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University of Central Florida

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

2017

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Understanding The Dynamics Of Peer Review And Its Impact On Revision, Julie Kopp Jan 2017

Understanding The Dynamics Of Peer Review And Its Impact On Revision, Julie Kopp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research in writing studies has focused on what happens as students, and often their teachers, talk about student writing. This line of inquiry has identified several strategies for productive peer interactions, including spontaneous talk (Danis; Dipardo and Freedman; Johnson, The New Frontier; Bruffee; Lam), a flexible environment (Dipardo & Freedman; Johnson, "Friendly Persuasion"), positive rapport (Rish; Thompson; Wolfe), feedback and support (Barron; Covill; Flynn; Grimm; Lam; Yucel, Bird, Young, and Blanksby; Zhu), and reflection (Yucel, Bird, Young, and Blanksby). However, research invested in understanding the extent to which such interactions result in better revisions or make students better writers has …


Only The End: A Collection Of Connected Short Stories, Lucy Sneeringer Jan 2017

Only The End: A Collection Of Connected Short Stories, Lucy Sneeringer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In a series of connected short stories, the author explores the funeral industry by following a body as it is prepared for its final resting. The EMTs, mortician, funeral director, and cremators offer their unique perspective on the many faces death can take. However, it is the eyes of the mourners and Benny himself that see the deeper impact of his passing. By uncovering who Benny was in life, a man struggling with marriage and fatherhood, the author shows just how far the impact of his death reaches.


Blood Moon, Brendan Stephens Jan 2017

Blood Moon, Brendan Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Blood Moon is a collection of short stories that explore friendship, addiction, and punk subculture. Centered around a hardcore band called Dead Phoenix, the three members—Eliot, Noah, and Josh—go on tour, live in a punk house, and plunge headfirst into opioid addiction. The stories explore their lives before they played together in the band, while touring with the band, and after the band's controversial breakup. These stories attempt to show that music, identity, and temporary bonds forever alter the trajectory of a person's life.


(In)Tangible Things, Ryan Skaryd Jan 2017

(In)Tangible Things, Ryan Skaryd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

(In)Tangible Things is a collection of memoir essays and poems that examines loss, pain, and identity. Many pieces explore familial ties through separation, secrecy, and divorce, while other stories and poems observe the author's connection to drag culture, sexuality, eating disorders, and time itself. Using techniques such as framing devices, backwards storytelling, and delineated narrative, the author invites the reader to experience memories and moments from his past that show consistency and change, betrayal and forgiveness.


Because You Are Beautiful And Dead, Yvonne Amey Jan 2017

Because You Are Beautiful And Dead, Yvonne Amey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The poems in Because You Are Beautiful and Dead deal with dysfunctional people, substance abuse, loss, and death and dying. The poems also highlight the struggle of the poet/speaker finding her place in a hideous world, which, paradoxically, she really doesn't want to belong. The poems are influenced by the playful and sad imagery and subject matter of poet Matthew Dickman. These poems, like Dickman's, are assessable and quirky. Michael Earl Craig and Terrance Hayes are two other influences. Hayes' work is artistic and experimental. Michael Earl Craig's poems have a brilliance that isn't fueled in its complex or radical …


Los Heroes Y Minerva En La Narracion Del Libro De Caballerias Cristalian De Espana De Beatriz Bernal, Lorena Ascencio Jan 2017

Los Heroes Y Minerva En La Narracion Del Libro De Caballerias Cristalian De Espana De Beatriz Bernal, Lorena Ascencio

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

"Los heroes y Minerva en la narracion del libro de caballerias Cristalian de Espana de Beatriz Bernal" adds to the advancement of knowledge due to the novelty of the topic and findings that have been incorporated throughout this research. This work analyzes the first two volumes of the Cristalian de Espana, which is one of the few novels of chivalry written by a woman in Spain during the 16th century. The main objective of this investigation resides in exploring the role of hero in relation to the classic hero portrayed in chivalry novels using Amadis de Gaula as a point …


Some Girls, Sabrina Napolitano Jan 2017

Some Girls, Sabrina Napolitano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This novel in stories explores the viewpoint of an unnamed, agender narrator as they navigate their life from childhood into early adulthood. Through the narrator's unique lens, the stories explore gender, sexuality, mental illness, family, and loneliness. The narrator's struggles with belonging and overarching feelings of abandonment intertwine with the sometimes isolating and dangerous landscape of Florida. From their interactions with both Florida and the people who pass through their life, the narrator begins to learn how to accept who are they are, without apology.


