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Unit 3
Week 12

This week, we will be:

  • Learning about visual formatting conventions of documents

  • Learning about how graphics such as tables, graphs, charts, infographics, and photographs can bolster the rhetorical appeals of a piece of writing. 

  • Experimenting with creating visuals yourself!

  • Applying what you've learned to create some visual pieces to support your research paper. 

  • Submitting your completed draft (all written sections plus visuals) for discussion post peer review next week. 

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Communicating with Design and Visuals

 

 

Please Read:

  • McGraw Hill chapter 18 to learn about how using certain design principles and visual graphics can enhance the readability and memorability of your writings.
     

Pages 494-498 are an introduction to four main document formatting design principles: proximity, contrast, alignment, and repetition. 

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Pages 498-501 explains the formatting importance of font choice, why headings are great for organization, and the ever-useful option of using bulleted lists to increase "white space" for your reader. 

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Pages 501-517 specifically talks about successfully incorporating different types of graphics into your documents to help readers comprehend the material. 

Some more examples of using visuals with your writing

(Within McGraw Hill Chapter 7, 8):

  • page 155: large infographic

  • page 165: photo

  • page 180: small graphics

  • page 185: example of pictures

  • page 191-193: An essay incorporating a photo, a small infographic, and a data table.

  • page 221: charts and graphs

  • page 229: a data table

  • page 292: photo

  • page 312-315: An essay using three different data tables to explain research results.
     

Please Watch:

This is a useful youtube video about layout and design principles: Beginning Graphic Design: Layout & Composition - YouTube 

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And I just discovered an AWESOME youtube channel with hundreds of tutorials on useful topics. The following videos are about formatting graphics and other visual design within microsoft word documents:

And this is a playlist about using google documents Google Docs - YouTube 

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Watch this video: Beginning Graphic Design: Images - YouTube 

 

Designing a visual

 

Watch this video: Beginning Graphic Design: Images - YouTube 

 

Keeping in mind the design principles , I'd like for you  design and then insert into your paper:

  1.   A free stock photograph that illustrates your topic (with a citation directly following the image in its description). 

  2. A chart, table, or graph you create that visualizes at least one piece of data you decided to use (and a citation directly following in its description). 

Please label them either Figure One, or Figure Two (depending on which comes first and second).

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Applying document formatting principles

 

 

After reading chapter 18, go over your last draft with a critical eye to see if there are any formatting principles you could implement such as:

  • switching sentences with long lists into bulleted lists or numbered lists

  • intentionally using headings and subheadings 

  • ensuring your text's font type and sizing are consistent throughout

Make such changes if you feel the need to.

 

Once you have done both this overview AND inserted your visual graphics, please submit the third draft of your paper (introduction, lit review, compare/contrast, conclusion, and bibliography) in the discussion board in preparation for peer reviews next week

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Discussion Post 7

 


Post a link to draft 3 of your research paper here by Sunday 11/13 at midnight. 

Your peer review commentary for three other students is due by Wednesday the 16th. This is so that your fellow students will have time to edit their papers in order to then turn in their final draft on Sunday 20th. 

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Prioritize giving peer reviews to those who have not yet had someone else provide comments. 

Unit 3
Week 13

We took this week off due to a personal family emergency. 

Unit 3
Week 14

Hello all! Three weeks left of the semester! How crazy is that?

This week and the next we'll be briefing on a few compositional situations and projects that can be useful for self-promotion and professional communications:

  • This Week: online portfolio website building (creating an online portfolio website is required for classes in the writing and rhetoric department)

  • Next Week: Writing blog post (very useful for publishing content on your portfolio website such as self-evaluations and reflective pieces)

  • Optional Next Week: creating a resume and cover letter (also very useful and great to showcase on a personal website)

 

Shortly, I will be publishing the grading rubrics that we will be using together to evaluate your final drafts of:

  1.  research paper

  2.  rhetorical analysis

  3. personal narrative

and    4. a blog post personal reflection piece on how you've grown in your writing knowledge this semester and your plans for future application of it.

I will send out a class announcement email once those rubrics are live :)

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Why Have a Portfolio?

 

Why do you need a portfolio website?

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It's a fantastic tool for marketing yourself to employers, clients, and anyone else you may want to have see your professional side such a college admissions, financial aid granters, and even customers if you're in the business of selling your skills and products. 

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A portfolio is also a great organization tool for keeping track of pieces of academic work you may want to showcase later on in your career, such as doing a master's thesis or portfolio presentation defense for instance. 

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As a student taking a course with the Writing and Rhetoric department, you're tasked with creating and keeping up to date your very own portfolio. It may seem daunting, but I promise that you'll soon get the hang of it thanks to useful (and free!) website-building tools at your disposal. 

