 10 minutes), and write whatever comes to mind about your object within that time. Don’t worry about organization, flow, grammar, punctuation, or whether your writing is “good”; just write. This exercise not only gets your creative juices flowing but also allows you to put pen to paper and opens your mind to what may be subconscious thoughts about the object as it relates to culture.

Next, it is time to take a more refined approach to planning your writing. Think back to The Digital World: Building on What You Already Know to Respond Critically , which addresses the different purposes for writing. To help shape your writing use a separate sheet of paper to answer the questions in Table 2.1 .

Drafting: Critical Context

In your writing, try to incorporate and respond to the current cultural climate. Context is information that helps readers understand the cultural factors that affect your ideas, actions, and thoughts. Context helps build the relationship between you as a writer and your audience, providing clarity and meaning. For example, Du Bois’s veil means very little until readers understand the deep racial divide that existed during his lifetime, including Jim Crow laws , segregation , and violent crimes committed against his fellow Black Americans.

Cultural Context

Sharing cultural context helps your readers understand elements of culture they may be unfamiliar with. Consider what background information you need to provide, especially information that is integral to readers’ understanding of the traditions, beliefs, and actions that relate to your artifact. Essentially, you will need to close the gap between your own culture and that of your readers.

Armed with your freewrite and your answers to the questions as a starting place, create your first draft. As you write, embed cultural context and explain the significance of your artifact in a way that is relatable and meaningful to your audience. Like Du Bois, try to use figurative language, such as similes or personification, in your description, and include the relevant sensory elements of the artifact: its appearance, taste, smell, sound, and feel. See Print or Textual Analysis: What You Read for definitions and examples of some figurative language, or consult this site . Consider using a graphic organizer like Figure 2.6 as a guide. Add more outer circles if needed, and be mindful of writing in a way that it is accessible and inclusive.

Remember that your first draft is just a starting point. The most important thing is to get your ideas on paper. This draft can be considered a test of sorts—one that determines what should and should not appear in the final paper.

Consider the following sensory description of Broadway in New York, written by British novelist Charles Dickens (1812–1870) in his book American Notes for General Circulation (1842). What does Dickens, as a British observer, note about this street in America? How does he use language to convey what he sees, hears, and smells? In what ways does he use language to convey a British viewpoint?

public domain text Warm weather! The sun strikes upon our heads at this open window, as though its rays were concentrated through a burning-glass; but the day is in its zenith, and the season an unusual one. Was there ever such a sunny street as this Broadway! The pavement stones are polished with the tread of feet until they shine again; the red bricks of the houses might be yet in the dry, hot kilns; and the roofs of those omnibuses look as though, if water were poured on them, they would hiss and smoke, and smell like half-quenched fires. No stint of omnibuses here! Half-a-dozen have gone by within as many minutes. Plenty of hackney cabs and coaches too; gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and private carriages—rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the public vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement. . . . [C]oachmen . . . in straw hats, black hats, white hats, glazed caps, fur caps; in coats of drab, black, brown, green, blue, nankeen, striped jean and linen; and there, in that one instance (look while it passes, or it will be too late), in suits of livery. Some southern republican that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and swells with Sultan pomp and power. Yonder, where that phaeton with the well-clipped pair of grays has stopped—standing at their heads now—is a Yorkshire groom, who has not been very long in these parts, and looks sorrowfully round for a companion pair of top-boots, which he may traverse the city half a year without meeting. Heaven save the ladies, how they dress! We have seen more colours in these ten minutes, than we should have seen elsewhere, in as many days. What various parasols! what rainbow silks and satins! what pinking of thin stockings, and pinching of thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons and silk tassels, and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and linings! The young gentlemen are fond, you see, of turning down their shirt-collars and cultivating their whiskers, especially under the chin; but they cannot approach the ladies in their dress or bearing, being, to say the truth, humanity of quite another sort. Byrons of the desk and counter, pass on, and let us see what kind of men those are behind ye: those two labourers in holiday clothes, of whom one carries in his hand a crumpled scrap of paper from which he tries to spell out a hard name, while the other looks about for it on all the doors and windows. end public domain text

Now, how might Dickens go on to provide context and make connections between British and American cultures so that readers understand both more keenly? Although American Notes is generally critical of the United States, this description creates a positive mood, as if Dickens recognizes something of home during his visit to Broadway—a cultural artifact. This recognition suggests that moments of unexpected joy can create connections between cultures.

