Paper 2 Paragraph Revisions

Original:

For the phenomenon of collective intelligence to occur “ all you need are thousands of individuals and a few simple rules of interaction”. (Johnson, 199) Thousands of individuals with their own respective individuality, or what resembles individuality, make up a larger intelligence, one that forms patterns and coherence amidst the chaos. Organized complexity emerges. This is not an original idea, organized complexity has been emerging from collective intelligence and been observed many times. Originality was in play for the “iPod experiment” that Davidson describes in her writing.  Davidson explains that “crowdsourcing means inviting a group to collaborate on a solution to a problem” and that “difference and diversity - not expertise and uniformity - solves problems” (Davidson, 51). Crowdsourcing is a great tactic and encourages interaction necessary for success. Together the students came up with revolutionary new applications for the device. Though these new ideas had never been seen, for the most part, you cannot attribute any one to a specific student because it is likely that none of them would exist had the students not worked together as they did. I would consider the experiment innovative and creative but not original individuality because all of the people came together in order to expand the horizons of a particular technology. Additionally, many of the apps created were based off things that already exist. This is how success is obtained, not through a single person sitting in a dark room, secluded from the world, trying to think of a brand new idea. More can be accomplished through collaboration, influence, and learning from what exists already.

Revised:

Collaboration is necessary in the creation of innovative ideas. For the phenomenon of collective intelligence to occur “ all you need are thousands of individuals and a few simple rules of interaction” (Johnson, 199). Thousands of individuals with their own respective individuality, or what resembles individuality, make up a larger intelligence, one that forms patterns and coherence amidst the chaos and organized complexity emerges. This is how innovative ideas are born. Similarly, Davidson explains in her writing that “crowdsourcing means inviting a group to collaborate on a solution to a problem” and that “difference and diversity - not expertise and uniformity - solves problems” (Davidson, 51). Crowdsourcing is a great tactic and encourages interaction necessary for success. We can apply this to our lives whenever we have a problem as well as society can utilize the power of many brains working together in order to solve societal issues. If there is a problem, it is always better to look for many opinions on the solution rather than try to come up with an original solution on your own. When the pressure to be individuals is pushed aside, people are open to teamwork and more can be accomplished through collaboration, influence, and learning from what exists already.

My peers suggested that I start off with a focused topic sentence that clearly states the point of the paragraph. In addition, they recommended more close reading and analysis of the quotations I used in order to relate them back to the thesis of my paper which is: the death of originality and individuality led to the birth of collaboration and innovation. I will need to add more to this paragraph but I thought that the peer feedback i received was very helpful in cutting out some out the unnecessary parts and realizing how to firm up my argument