Natural Disasters, Rebecca Cobb Jan 2017

Natural Disasters, Rebecca Cobb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Natural Disasters is a collection of twelve short stories that feature a variety of narrators as they interact with the ones they love. In these stories, characters experience puberty, friendship, love, loss, trauma, and the everyday magic of living as they fight to master their own failings. Those lucky enough find solace in the forgiving beauty of nature, while others succumb to the untamable power of its disasters. This thesis is useful, important, and unique as it focuses on the stories of a variety of characters, mostly women and children, and displays the beauty and fearsome power of nature as …


Rebirth Of The Renaissance Man: Creating Actor Agency Through Ensemble Theatre, Kody Grassett Jan 2017

Rebirth Of The Renaissance Man: Creating Actor Agency Through Ensemble Theatre, Kody Grassett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary models of educational and commercial theatres espouse the belief that theatre is the true collaborative art form: one in which artists of different talents, training programs, and experiences can come together to briefly create something more significant than themselves. However, as the theatre has moved into the twenty-first century, the ensemble nature that is so unique to theatrical performance is frequently abandoned for a streamlined top-down structure of theatre making, one in which monetary, scheduling, and efficiency concerns inhibit the true creation of an ensemble. For multi-faceted theatre artists who have interest and talents in more than one field …


Analysis Of Dialog Surrounding Animal Testing In Vaccine Research, Natalie Johnson Jan 2017

Analysis Of Dialog Surrounding Animal Testing In Vaccine Research, Natalie Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzed the scholarly discussions surrounding the topic of animal testing for vaccine potency and safety in humans. The primary stakeholders in this discussion are the scientists, medical professionals, and researchers who are involved in animal models and alternative testing methods, specifically related to vaccine development. The debate among these professionals regarding alternative methods, which encompasses any testing approach that does not involve animals, has been analyzed. This project looks at the argument from a historical perspective, which provides background context for the current debate and an understanding of how the current arguments originated. The changing mindset over time …


On Digital Doctrine: The Mediatization Of Religious Culture, Celina Yebba Jan 2017

On Digital Doctrine: The Mediatization Of Religious Culture, Celina Yebba

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Media is a constant feature in our modern lives, transforming and influencing society and culture. This study examined how increased participation in digital media has changed the nature of religious representation, culture, and practice. Data was collected from both secular websites and religious media spaces where people post information about religion. This discussion is a necessary step in determining how media has not only become embedded in religious culture but has influenced the transformation of American religious culture. The first part of this analysis concentrated on uncovering rhetorical strategies in religious digital spaces. I assumed that organizational identification would be …


From Dude To Dad: A Study On Prenatal Fatherhood And Its Representation In Theatre, Michael Nilsson Jan 2017

From Dude To Dad: A Study On Prenatal Fatherhood And Its Representation In Theatre, Michael Nilsson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A man in the preparatory phase for parenthood with his first child can go through a lot of extreme emotional highs and lows, depending upon the man's economic, relationship, and physical status, as well as community pressures and support. In preparation to portray an array of prenatal fathers in a showcase of scenes, I have read an assortment of plays and scholarly sources. In reading a large sample of prenatal plays, I have extracted several possible emotional changes within a man's psyche. I also analyzed the social rationale behind these changes through the writings of sociologists and other scholarly sources. …


The Effect Of Speech Elicitation Method On Second Language Phonemic Accuracy, Nicole Carrasquel Jan 2017

The Effect Of Speech Elicitation Method On Second Language Phonemic Accuracy, Nicole Carrasquel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study, a One-Group Posttest-Only Repeated-Measures Design, examined the effect of speech elicitation method on second language (L2) phonemic accuracy of high functional load initial phonemes found in frequently occurring nouns in American English. This effect was further analyzed by including the variable of first language (L1) to determine if L1 moderated any effects found. The data consisted of audio recordings of 61 adult English learners (ELs) enrolled in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses at a large, public, post-secondary institution in the United States. Phonemic accuracy was judged by two independent raters as either approximating a standard American …


Dialectics Of Microbudget Cinema, Milos Ajdinovic Jan 2017

Dialectics Of Microbudget Cinema, Milos Ajdinovic

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Magic Kingdom is a feature-length, microbudget motion picture, produced, "written", directed, and edited by Milos Ajdinovic as a part of the University of Central Florida's Masters in Fine Arts program in Digital Entrepreneurial Cinema. Its narrative is a product of the collective improvisation between a group of collaborators – Chealsea Anagnoson, Henry Gibson, Mikaela Duffy and Marcus Nieves – moderated by Milos Ajdinovic. This written dissertation is an attempt to document the concepts and processes that surrounded the production of this film.


