Writers Statement:

Over the course of one semester, my ability to recognize, formulate, and develop
arguments has increased immensely as evidenced by the four major assignments for the course:
The Audio Narrative, The Rhetorical Analysis, The Research Paper, and The Mini-Documentary.
During the course, I have challenged my understanding and practice of writing as a process,
rhetoric and argumentation, critical research/reading/thinking skills, practical conventions of
academic writing, and multimedia literacy.
Any good writer knows that writing is a process that has many stages of brainstorming,
drafting, and editing to lead to any final product. With regards to my writing, I also put into
practice the techniques for the process that we learned in class. For instance, when writing my
rhetorical analysis of Happy, I first took detailed notes on the film, followed by a descriptive
outline with a tentative thesis and supporting evidence from the text provided. Finally, after rewatching the entire film for evidence to support my idea of water a rhetorical device I was finally
able to create a rhetorical analysis. On the next major assignment, the research paper, this
processed evolved. For this project, I started with a research topic proposal which aided my
creativity when trying to find a topic. The next step was research. I created an annotated
bibliography or potential sources that could be used in my research paper. Although this was not
a new method of research paper development, during this annotated bibliography, I had the
different focus on purpose, audience, authority, and limitations. By making a detailed annotated
bibliography for multiple sources, the paper came to life with ease. My writing as a process
further evolved with the creation of a mini-documentary about student-athlete stereotypes. This
project involved very little research, but instead a brainstorming of ideas for shots that could
convey a certain message the viewers. For this project, we created and edited a storyboard of

shots. We filmed and interview and then had to edit the film to convey the correct message. Each
one of these major assignments helped to develop my idea of writing as a process by adding
different writing tools that can be used when trying to make a rhetorical analysis, research paper,
or mini-documentary.
Because this course was multimedia and writing rhetoric course, one of the main focuses
was rhetoric and argumentation. The class was challenged to identify the rhetoric or the
documentary Happy. As evidence by my notes on the film, there were many different types of
arguments made in the film including but not limited to how to be happy with nature,
community, and family. In my analysis, I focused on how water was used effectively as a
rhetorical device to help aid the argument that nature brings happiness to people. In this analysis,
I was careful to be aware of the audience and context. The context included the exigence that
was created by the film when there is a feeling of urgency to resolve the problem of individuals
being unhappy. The audience of the film seemed to be targeted at middle-class Americans who
could change their daily routines to make a happier life for themselves. My paper addressed the
academic audience, those who would analyze the documentary for the assumptions and
arguments that it made. In my research paper, I similarly took a similar approach to being careful
with regards to the audience and context of the topic. The context my paper on religion and
happiness added to the existing conversation because it looked at how religious practices and
rituals lead to happiness. The existing conversation included many scientific studies but less
knowledge analytical arguments. This is where my paper fit into the existing conversation. Of
the principles of rhetoric and argument, my strongest aspect is the focus of my argument. In all
my works, there is a clear sense of focus to the main idea throughout the entire paper which is
then developed by the supporting evidence of scholarly articles, studies, and journals. I

developed the focus with this supporting evidence. For instance, in my research paper, I focused
on the aspects of the religion that lead to happiness. I then took those aspects and applied them to
Christmas looking at how it differed between religious and non-religious people. By staying
focused and developed through all four of the major assignments, I persuade my audience and
establish my authority as a writer.
The other half of this multimedia and writing rhetoric course deals with multimedia or the
use of different medium to make an argument to the audience. My multimedia has increased the
creation of the audio narrative, rhetorical analysis, and mini-documentary. For the audio
narrative, as stated in my reflection over the assignment, I was challenged because I had never
made an argument in any other way besides an argumentative essay. When writing the script, I to
be conscious of the fact that I would be reading this allowed to a microphone and of the fact that
the audio is all my audience would be given. They would hear the narrative once and then their
opinions would be set in stone. My message to the audience had to be short, sweet, and explicit if
I wanted the narrative to persuade them. My reading, writing, and research were challenged with
the rhetorical analysis because it was a paper analyzing a documentary. While watching the
documentary, I noticed specific scenes that the film-makers added to influence their argument.
And because it was a documentary, the visual aspect challenged me to shift my reading of the
scholarly articles and writing of my analysis to take this fact into account. My audience would
have watched the documentary and then, if looking for an analysis, read my essay. This required
me to be very explicit about which scenes I was referencing when making my analysis. When
looking at my creation of the mini-documentary, this was a completely different challenge,
because I had never made a documentary or tried to make an argument with a video. I used

techniques I learned about in readings as well as techniques in the documentary to make my own
argument about the stereotypes of athletes.
A successful writer must master his critical research, reading, and thinking skills to make
effective arguments and have persuasive appeal. My critical research and reading is
demonstrated in both my research paper and rhetorical analysis. For the research paper, my
annotated bibliography demonstrates both effective research and reading because I had to locate
articles and studies and then read them for the evidence that would be able to support my claim.
My rhetorical analysis utilized effective reading and discussion because as a class we read
articles from Bitzer, Lancioni, Herrick, and many others to learn about rhetorical argument,
situation, audience, and analyzing. We read the articles separately and then discussed the harder
reading together to make sure we understood the important part of the arguments. With regards
to my thinking skills, all the projects required critical thinking skills to formulate a purpose,
develop that purpose in a way that could be easily followed by the audience, and perfect the
work to fully capture the audiences attention and trust to make an effective argument. My
critical thinking skills developed with the narrative and mini-documentary because these were
mediums that I had not worked with before. I had to challenge the way I thought to think like the
audience and how they would respond to what they were given. For the narrative, all the
audience was given was my voice. This forced me to take care of voice fluctuation, sound
intensity, and tone of my voice.
This class taught me to appreciate the use and need for a proper academic writing style.
For formal papers, we used MLA citation. This called for in-text citations as well as a works
cited page for the works cited in the paper. There were also some other formatting requirements
for headers and titles. Properly citing sources in a paper allows the large academic community to

reference my work as well as my referencing of other scholars work. My proper MLA papers
are displayed with my rhetorical analysis, research paper, and the companion paper for the minidocumentary. Each of these papers in MLA format and the sources in the works cited page are
cited so that they fit the format for their respect genre of information.
I am most proud of my research paper on religion facilitating the happiness of Christmas.
This paper seemed a daunting task when assigned, but thanks to my development with writing as
a process, the essay never seemed rush and developed over the three weeks we were given to
write the paper. In high school is struggled with breaking large projects into small manageable
pieces. With the research proposal, annotated bibliography, and outline, I had the framework to
create a well-developed argumentative paper. This allowed for a non-rushed quality essay. The
paper demonstrates effective research prior to the creation of the essay with a detailed annotated
bibliography. In the paper, although it was a tradition medium, I had a centralized focus for the
essay that developed and added to the existing conversation. The audience was defined and
context of the essay laid out effectively. The project challenged my critical reading, writing, and
thinking skills by gathering sources, cross-referencing, and then joining the academic sphere.
During the essay, I put into practice correct MLA format and citations that allow other scholars
like myself to use the newly acquired knowledge to continually add to the collective knowledge
of the world.