Peer Review:

One of the most helpful parts of the writing process can be soliciting input from a peer reviewer. This input will be particularly helpful for this assignment if the peer reviewer is not a member of the culture you are writing about. An outsider’s view will help you determine whether you have included appropriate cultural context. Peer reviewers can use the following sentence starters to provide feedback.

• One piece of your writing I found meaningful was ________.
• Something new I learned about your culture is ________; you explained this well by ________.
• Something I was confused by was ________; I don’t understand this because ________.
• A major point that I think needs more detail or explanation is ________.
• In my opinion, the purpose of your paper is ________.
• To me, it seems that your audience is ________.
• I would describe the voice of your piece as ________.
• I think you could better build cultural context by ________.

Writing is a recursive process; you will push forward, step back, and repeat steps multiple times as your ideas develop and change. As you reread, you may want to add, delete, reorder, or otherwise change your draft. This response is natural. You may need to return to the brainstorming process to mine for new ideas or organizational principles.

As you reread and prepare for revisions, focus on the voice you have used. If a friend were to read your draft, could they “hear” you in it? If not, work on revising to create a more natural cadence and tone. Another area of focus should be to explain cultural context and build cultural bridges. Use your peer reviewer’s feedback to develop a piece that will be meaningful to your audience.

While describing your artifact is likely a deeply personal endeavor, an important part of writing is to consider your audience. Composition offers a unique opportunity to build and share cultural understanding. One way to achieve this goal is by using anti-racist and inclusive language. Try to view your composition from outside of your own experience.

• Is any language or are any ideas harmful or offensive to other cultures?
• Are you using the language of preference for a specified group?
• Can people of various abilities read and understand your writing?

One overarching strategy you can use for anti-racist revision is to constantly question commonly used words and phrases. For example, the word Eskimo is a European term used to describe people living in the Arctic without regard for differentiation. The term was later used to describe a popular frozen treat known as an Eskimo pie . Today, the term is considered offensive to Inuit communities—Indigenous people living in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. You can also make yourself aware of the evolving preferences for language use. For example, the term Negro gave way to African American , which is now giving way to the term Black . Finally, consider the use of the word see , for example, to mean “to understand”: Do you see what I mean? Is the use of see in this way inclusive of a visually impaired person who may be reading your text? To start, determine one or two places to include anti-racist or inclusive language or ideas in your writing, and build those into your piece.

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Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/writing-guide/pages/1-unit-introduction

• Authors: Michelle Bachelor Robinson, Maria Jerskey, featuring Toby Fulwiler
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Writing Guide with Handbook
• Publication date: Dec 21, 2021
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/writing-guide/pages/1-unit-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/writing-guide/pages/2-5-writing-process-thinking-critically-about-how-identity-is-constructed-through-writing

© Dec 19, 2023 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

ISU Writing Program

GWRJ Issue 7.1

Wesley jacques.

The E-Cat’s Meow: Exploring Activity in Translingual Mobile Gaming

Jacques explores the activity systems surrounding a mobile gaming experience, especially those with a transcultural bent. He considers a variety of his antecedent knowledges and his understanding of CHAT. With some reflection on transcultural language, he discovers that his activities, although largely confined to his smartphone, are part of a system that stretches to the other side of the world and throughout a history that may be more complex than he expected.

Agathe Lancrenon

Everything You Need to Know About Transferring Metaphorical Ducks

Lancrenon tests some of her friends’ abilities to deduce the meaning of five French phrases translated into English. She examines how they go about guessing the meaning of the phrases by drawing on their prior knowledge and transferring their linguistic skills. The readers are also invited to play along and study their own cognitive processes, so… Allons-y*! (* Let’s go!)

Cristina Sánchez-Martín

Language Variation Across Genres: Translingualism Here and There

Sánchez-Martín explains how cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) allows writers to explicate linguistic variation in different genres. The article provides a model for how the expansion of understanding in a language allows a writer to notice the diverse resources that are available for them to make meaning in creative and non-adaptive ways.

Brigid Ackerman

CHATting with Humans of New York

Ackerman uses CHAT to discuss and analyze the unique qualities of social media sensation Humans of New York that make it its own genre. She reviews the history of the project and looks into its recent changes to see what makes it stand out.

