Final Reflective Blog

1.Discuss ways multimodal composing differs from and is related to your composing practices for alphabetic, print texts. How did this class affect your previous experience with digital writing both as a reader/consumer of digital media, and as a creator of digital media?

I think the first and most obvious difference between multimodal and alphabetic texts is there are a lot more moving parts (I'm not apologizing for that terrible potential pun) to multimodal. There are far more components and things to consider as far as the editing process. 
You also need to have more knowledge. Especially about how to use software. 
Multimodal is certainly linked and related to alphabetic text composing - they both require the author to put their thoughts down and there is generally text  in both forms. 
I didn't have much previous experience with multimodal aside from a capstone project last semester. As stated many times - I'm not tech savvy. So having to do this project certainly allowed me to gain some experience and become a little less hopeless at multimodal and digital creation!

2.How do you now apply rhetorical theory to digital/multimodal texts? How might this knowledge be important/applicable outside a classroom setting in terms of issues like power and ethics?

Honestly, I'd need a bit more distance from this class and project to answer that correctly. Because as of graduation day, I'm going to be staying as far away from a computer as I possibly can for around a month. 

There won't be any digital/multimodal texts going near these eyeballs for a while if I can help it. 

However for the sake of the question - I imagine the way I will apply rhetorical theory to digital texts will take on a more informed lens. Once you've seen or been involved in the inner workings of a thing, you gain insight and as a result, see different elements within it. 

I'll certainly be more aware of the rhetorical moves other creators of digital/multimedia works are making to effect their audience.

 

3. Do you see "delivery" as an important re-emerging canon of rhetoric when it comes to multimodal work? If so, how?

I see delivery as everything. Well, perhaps not 100%, more like 85%.  I don't see it as "re-emerging" either. It may shift and change (today, more in the realm of the digital and less from a speaker at a podium - though that still exists too!) but it hasn't gone anywhere.

Without effective delivery you have no acquiescence, without acquiescence, what is the point of rhetoric? This may smack of oversimplification. But I happen to love over simplifying things. Chop them down to their basic meaning and then build them up a bit more where needed.

Rhetoric is infamous for being wordy. Lets be real. And a lot of people see it as innately something dry, dull and antiquated. I think this class is an excellent example of the fact that its anything but antiquated. Because if you look at rhetoric as being dry and dull you're only looking at a sliver of what rhetoric is - actually rhetoric is EVERYTHING. Whether you want it to be or not. Trust me, there was a point in my academic career when I did NOT want it to be. But it is, and its actually pretty fascinating. But I digress....Delivery, that's what I was talking about.

You can have the most important, meaningful thing to say in the history of meaningful things - but if your delivery sucks, you're probably not going to gain much of an  audience. People are fickle, they like good stuff. They like to be compelled and moved and made to laugh. If you can incorporate those elements, and really use the canon of delivery effectively, your rhetorical game shall be strong.  

Digital Archive Project

1. Discuss your development of an archival literacy.  I'm honestly not sure how this has helped my archival literacy...once I get more distance from the project I'm sure something will reveal itself, but at the moment we're still dealing with last minute issues with the programs/tweaking the project and making adjustments - so I'm still in a state of mild frustration. 
2. How did your group construct meaning from the archive through your webtext? We wanted to focus on something other than This House of Sky, which we figured has been in the spotlight the most. The photo collection, initially disconcerting to me, proved to be an interesting topic when linking it with storymaps. We focused on Doig's images from Scotland and it was interesting to see the links between where he traveled, how much research he did for one book that featured Scotland.
3. How did using new technologies (i.e., the Doig Digital Archive, the finding aid, StoryMaps, etc) shape your research experience and composing process? To be perfectly frank, the process was a pain in the neck. Story Maps is not particularly intuitive, so for a tech-challenged person this was a struggle. We were limited by what we knew about the site and what the sites would allow us to do. There were also some things about the archive that were not straightforward - rather than going from point A to B, you had to go from A to C then F, E and back around to B.
4. To what degree did you and your group take advantage of our librarian partners' expertise with the collection or with technology? How did it go? We used the HTML code to upload our chosen info into StoryMaps - again, not a wildly intuitive program for people who don't code. Lots of trial and error and some limitations as far as amounts of photos we could upload. Overall it was a sharp learning curve for me - a non techie person. Challenge is always good is some facet though and this was definitely one!

11/14

This blog prompt is a bit difficult to answer yet, as we are still in the forming/ideas stage. I think as as we go on with the project, our individual contributions will become more clear.

The project seemed rather vague to me at first, but I think we're getting a grip on it.