Scientific Transformations: A Philosophical And Historical Analysis Of Cosmology From Copernicus To Newton, Manuel-Albert Castillo Jan 2017

Scientific Transformations: A Philosophical And Historical Analysis Of Cosmology From Copernicus To Newton, Manuel-Albert Castillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to show a transformation around the scientific revolution from the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries against a Whig approach in which it still lingers in the history of science. I find the transformations of modern science through the cosmological models of Nicholas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton. Since of the enormous content, I shall only pay particular attention to Copernicus and Newton in which the emerging sciences transformed the cosmos on what Alexandre Koyré calls from a "closed world to infinite universe". As an interdisciplinary approach, I used the methods and inquiries …


83 Orange Peels, Klara Hammoud Jan 2017

83 Orange Peels, Klara Hammoud

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

83 ORANGE PEELS is a feature-length film written and directed by Klara Hammoud and produced by Biddayat as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema from the University of Central Florida. The project aims to challenge existing conventions of the documentary filmmaking on multiple levels – aesthetic, narrative, and technical– while also examining growing importance of workflow throughout all aspects of production. These challenges were both facilitated and necessitated by the limited resources available to the production team and the academic context of the production. This thesis is a record of the …


Ok, Ladies, Now Let's Get Information: Recognizing Moments Of Rhetorical Identification In Beyonce's Digital Activism, Garrett Arban Jan 2017

Ok, Ladies, Now Let's Get Information: Recognizing Moments Of Rhetorical Identification In Beyonce's Digital Activism, Garrett Arban

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research seeks to understand how activists are encouraging audiences to identify with their work in digital spaces through a case study of Beyonce Knowles-Carter's activism. The current scholarship surrounding digital activism is extensive and has offered a detailed look at individual tools used in activist movements, but there is a lack of research that recognizes the complex network of tools that are often used by an activist or activist group. To address this gap in the research, this thesis offers an analysis of three specific activist tools used by Beyonce to encourage her fans and other audiences to identify …


School Has A Bad Storyline: Gamification In Educational Environments, Irene L. Pynn Jan 2017

School Has A Bad Storyline: Gamification In Educational Environments, Irene L. Pynn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

School often has low engagement and frustrating or absent options for the kind of agency the Federal Government's 2016 National Education Technology Plan now recommends educators include in their curriculum. Video games offer opportunities for people to participate in critical problem solving through creative projects. From balancing character statistics, to collaborating with other players, to making ethical and tactical decisions that can change the outcome of the story, successful games draw on the player's interest in learning and analyzing numbers, locations, visual clues, narrative elements, people, and more. One useful example may be found in visual novels (VNs), a medium …


Digital Dissonance: Horror Cultures In The Age Of Convergent Technologies, Daniel Powell Jan 2017

Digital Dissonance: Horror Cultures In The Age Of Convergent Technologies, Daniel Powell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The first two decades of the new millennium have witnessed an abundance of change in the areas of textual production, digital communication, and our collective engagement with the Internet. This study explores these changes, which have yielded both positive and negative cultural and developmental outcomes, as products of digital dissonance. Dissonance is characterized by the disruptive consequences inherent in technology's incursion into the print publication cultures of the twentieth century, the explosion in social-media interaction that is changing the complexion of human contact, and our expanding reliance on the World Wide Web for negotiating commerce, culture, and communication. This study …


Noise Thinks The Anthropocene: An Experiment In Noise Poetics, Aaron Zwintscher Jan 2017

Noise Thinks The Anthropocene: An Experiment In Noise Poetics, Aaron Zwintscher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a textual experiment in noise poetics. It is an experiment in that it results from indeterminate means, alternative grammar, and experimental thinking. The outcome was not predetermined. Noise poetics is the use of noise to explain, elucidate, and evoke (akin to other poetic forms) within the textual milieu in a manner that seeks to be less determinate and more improvisational than conventional writing. This text argues that noise poetics is a necessary form for addressing political inequality, coexistence with the (nonhuman) other, the ecological crisis, and sustainability because it approaches these issues as system of interconnected fragments …