Karlie Rodríguez

SnapCHAT: The Genre of  the Vanishing Memoir

Through the lens of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), Rodríguez analyzes the ways in which the online platform Snapchat is used as a medium for life writing. Rodríguez also unpacks the ways in which the snaps she creates are fun yet meaningful.

Kayla Scott

The Information That I Sought Out: A Genre Study of the Artist Statement

Scott has created a genre study of the artist statement by approaching it as something that changes with the needs of society. From manifesto to artist statement to a genre with conflicting views and uses, this article moves through the artist statement using books, interviews, surveys, and looking at the work of professional artists.

Jillian Merrifield

Build This for Me: The Genres of  Architecture

Merrifield investigates the activity systems of two different kinds of architects, looking specifically at the way that they achieve their objectives. In her interview with a software architect and a commercial architect, she learns about how they work with real-world genres, how they adjust for different audiences, and how they use specialized languages in their compositions.

Write That Down: A Genre Analysis of  Academic Note-Taking

Lewis examines several note-taking methods in order to think through how she came to understand her own note-taking. She breaks down note-taking by using cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) to analyze what might be considered the “genre of academic note-taking,” specifically considering socialization, production, ecology, and reception.

Nathan Schmidt

The March of  the Llamas: Or, How to Be an Effective Note-Taker

Schmidt considers how notebook doodles can actually be an important part of a writing activity system, and how a healthy relationship with distraction can help a writer cultivate a confident writing research identity. He examines his own doodling practices, applying CHAT as a theoretical model for understanding how doodling may be related to concepts such as representation, socialization, and reception. He does not offer any note-taking advice.

Annie Hackett

Powering Through the Pain: Producing a Podcast

Hackett explores the activity system involved in creating and producing a podcast. Annie uses cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) to explain how every little part of the writing process is important for producing a final text. She describes the steps she went through to make a podcast and concludes that sometimes, you just have to power through the pain and frustration to create a successful product.

Danielle Sutton

Inside the WTF Folder: Is That Really Research?

Sutton discusses how her assumptions about what can and cannot be considered research are challenged when she decides to write a paper on political Facebook memes. In order to write a paper that meets the criteria of the assignment, Sutton ultimately has to unlearn much of what she thinks she knows about research.

Brianna Doyle

Investigations of  a College Bookworm: How Young-Adult Novels Impact the Writing of Their Authors and Those Who Read Them

Doyle explores the genre of young-adult fiction in order to discover how YA novels make an impact on the works of two kinds of writers—YA authors and writers who read the genre. She relies on the CHAT aspect of reception to help explain her own theories about the positive impacts of reading this genre.

Transfer in Action: Writing Research Moves Beyond the Classroom

In part one of this article, Hackett met with Angela Sheets, a former English 101 Instructor at ISU who currently works as a writing researcher in the Claims Training department at COUNTRY Financial in Bloomington, Illinois. Here, they discuss elements of CHAT and activity theory to explain the writing systems Angela employs to complete projects for the company, and Annie transcribes the Q & A session for part two of the article.

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Bernice Olivas

In 1967—in response to the Vietnam War and widespread civil unrest—Mary Rose O’Reilley asked, “Is it possible to teach English so people will stop killing each other?” It’s 2021 and we’re still killing each other. People of color, women, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ+ communities are still marching in the streets, raising their voices to share their narratives, their mourning songs, their pain, fear, and frustration at the systemic inequality they face. As a nation, we are still in the same identity crisis we were in during 1967.

Maybe we need to be asking, “Is it possible to teach writing so people will stop killing each other?” I don’t have an answer. I want to say yes. I want to offer all the best ways to teach writing so that people will stop killing each other. But I can’t. What I can do is suggest that instead of looking to new ways of teaching, we look back and deepen some of the ways we are already teaching.  We can teach writing so that our students leave our classrooms with a deeper understanding of what it means to be human.

Now these suggestions will sound deceptively simple and maybe even out of touch in this complicated, technological time. But bear with me.

My first suggestion is to encourage students to write about themselves, to look inward, to the words that tell their stories.

When I say we should encourage students to write about themselves—I don’t mean “what I did last summer” essays or asking our students to write about how they felt about their dark times they’ve survived.  Instead, I am suggesting that we frame identity as a rich site of study and inquiry. To do that we need to be very clear about what we mean by identity because writing about identity is more than just writing something personal. Personal implies information not readily available to the public, information we can choose to share, information that we have the privilege of keeping close to us. The personal is mine, I have ownership over it.

