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
wasnt 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 elses opinion
is invaluable when youre 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.