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Website Building Platforms

 

Wix

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I personally prefer to use Wix to build my websites. I enjoy the template options and the clear buttons to click on for navigation, as well as the easy toggle between the editing work space and the "see what your website user sees" option before publishing changes.

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Check out this blog post to learn more about what elements are foundational to a good portfolio, no matter the platform its website is built with: What is a Professional Portfolio and How to Create Your Own (wix.com) 

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This video is a simple overview of how to navigate the wix builder specifically for building a portfolio: How to Start Your Wix ePortfolio - YouTube and this video is a in-depth walkthrough if you're really interested: Wix Tutorial 2022(Full Tutorial For Beginners) - Create A Professional Website - YouTube 

 

Google Websites

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Another useful portfolio website builder is Google! 

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The UShouldBWriting website we've been frequenting is a google-made website. While I haven't personally used it yet to create, quite a few UALR staff swear by it, such as Dr. Ray who created the UShouldBWriting site. 

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In fact, he wrote this handy guide complete with official tutorial links on how to create a portfolio with google websites. Please give it a read and a watch: Course Portfolios – U Should B Writing (ushouldbwritingtextbook.org) 

 

Weebly

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Another super popular website builder is Weebly. This is another UALR staff-favorite to use. . It also has templates and an easy-to-use interface! 

This video is a quick rundown of how to use Weebly's platform: How to Build a Weebly Portfolio Website in 5 minutes or less - Website Builders Critic - YouTube 

 

There are other website builders out there too that you may have heard of, such as Wordpress, Squarespace, and Tumblr (for blogs especially).

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Experiment with different builders until you find one that you feel comfortable with for creating your own portfolio.

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What should you have in your portfolio?

 

Each platform has pleeeeenty of awesome templates and examples to consider as starting points for your site. Have fun, look around. Take notes on what you like and don't like about the portfolio websites that you find in their template sections! Then, when you know what template you want to start out with, do it! Start building your own unique portfolio. 

Really, the portfolio is a compositional extension of yourself. By using visual design, showcasing your own work, and using intentionally crafted written contempt to explain sections of your website, you get to share your creative yet professional self with the world in a way that you control. 

These are the following elements you should definitely include in your portfolio:

  • A home page

  • a navigation menu

  • a "contact me" section or page

  • A personal bio section or page

  • An "About this website" blurb on the home page (basically, Hello, Welcome...this is my collegiate portfolio for Composition 1...you'll find my work showcasing...feel free to contact me...etc.)

  • A page dedicated to showing each major paper/project you've done this semester for class. You can embed a pdf onto a page, include a hyperlink to a google document, or even copy/paste your text into a blog post

  • A blog set up to use 

 

Optional sections can include:

  • Your resume

  • Examples of  other projectwork from diffferent classes (Essays, reports, and research that you're proud of)

  • personal projects (such as works of short fiction, youtube videos you've done, photography, graphic design, images of handcrafted work, etc). 

  • social media page links (quite useful for self-marketing)

 

The following are in-progress wix sites that I've created that you can also use as examples to spark ideas about how to organize your info:

Unit 3
Week 14

Here we go! You've hit the ball out of the park and you're flying towards a home run!

I am so proud of you all.

It's 11/28 and 8:30pm PST. i'm currently uploading content, so if you're currently on Blackboard, I suggest refreshing the folder page or just checking back in the morning of 11/29. In this folder is a checklist of all the things to get done or polish up a bit before the official end of semester. 

  • Rubric for the portfolio website.

  • Final Draft Rubric/ Self-Grading guides for your projects that you're posting onto your portfolio. 

  • A sign-up sheet for your last ( this one is required) one-one-one Zoom call check in with me.

 

EVERYTHING is due by 12/12 AT MIDNIGHT! Please and thank you! 

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REQUIRED: One-on-One Zoom meeting with Instructor

 

Sign up here! Days 12/5-12/9 currently available.

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Rubric for Portfolio Website

 

 

PORTFOLIO IS DUE BY DECEMBER 12TH AT MIDNIGHT! 

This is a hard date and I can't make exceptions this time. (The day that I must ensure all grades are in the gradebook is the 15th. I want to have a few buffer days between your submission and the grading finalization.)

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Late portfolios will lose 7 points per day late (that's 10%). For example, if you turn it in on the three days late on 15th, the highest grade you can possibly earn is a 70%.

 

That all being said, no need to go all fancy for this portfolio! This is something you'll be building upon throughout your college journey and into your career beyond. I'm looking for functionality over beauty. 

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