For example, I am married—that is personal information. I don’t need to tell you that and you can’t tell just by looking at me.  It’s personal.

Identity, on the other hand, is something we only have a small amount of control over because our identity is contextualized by our society. Our identity is defined by markers that we did not construct, that were premade for us by a society that was here long before us, and that we can’t control. Our identities have built in the privileges and biases regardless of how we feel about it. I’m a woman. I’m a woman of color. I cannot decide who does or doesn’t know that. It’s written on my skin, it’s woven into my hair, it is in the shape of me.

What I am saying is that we should encourage our students to analyze their own identities in relationship to the rest of humanity and teach students that writing and identity are intertwined. We should give our students permission to use writing as a way of critically analyzing what they know to be true of the world. More importantly we should teach our students to critically analyze how they came to know what they know to be true of the world. Because the only way for any of us to change our worldview is for us to see that it needs to be changed. We need to know where our worldviews came from so we can decide we want to live there.

I write this during the Covid-19 epidemic. At this moment it feels like the right moment to look inward. Now, while our physical is distanced, while we are forced to sit with ourselves, is the time to remember that Victor Villanueva taught us that “personal discourse, the narrative, the auto/biography … is a necessary adjunct to the academic. Looking back, we look ahead, and giving ourselves up to the looking back and the looking ahead, knowing the self, and, critically, knowing the self in relation to others, maybe we can be an instrument whereby students can hear the call” (19). Our own complex identities are rich sites of inquiry. And maybe, by taking a deep dive into better understanding our own humanity in relationships the humanity of others, we can begin to find some answer to Mary Rose O’Reilley’s question.

We need to grapple with the hard truths—this work can’t be done at a distance, it must be up close and bone deep, it must be about each of us, and it starts with analyzing our own identity and the experiences and relationships that shape our identity. And I know that studying the self in relation to others may not sound like a realistic approach to vigorous intellectual pedagogy. But it isn’t new—it’s a deepening of what so many of us are already doing.

We already frame identity as lived experiences contextualized by relationships with communities, institutions, and governing bodies. We ask our students to analyze their own communities and institutions through their own lenses.  We ask our students to “do discourse” in ways that promote empathy, compassion, and solidarity.

And we certainly already think about developing praxis in our classroom that will act to help writers develop intellectual and critical habits of the mind. The Council of Writing Program Administrators, The National Councils of Teachers of English, and The National Writing Project identify eight habits of mind essential for success in academic writing:

• Curiosity : The desire to know more about the world.
• Openness : The willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.
• Engagement : A sense of investment and involvement in learning.
• Creativity : The ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.
• Persistence : The ability to sustain interest in and attention to short-term and long-term projects.
• Responsibility : The ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others.
• Flexibility : The ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands.
• Meta-cognition : The ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge. (1)

Framing writing courses around inquiry into the students lived experiences and identities not only supports all eight habits of the mind, but it also helps our students better understand the ways the discourse can other, dehumanize, and marginalize people in the world, how the othering places people into systems of privilege and marginalization, and how they have been shaped and affected by the discourse around identity.

We already know that promoting empathy, compassion, and solidarity means guiding our students through a process of unlearning color-blindness, unlearning complicit silence, and unlearning an easy and innocent version of the world we live in. We already know that before we can develop empathy, compassion, and solidarity, we all must unlearn bias. We need to untangle a thousand different lessons that we absorbed and often can’t even name. Identity and the discourses around their identities shape the lives of our students. All of them. Those who are marginalized and, though it may seem contrary to the way we think of power dynamics, those who have privilege. They are Linda Flower’s “people who stand within a circle of privilege [who] may also be standing in need of empowerment.” Our history is a legacy that weighs heavily on all of us.

Consider what Frankie Condon says about White supremacy thinking. It is an illusion covering deep wounds to the self and the community. She says:

There are few matters in life about which I possess any degree of certainty, but this I know, both as a matter of life experience and as a result of my studies: racism splits us, slices us apart from one another, from our humanity, even from ourselves. Racism chains us to small, crabbed, notions of self. (3)

This holds true for sexism, homophobia, class issues—when we lose touch with each other’s humanity we are chaining ourselves to “small, crabbed, notions of self.”

