Multimedia Writing- How Ill miss thee It has been a long prosperous year of writing in Dr. Es class.

I have had to record my voice, write a newspaper, and everything in between. Through these different mediums and different types of assignments I have tested different parts of rhetoric that I didnt even know existed. Above all I have learned that writing is a long, arduous process- even if you love what you are writing about. There are always improvements to be considered and connections to be made. Through my portfolio one can view, in chronological order, the steps my writing has taken. I know when I looked back at my audio narrative I could easily see a difference in my writing from just a few months ago. I may be hard to recognize the process that I took considering my works have been recently revised, but one can easily take a look at my reflections to get an understanding of what I went through in order to create the product I did. One of the first things we learned in class is that rhetoric is not simply an argument- rhetoric is an art that improves the way we write. What I really tried to focus on this semester was the delivery of my written works. If you scroll down to my first blog entry I mention that as a writer I felt that I had the ideas in my head, but struggled to easily convey them through the written medium. Maybe this was simply not a gift that I was given. But throughout the semester I found ways to combat that; I started to read my essays out loud to receive audible feedback for how it sounded, while also letting my friends read my essays to get an entirely new perspective on what I was writing. These techniques most definitely helped me to connect with my reader and create better works of literary art.

My causal analysis essay is where my research and critical thinking truly shine. While it was by far the most difficult essay to write, it was the essay that definitely stretched my brain the most. For most of my other essays I already had some prior knowledge of the topic; however, I had literally no idea what Schadenfreude was until I started researching. Throughout the year I came to see what good research brings to a paper. Without research you are left with empty claims and vague statements. In high school I didnt like to quote much, but now I can see how it is necessary to develop a well-written paper. You can see this simply by looking at my works cited pages; never before this year have I ever had 11 works cited in one paper. After writing this semester I fully understand that while I may think Im smart, my papers definitely need to have more that just my ideas to make them great. Multimedia had played a huge role in my development as a writer this semester- three of my essays have involved used of multimedia. The audio narrative was very unique in the fact that I had done nothing like it before. I made plenty of videos in high school for projects but never something where you couldnt see the person speaking. This was strange because you obviously couldnt use any physical cues and it became much more difficult to play with your words; playing with enunciation and tone to a degree hindered the listeners ability to understand the narrative. When writing the lens essay, the topic that I chose was a YouTube video theme. This was pretty fun because part of my research was watching YouTube videos- couldnt go wrong there. This forced me to write in a way that I hadnt before, there were no paragraphs to cite- only a few scenes and quick one-liners. I

had to adapt my writing process in order to fit to the type of essay. Of course, the multimedia project introduced a new set of circumstances. I wrote a newspaper satirizing Johnny Manziel. What was most difficult about this paper was that there was no MLA format to follow- I had to research what college newspapers typically looked like to create an authentic feel. After deciding on a format the rest came rather easily since I already had a lot of knowledge regarding the situation. The multimedia aspect to writing and rhetoric allows the author to explore new and fun ways to write while also still giving a meaningful message. The narrative essay immediately forced the class to begin to think differently about writing. This was a nice way of introducing the class into a multimedia medium of writing. While making the class narrate an essay, it was nice to have the first assignment be something that I could just draw upon from the past instead of having to do research. Our next assignment, the Lens Analysis, allowed us to still use multimedia while also bringing in some amount of research. This was a great introduction into doing research while also not making it overbearing. This leads us to the third paper, the causal analysis. This was a research heavy paper that truly tested my ability to think critically. This paper was the most difficult, mostly because of what I have mentioned earlier- I had a difficult time putting my thoughts onto paper. However, this was a great lead up to the multimedia project, which then seamlessly blended research with multimedia. The multimedia project effectively took what we had learned through our other papers and combined all of that knowledge in one. The revision paper was nice in that it allowed me to go relook at my causal essay- an essay that I felt did not fulfill its potential. Each of these essays

made us focus on a different aspect of writing so that we could master the individual parts of multimedia writing without attempting to tackle it all at once. Of all of my works this year, I dont know if there is one that I necessarily am most proud of. I enjoy all of my works equally! However, there are definitely some aspects of my works that I prefer. My favorite complete work is probably my multimedia project simply because it came together very well and truly represented what I wanted to get across. However, I have a soft spot for my causal analysis. Although it may not be my best essay this year (in fact it may be my worst), it was definitely the one that I had to put the most work into. In a big way my causal essay displays a change in how I go about writing. When I used to write I usually picked a safe topic- something that I already knew a lot about. This semester definitely made me get out of that comfort zone and write in different ways and about different things than I would have otherwise thought about. Thank you Dr. E for challenging me this semester- I know I am a better writer because of it. Have a great summer!