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Andy Cheng

Mrs. Stanford

ENG231

24 April 2019

A Reflection of the Multimodal Project

My group and I chose to create a magazine to present the information we found on the

topic of women. We decided on this format as a magazine allows information to be displayed in

an attractive manner alongside images and an easily digestible format for the readers. Creating a

magazine was also an easy way for the group to readily work together to create the project as the

website my group used, Lucidpress, allows for all the members to edit the magazine at the same

time. Due to this ease of use, roles could be divided quickly alongside expectations as we could

work on the project on our own time. The modes used in the project are primarily words and

images which in the magazine format are blended together to create a visually appealing piece

that conveys the message that we are aiming at. The information that we present in the magazine

is not incredibly in-depth, rather we decided to stick around more general information about the

topic that is rhetorically appropriate to the format and situation. Readers of a magazine do not

expect immense depth such as in an academic journal and it is not in the magazine, but our

project still centers around the theme of a call to action in essence. I use a healthy balance of all

three appeals in my article in the magazine as I am aiming to persuade women to keep speaking

up in the article and a rhetorically sound argument is needed to achieve that through blending the

appeals. Ethos appears through the sources and the blurb about me the author, logos presents

itself through the reasoning and interpretation I use to explain why speaking out is needed,
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pathos stems from appealing to the need of continuous protest as staying silent on sexual assault

can’t go on. Overall, I am pretty happy with the quality of work my group and me produced in

the magazine as it looks very nice and the articles are of good quality. The caliber seems up to

par give the amount of time we had for the project.

I played the role of a regular team member who also makes some decisions for the group

as my group did not have a distinct leader. We all were pretty equal and played roles in deciding

what format the project takes and what deadlines we have as everybody knew the expectations

going into the project. It was an equally distributed team effort that created our poster. My

strengths during this project include adhering to group deadlines, discussing project changes with

my partners, and my attention to detail so the poster looks consistent all the way through before

turning it in. My main weakness probably includes not leading the group down a well-defined

path as our end objective was wishy-washy for a few days. Lexi’s strengths include her

organization, which includes keeping with deadlines, and her writing. Jenna’s strengths follow

the same path with her being very organized and a great writer as well. My partners’ weakness is

the distinct leadership aspect, the same as my own weakness, as we share blame for not distinctly

determining our course of action on the first day. But overall, these are incredibly minor

complaints as my group was great to work with on the project. Both Lexi and Jenna would get an

A from me due to their work effort being top notch and due to the fact that I didn’t have to really

worry at all about their parts of the project.

Rhetoric is, of course, incredibly important for writing as it is what develops the

foundation which the argument or information that the author wishes to present builds off of to

be effectively conveyed to readers. Only through developing a strong rhetorical basis by

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addressing the rhetorical situation properly with an adequate form of writing and correctly

balancing the appeals can the author achieve their goals that the writing sets out to achieve.

Argumentative writing is where good rhetoric plays an especially key role due to its purpose of

convincing the audience to join a side of an argument. In this form of writing, the author chooses

a distinct side of an argument and then uses evidence and reasoning to present why their side of

the argument is more correct in a meaningful way. To do so, the writer uses effective rhetoric by

establishing credibility, logical arguments, and maintaining readers’ attention as well as using a

professional writing style and refuting opposing arguments. Primary research is a form of

evidence that can be used in argumentative writing and I have learned a good deal more about

this form of research during this class. I learned that conducting research is not as easy as it

seems due to having to plan when to conduct an interview, for example, with another person who

may have a completely different schedule. After the data is collected, then I had to analyze the

data and make my own conclusions from the research before using it in my writing. Primary

research has its benefits though through being able to collect data that directly applies to the

writing topic in comparison to searching academic sources for a source that fits adequately

enough. I took away from this writing course primarily how to properly conduct my own primary

research instead of only relying on outside sources. I also learned to refine my writing a little

more. The strengths of my writing include my strong basis in logic that appears in my arguments,

my organizational skills, my analysis, and my professionality. My weaknesses include the speed

of my writing, which is quite slow compared to other writers I know, and also my inconsistency

of writing as the quality depends on my mood quite heavily. To improve my weaknesses, I think

that just writing more would eventually iron out these quirks of mine with time. To maintain my
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strengths, writing more would also help quite a bit, but also diversifying the types of writing such

as argumentative, informative, narrative, and others that I compose will keep me on my toes.