So, if we agree that we live in a world where, as James Gee tells us, discourse shapes our “identity kit[s],” if we agree that discourse can create a toxic “doing-being-valuing-believing” combination of language and social practices, if we agree the discourse of othering supports behaviors and ways of thinking that make it possible for all of us to enact social injustice based in racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia―then it falls to those us who already study rhetoric and language to speak loudly that discourse is a learned behavior and learned behaviors can be challenged, disrupted, and dismantled .

Villanueva says, “The personal done well is sensorial and intellectual, complete, knowledge known throughout mind and body, even if vicariously.” So too is writing about our identity. When we tell our stories about uncovering the why of our biases, or our fears, or our rage, that story is “sensorial and intellectual, complete, knowledge known throughout the mind and body” of our readers. When we offer our memoria ―our cultural, community, and familial memories―we invite our readers to live vicariously with us.

I am saying that writing about identity can be an important way of learning about the world.

I am saying that we can write about our identities in ways that are active, vibrant, and effective.

More importantly, I am saying we can write about our identities in a way that promotes empathy, compassion, and solidarity.

I might even be suggesting that conceptualizing identity as a rich site for inquiry and analysis might help us teach writing so that people stop killing each other.

My second is more about strategies to craft writing projects that help our students stay connected to the academic world. For too many of our students’ academia is a new and alien space. There are so many new things to grasp. We need to give students work that will ground them, give them writing opportunities that help them develop a sense of belonging to their college community because Dr. Ann Penrose found that students who fail to figure out where they belong on campus are much less likely to graduate. She says that “helping students see themselves as members of the academic community may be the most important challenge faced in the university at large.”

We need to craft writing projects that help students develop a sense of belonging. Students are already “inventing the university” and “learning to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community” (4). Students need to see themselves as belonging on our campus, in our programs, at our institutions . Because when they do not, they are more likely to fail.

I remember, in my first year in undergrad, I didn’t know what “office hours” were, and when my writing teacher suggested I come by his office hours, I was terrified. My identity as a First-Generation Mexican woman saw that invitation as threatening. I stopped sitting in front, I stopped raising my hand, I stopped talking. I was terrified to do something that would change that invitation to an order. I was in my junior year before I felt like I deserved to be there, that I belonged on campus.

Now, I laugh at this experience, but I always, without evening thinking about it, offer my own students an explanation of office hours. I tell them that these are hours I set aside just for them, because I want to be able to answer questions, chat, look at writing, or whatever. I remind them that office hours are for them. Every semester. I do everything I can to make my classroom and as much of campus as possible as comfortable, as much theirs, as their local park, or the local auntie’s bodega, or their church. I want them―no, need them―to see the campus, the knowledge we house here, as theirs. Full stop. No caveats.

In this I speak from experience: I was that student who was disconnected and I was struggling until I joined the McNair Scholars. The McNair scholars’ program is a Trio program that prepares and supports marginalized undergraduates to get into graduate school. Each program is a little different depending on who developed it. The program at my college really focused on encouraging students to see themselves as scholars and to see that graduate school was a possibility for them. It was two years of studying ourselves and the world of graduate education.

And it wasn’t easy to convince some of us that we belonged in graduate school. We fear losing our families and culture even while we want to grasp everything graduate school offers. We spend two years trying to understand who we are in the contexts of scholars and researchers. In my cohort, I was only one of many who had never seen a professor like themselves. I had never had a Mexican teacher; there was only one Latina in my English department. Everywhere I looked, my campus was telling me that I didn’t belong. Every class, every portrait of alumni, every face represented a world that was not built for me. As a McNair scholar I spent a summer researching why students like me failed Composition 101 and dropped out. In graduate school, I keep researching that same issue by spending two years observing the writing pedagogy used at my McNair program in hopes of finding some practical answers. And not just because McNair was where I developed into a scholar, but because TRIO programs have a proven success rate of graduating and advancing underrepresented students and First-Generation students into graduate programs. These factors made my McNair Program a rich site to research how their writing intensive program helps students develop their confidence and sense of belonging.

What I found was that the McNair Scholars Program used three key strategies to conceptualize identity as a site of inquiry and analysis. And they used them to help students develop a sense of belonging.

