Hello, and welcome to my blog. My name is Maggie Rose and I created this

blog for my Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric class at the University of Notre Dame.

Looking back at the beginning of the semester I cannot say that I was very excited

about having to take this class. Writing has never been my forte, and I was not very

sure of my abilities to write a strong piece. I knew that I wanted to try something

different that just straight papers so I decided I would give Multimedia Writing and

Rhetoric a shot. Writing this reflection a semester later I am certain that I made the

right decision for me as a writer.

I have significantly improved as a writer over these past few months and that

is shown through my final projection. Specifically I have most improved in my

process of just starting with an idea and bringing that idea to a completed project or

paper. I did not start out the strongest writer, but with this course that focused

intensively on the process of writing, I know I am leaving more confident. For each

project we would start and brainstorm ideas, whether it be through free writing or

discussing together as a class. We had a small enough class that it was easy to gain

trust in this environment and feel safe enough to share ideas without the thought of

ridicule. Just finding an idea that I would be interested in writing in has always

given my trouble. I find something I like, but am never very sure of how I will fully

exploit that idea. After the brainstorming we would have many checkpoints along

the way including sharing ideas with our professor, Dr. Erin McLaughlin, and our

classmates. With ample workshops before the final project was due, Dr. E wanted to

make sure that we received all the feedback that we needed to be confident in our

final drafts.

This evolution in my ability is evident through the strength of my final drafts.

Both my Rhetorical Analysis and Research Paper are revised drafts. I submitted

them, received feedback, and was able to revise based on the constructive

comments I received. I was able to learn that nothing is supposed to come out

perfect the first time, and that the only way to become a better writer is to go

through the process of critique until you produce something you are content with.

This process is most evident in my research paper. I started off with just a proposal

where I knew that I wanted to write a paper about the connectedness of medical

television shows, but not exactly sure how I was going to turn that into a full blown

paper. There is a transition to an annotated bibliography where I found the shows

and literature that I wanted to reference, but was still unclear about my thesis. It

wasn’t until my revised paper that I finally focused in on what I wanted to say and

was able to say it. Comparing my proposal and final draft, mostly everything is

different, but I know that if I had not started with my proposal I would never have

been able to make it to the finished product. This helped to teach me the importance

of every step of the process. There is no jumping to a final brilliant paper, you must

go through the process and appreciate every step.

Coming into this class I had no idea what rhetoric meant, but now every

essence of the word is engrained in my head. I had been exposed to the

argumentative side to a piece of writing or a visual, but have never gone as in depth

as we did in this class. We read and analyzed many articles dealing with the idea of

rhetoric and how everything uses persuasion to make an argument. Every project

used rhetoric, whether it was our turn to capture our audience through our audio

narrative, or through analyzing the rhetoric of a well-known film. My full

understanding of this concept is evident through my Rhetorical Analysis paper. We

analyzed every part of the film: the way it was filmed, the plot line, the most

insignificant details that gave the most insight into the film. In my paper I was able

to take a movie that most people just take at plot-value and go into a deeper analysis

of what the director wanted to say through the film. I used my knowledge of how

rhetoric works and how it can be used, to analyze the rhetoric of The Social Network,

and develop a well-formed paper.

This portfolio demonstrates my critical research, reading, and thinking skills

and how they have helped me to develop as a writer. As I stated earlier, I find it very

challenging just to come up with a topic for a project. In this class when we did the

rhetorical analysis we were given the research and the reading. We went in depth

analyzing them, which helped to emphasis how we should be thinking when we

read and article or look at a picture or film. We applied these skills to our paper,

using the sources to craft our argument after thinking about how we could apply the

methods of rhetoric to the film. We then took that knowledge and were left on our

own for our research papers. We had to come up with our topic, find our own

research materials, and critically think about what we wanted to say. Extensive

research was needed for our research papers and TED Talks and we knew what had

to be done because we had just gone through that process. I feel more confident

about what goes into finding a helpful source and then getting from that source

what is needed to make it effective in a project. I know that someone else’s opinion

is invaluable when you’re stuck analyzing something and that there is nothing

wrong with asking for help. I understand that help will be given, but I am also more

confident in my ability to research, read, think, and form my own ideas.

We live in a time where we have access to a variety of tools and technologies

to convey and share our ideas, and this class let me understand in when different

types of media would be most effective. We started with the audio narrative, sharing

something personal about our lives, something that contained emotion that would

not be found in the black and white of a text. We had to use our voices to make

people interested in our stories and feel the emotions that we felt. The rhetorical

analysis helped us to investigate powerful media such as pictures and film. These

can more easily reach a wider variety of people and can convey ideas that might not

be as effective in a text or with just audio. Our research paper brought us back to

appreciate how beneficial a standard research paper can be. They may be tedious

but are scholarly and the most formal in conveying formal topics. The TED talk was

the accumulation of what we had done that semester. We had visual aids, a scholarly

topic that involved a lot of research, all topped off by our actual presence in front of

an audience. We covered four topics this semester: writing, rhetoric, research, and

media. Each project incorporated at least one, if not more, of these topics. This class

taught me to understand the four of these ideas and how powerful that can be

separately and together. I have a new appreciation for what they are worth, and to

understand that they all have their different strengths.

Each major assignment played a different role in our understanding of

writing and rhetoric and our development as writers. The audio narrative was our

first introduction into a different area of media than we were accustomed to using.

The idea was to tell a story of something that had happened in our lives relating to

the overlying theme of the course. The purpose of this assignment was to

understand how persuasive the rhetoric of audio could be. We had to convey our

story with our voice only, no other aid. The next assignment was our rhetorical

analysis of the film The Social Network. The goal of this was to apply all that we had

just learned about the art of rhetoric and see if we could analyze a film and the

rhetoric aspects of it. This project introduced us to the idea of research and critical

thinking in a way that we could learn how to convince others of a central claim

about rhetoric that we made. Our next major assignment was the research project.

The purpose of this was to give us an independent research project that we were

able to apply our new critical thinking and research skills to. We were able to choose

our topic, still relating to the theme of the course, and develop and present an

effective argument. Lastly, the TED Talk gave us the opportunity to use all that we

have learned throughout the course in one project. We used our writing from our

paper, knowledge of rhetoric to design an effective talk, and any other research that

we would need. We were able to share what we wanted to through a presentation

that involved us speaking for seven to ten minutes.

I am most proud of my rhetorical analysis and my research paper. These are

the first two papers that I have actually enjoyed writing in the past few years. I came

in a writer who was not confident in my abilities and produced to papers that are

not only interesting, but also well written. I put the time and the effort into the

process of writing, which in resulted in strong pieces of work. I effectively used

source material and critical thinking to develop creative ideas, and then expand on

those ideas to write my paper.

I am proud of all the work I have done this semester and my growth as a

writer. I would like to thank my professor Dr. E for all the help she has provided

along the way, and for making this course into one of my favorites I have taken.

I have make significant revisions to my research essay that I would like to submit for a re-grade.