Digital Archives

This article by Solberg was interesting to me because I can relate to it. I think every student these days has had to explore a digital archive - generally for a research paper or project where facts and credible sources are vital.

I can recall wading through hundreds of pages of digital articles for business research or analysis papers, or going through historical documents for English essays. Now, this can make the process easier because everything is so readily accessible - however for me it also makes it challenging because I'm a very tactile learner. I like to be able to highlight things, fold pages, spread items out on my desk and refer back to them physically. Archaic perhaps, but I function best this way. I've noticed that with a purely digital reference platform, I miss things in the copy&paste madness.

There's also the continuing issue of not being digitally inclined. So every time I do a search in one of these massive archives, I think I'm missing something, or not searching correctly. Which may not be the case at all but that's how it makes me feel (cuz feeeeeelings are SO important).


On that note however, I think if I didn't have digital archives as a back up/filler, I'd be lost. Sunk. Defunct. Not effective at all.

Doig

So I went and jumped ahead into the Ivan Doig archives.
I was part of a previous class that got to explore this archive while it was still being put together - which was pretty dope.
The special collections department and everyone that has been involved in getting this online have done a great job.
Overall the archives are easy to navigate, user friendly and look pretty good as well.

The first thing I dove into was the photograph collection. And honestly....it was a bit odd to me. Kind of like when you're at someone's house that you don't know very well and you see their photos, personal family stuff on the walls, and you sort of feel like you shouldn't be looking at them.....maybe that's just me but it feels oddly invasive. Yes, I know Doig is no longer alive, and the photos probably offer some insight into his writing process. But it still seems, weird.

The Books and Other Writings section was very cool - mainly because I think a lot of people don't realize how many other things Doig wrote. Its nice to have all his works displayed, with good clear images, on one page. This House of Sky is certainly his most well known work, and many would argue his best, but the others are work a look as well. There's quite a few that I haven't read either and would like to check out. Looking through this archive has inspired me to do so. 

10/31

Whenever I read a piece about or having anything to do with games/gaming, I almost instantly feel like I'm drifting into rhetorical waters that I can't navigate.

Within Kairos I read Vie and deWinter's piece on surveillance and games - really I'm not sure why I chose it - perhaps a vague hope that with every piece on gaming that I read, I will begin to feel less like a rhetorical outsider (which is a bit odd I suppose because I don't really care about gaming, but I like understanding things) and begin to gain knowledge on the topic.

Welp, still trying to gain. Still not getting much. I get the gist - gaming, surveillance, peoples patterns, strategies of the game companies to get more traffic, privacy issues, etc., but there is still so much lingo and terms within that rhetorical sphere that I feel like I'm missing things. I get this inner vibe that I can't even discuss it correctly...

Personally I've never played Candy Crush, or Words with Friends, I've had opportunity and nearly everyone I know has played these and similar games. I have nothing at all against games, or the people that play them. But something about it - especially the way these companies PUSH their product on you - just irks me. I also think that privacy is something that is highly misunderstood. None of us have our privacy really, not anymore. So whenever there's an option to say 'no' to something that potentially takes one more chunk of it, I relish the choice to say, NAH.

Multi-modal

Well, it is done.
Not quite how I wanted it to be, due to freezing video makers and a tremendous lack of tech savvy on my part. But it is complete and I think presents the points and rhetorical approach I wanted.

My initial paper that I revised was written for a Political Science class a couple semesters ago. It got a lot of reaction - on both sides of the argument and I was curious how it would translate to a multi-modal format. 

The largest challenge for me on this didn't show itself until the last minute. Literally last night when I attempted to do the final upload on the video I had crafted over the previous weeks. It just froze. Dead. Wouldn't do a thing. Stuck in digital limbo.
I restarted the program, convinced I was going to lose everything. Didn't, had a moment of hope, then it froze again at the exact same point of execution. Owing to previously stated lack of tech savvy, I decided at this point - 2am - that it was time to change the plan and I threw everything into a Prezi. Gone are my music and voice-over, which I was pretty stoked about, but I can live without them. Because of the lack of voice-over I had to rely on more text because there's a lot of info and its not as slick or 'professional' looking as I would have liked.

The topic I chose is rather a grisly one and certainly one that people will feel strongly about. I feel very strongly about it which is obviously why I chose it! 
Hopefully the intent and point of the presentation is still vivid and accessible even if my avenue of presentation isn't what I'd initially wanted. 
Link is below, and its old school, copy & paste and such!

http://prezi.com/z-j7cmtkcfoz/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share