First, they ask their students to write about themselves. A lot. They examine their histories, analyze their motivations, and identify the most useful skills and characteristics they brought with them from home.

These three strategies are what I call recognition , representation , and reinvestment .  These strategies situated them as members of the academic community.

Recognition means that the writing project encourages students to recognize how the strengths they developed in their home communities make them better students.

Representation means that the writing project guides them in locating representation from their community in academia.

Re-investment means the writing projects shine a light on the kinds of opportunities they will have to re-invest into their home communities once they have completed their education.

The McNair program crafted writing projects that focused on recognizing their students’ strengths, by helping them to find representation in academia, and by honoring their dedication to their family and home community.

But what does that look like in the classroom?

Centering recognition might look like a literacy narrative that asks students to tell the stories of members of their family or community that emphasize the skills taught in their communities. This project presumes that their families and communities are full of strong, smart, successful people, and helps the student better understand how their culture and background supports their intellectual goals. It also shows them that I honor their community’s ways of being.  Recognizing those ways of making knowledge is inviting the student to embrace those ways of making knowledge in their intellectual journey.

Centering representation might look like a rhetorical analysis of a newsletter or yearbook from an early two-year college as a way of showing students how our past student bodies were First Generation students—the sons of farmers, laborers, and immigrants. It might look like an analysis of their areas of interest or career path. It might ask them to locate and email a successful member of academia who is also a member of one of their home communities so they can see themselves in the future.

Centering assignments in re-investment might look like a research paper focused on the needs of their home communities to locate the ways their education might benefit the people they love. It might look like collecting narratives from their elders to preserve for the next generation, it may look like an op-ed about an issue that has a real impact on their homes.

In my classroom, using these strategies might look like asking the students to research and apply to a local scholarship. Apply the concept of the rhetorical situation to help them plan their essays. Pinpoint what the writer wants—they want the money to finish their classes. Consider what the audience wants—they want reassurance that the scholarship winner will finish their education. Then work together to craft an essay that mixes narrative and exposition in a way that gives the reader a person, a whole person—the young woman who watched the hospice nurses gently usher her grandmother out of this world and thought, “I want to be like them,” instead of the kid who has always wanted to be a nurse.

It might look like writing protest essays about a local issue, reading James Baldwin and June Jordan or a watch party of “Salt of The Earth” a 1954 American drama about Mexican workers protesting unsafe practices of a copper mining company. It might look like sending them to create and share a protest playlist and writing a reflection on how they put that list together. It might look like interviewing their elders in search of historical narratives.

Now, looking back, I can point out the exact moment my identity shifted from outsider to belonging, the exact moment my academic identity snapped into being and I knew what it meant for me to be an academic. The McNair Co-director, whose graduate education was also in English, encouraged me to attend a reading by Dr. Victor Villanueva. She said Dr. Villanueva was exactly the kind of scholar I needed in my body of knowledge. He was First Generation, he was Latino, he was in my field, and he was a teacher. She was right. I read his essay, “Memoria Is a Friend of Ours: On the Discourses of Color,” the night before, and the creative writer in me loved that his essay mixed poetry, narrative, and formal academic language. While I listened to him reading in a voice that sounded like home, using expressions that I understood but could not translate because he is Puerto Rican and I am Mexican and I don’t really speak Spanish, I recognized characteristics we shared. I listened to that beautiful reading, and I was proud to be represented by him, proud to hear him speak truth and power. I looked at him and thought, I can do this.  I felt the power of his words, the charisma of his personality, and I knew―really knew―that people like me belonged in academia, that we did this work. That I could do this work. More importantly, I knew that I owed it to my nieces and nephews, to other students like me to reinvest my education so that I would someday stand, as he stood, reaching a hand to others like me.

This moment never fails to remind me that our students don’t just “invent the university” on their own—they do it in relation to us, their faculty, their mentors, their advisors, and their peers.  The student is not just learning to “speak our language,” they are developing a whole new way of being—one that will allow them to join us at the table.

So that’s my second way of teaching writing so that our students learn more about what it means to be human. I show them people like themselves doing academia. I give them stories by folks who share that cultural, community, and familial memoria. I encourage them to dream of a future where they are holding their hand out to lift the next generation.

Whatever it looks like in your classroom, give them work that reminds them that they belong here. Give them work that helps them understand themselves and each other better. Give them work that lets them dream about the future. This is the work that keeps us connected. This is the work that might just help us finally answer the question, “Is it possible to teach writing so people will stop killing each other?”

Works Cited

Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” Journal of Basic Writing 5.1 (1986): 4–23.

Department of Education. TRIO: Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program. 17 May 2016.  Http://www2.ed.gov/programs/triomcnair/index.html#skipnav2 >.

Flower, Linda. Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Public Engagement . Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008.

Gee, James P. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction.” The Journal of Education . 171.1 (1989): 5–176.

O’Reilley, Mary R. The Peaceable Classroom . Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1993.

Penrose, Ann M. “Academic Literacy Perceptions and Performance: Comparing First Generation and Continuing-Generation College Students.” Research in the Teaching of English . 36.4 (2002): 437–61.

Villanueva, Victor. “Memoria Is a Friend of Ours: on the Discourse of Color.” College English . 67.1 (2004): 9–19.

Open English @ SLCC Copyright © 2016 by Bernice Olivas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Grizzly bear conservation is as much about human relationships as it is the animals

Associate Professor of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, University of Montana

Disclosure statement

Alexander L. Metcalf has received funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the US Geological Survey, and the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Dr. Metcalf is an advisor to the Swan Valley Connections board of directors.

University of Montana provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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Montanans know spring has officially arrived when grizzly bears emerge from their dens . But unlike the bears, the contentious debate over their future never hibernates. New research from my lab reveals how people’s social identities and the dynamics between social groups may play a larger role in these debates than even the animals themselves.

Social scientists like me work to understand the human dimensions behind wildlife conservation and management. There’s a cliché among wildlife biologists that wildlife management is really people management, and they’re right. My research seeks to understand the psychological and social factors that underlie pressing environmental challenges. It is from this perspective that my team sought to understand how Montanans think about grizzly bears.

To list or delist, that is the question

In 1975, the grizzly bear was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act following decades of extermination efforts and habitat loss that severely constrained their range . At that time, there were 700-800 grizzly bears in the lower 48 states, down from a historic 50,000 . Today, there are about 2,000 grizzly bears in this area, and sometime in 2024 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether to maintain their protected status or begin the delisting process.

Listed species are managed by the federal government until they have recovered and management responsibility can return to the states. While listed, federal law prevents hunting of the animal and destruction of grizzly bear habitat. If the animal is delisted, some states intend to implement a grizzly bear hunting season .

People on both sides of the delisting debate often use logic to try to convince others that their position is right. Proponents of delisting say that hunting grizzly bears can help reduce conflict between grizzly bears and humans . Opponents of delisting counter that state agencies cannot be trusted to responsibly manage grizzly bears.

But debates over wildlife might be more complex than these arguments imply.

Identity over facts

Humans have survived because of our evolved ability to cooperate . As a result, human brains are hardwired to favor people who are part of their social groups , even when those groups are randomly assigned and the group members are anonymous .

Humans perceive reality through the lens of their social identities. People are more likely to see a foul committed by a rival sports team than one committed by the team they’re rooting for. When randomly assigned to be part of a group, people will even overlook subconscious racial biases to favor their fellow group members.

Leaders can leverage social identities to inspire cooperation and collective action . For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, people with strong national identities were more likely to physically distance and support public health policies.

But the forces of social identity have a dark side, too. For example, when people think that another “out-group” is threatening their group, they tend to assume members of the other group hold more extreme positions than they really do . Polarization between groups can worsen when people convince themselves that their group’s positions are inherently right and the other group’s are wrong. In extreme instances, group members can use these beliefs to justify immoral treatment of out-group members .

Empathy reserved for in-group members

These group dynamics help explain people’s attitudes toward grizzly bears in Montana . Although property damage from grizzly bears is extremely rare, affecting far less than 1% of Montanans each year , grizzly bears have been known to break into garages to access food , prey on free-range livestock and sometimes even maul or kill people .

People who hunt tend to have more negative experiences with grizzly bears than nonhunters – usually because hunters are more often living near and moving through grizzly bear habitat.

In a large survey of Montana residents, my team found that one of the most important factors associated with negative attitudes toward grizzly bears was whether someone had heard stories of grizzly bears causing other people property damage. We called this “vicarious property damage.” These negative feelings toward grizzly bears are highly correlated with the belief that there are too many grizzly bears in Montana already.

But we also found an interesting wrinkle in the data . Although hunters extended empathy to other hunters whose properties had been damaged by grizzly bears, nonhunters didn’t show the same courtesy. Because property damage from grizzly bears was far more likely to affect hunters, only other hunters were able to put themselves in their shoes. They felt as though other hunters’ experiences may as well have happened to them, and their attitudes toward grizzly bears were more negative as a result.

For nonhunters, hearing stories about grizzly bears causing damage to hunters’ property did not affect their attitudes toward the animals.

Identity-informed conservation

Recognizing that social identities can play a major role in wildlife conservation debates helps untangle and perhaps prevent some of the conflict. For those wishing to build consensus, there are many psychology-informed strategies for improving relationships between groups .

For example, conversations between members of different groups can help people realize they have shared values . Hearing about a member of your group helping a member of another group can inspire people to extend empathy to out-group members.

Conservation groups and wildlife managers should take care when developing interventions based on social identity to prevent them from backfiring when applied to wildlife conservation issues. Bringing up social identities can sometimes cause unintended division. For example, partisan politics can unnecessarily divide people on environmental issues .

Wildlife professionals can reach their audience more effectively by matching their message and messengers to the social identities of their audience . Some conservation groups have seen success uniting community members who might otherwise be divided around a shared identity associated with their love of a particular place. The conservation group Swan Valley Connections has used this strategy in Montana’s Swan Valley to reduce conflict between grizzly bears and local residents.

Group dynamics can foster cooperation or create division, and the debate over grizzly bear management in Montana is no exception. Who people are and who they care about drives their reactions to this large carnivore. Grizzly bear conservation efforts that unite people around shared identities are far more likely to succeed than those that remind them of their divisions.

• Conservation
• Environment
• Endangered Species Act
• Grizzly bears
• Social identity
• Wildlife management
• STEEHM new research

Senior Lecturer - Earth System Science

Operations Coordinator

Sydney Horizon Educators (Identified)

Deputy Social Media Producer

Associate Professor, Occupational Therapy

Interim report

The Cass Review has submitted an interim report to NHS England, which sets out our work to date, what has been learnt so far and the approach going forward. The report does not set out final recommendations at this stage.

At present there is a single specialist service providing gender identity services for children and young people – the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.

In recent years GIDS has experienced a significant increase in referrals which has contributed to long waiting lists and growing concern about how the NHS should most appropriately assess, diagnose and care for this population of children and young people.

Key points – context

• The rapid increase in the number of children requiring support and the complex case-mix means that the current clinical model, with a single national provider, is not sustainable in the longer term. 
•  We need to know more about the population being referred and outcomes. There has not been routine and consistent data collection, which means it is not possible to accurately track the outcomes and pathways that children and young people take through the service.  
•  There is lack of consensus and open discussion about the nature of gender dysphoria and therefore about the appropriate clinical response. 
•  Because the specialist service has evolved rapidly and organically in response to demand, the clinical approach and overall service design has not been subjected to some of the normal quality controls that are typically applied when new or innovative treatments are introduced.   

Key points – moving forward

• Children and young people with gender incongruence or dysphoria must receive the same standards of clinical care, assessment and treatment as every other child or young person accessing health services.  
• The care of this group of children and young people is everyone’s business. Our initial work indicates that clinicians at all levels feel they have the transferable skills and commitment to support these children and young people, but there needs to be agreement and guidance about the appropriate clinical assessment process that should take place at primary, secondary and tertiary level, underpinned by better data and evidence.  
• Addressing the challenges will require service transformation, with support offered at different levels of the health service.
• The Review’s research programme will not just build the evidence base in the UK but will also contribute to the global evidence base, meaning that young people, their families, carers and the clinicians supporting them can make more informed decisions about the right path for them.    

A fundamentally different service model is needed which is more in line with other paediatric provision, to provide timely and appropriate care for children and young people needing support around their gender identity. This must include support for any other clinical presentations that they may have.

It is essential that these children and young people can access the same level of psychological and social support as any other child or young person in distress, from their first encounter with the NHS and at every level within the service.

The Review team will work with NHS England, providers and the broader stakeholder community to further define the service model and workforce implications.

At this stage the Review is not able to provide advice on the use of hormone treatments due to gaps in the evidence base. Recommendations will be developed as our research programme progresses.

• Download the Interim report

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