Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Tootsie Pop: Memorable Childhood Candy Commercial, Emily Newcomer

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Before I began writing the first draft I watched the Classic Tootsie Pop commercial multiple times and determined how the commercial effectively allured to the audience of both parents and their children. While I wrote my first draft, I continued to play the commercial and reminded myself of the lasting impact of this 1970s commercial as my classmates in elementary school conducted this licking experiment. After my first draft, I received feedback from a classmate and my professor. I took some of their advice, edited my paper, and turned it in.

Cheating In The Digital Age Of Art, Madeline Haara

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Editor's note: This paper was named Best Persuasive Essay, which included a $100 award.

I wrote this piece for my research assignment in English 198. The course topic was cheating, and my paper delves into the morality behind the reuse of artistic ideas. I use five scholarly articles to support my argument that artistic reproductions should be encouraged and the current legal systems require a change. My writing process included multiple drafts, peer review, and a review with my professor.

The Moment In Which Time Took Over, Amariá C. Jones

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Editor's note: This submission was named the issue's Best Multi-Genre Work, which came with a $100 award.

While writing this paper, I felt that it was important for me to “let loose!” I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to write about, but I knew that my abstract topic had to be time. There were so many stories that could’ve been shared, but I believe the appropriate ones made it into the final draft. The writing process concerning this assignment served to be challenging at times, but that was only due to the need of capturing time properly in order …

Reading: The Starting Line Of My Imagination, Daniel Sheldon

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

I asked my parents a few questions about how I learned to read. They started with my dad reading to me while my mom was still pregnant, so that is where I started. Between the questions my parents answered and my own memories, I was able to write about how reading was introduced into my life and what happened as a result.

Rotten In The State Of Aragon: Possible Intrigue Under James I, Timothy P. Roman

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Editor's note: This work received the Barbara Farrelly Award for Best Writing of the Issue; it came with a $200 award.

After analyzing a graphic novel tackling the Barcelona Disputation, I made an outline of the opposing arguments presented concerning the identity and legitimacy of the Abrahamic savior. I followed this with a rough draft, which I revised after a short conference with my professor.

Modernity's Empty Symbols And Sequential Snobbery, Grace Pierucci

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

We were assigned a paper in which we would reconstruct Orsi's argument of the presence and demonstrate its prevalence in one of three options we read earlier that semester. I read some of Orsi's work, focusing on breaking apart his arguments. I then made an outline for the paper, and Perpetua and Felicity's martyrdom fit the paper the best. I actually wrote the body first, adding an introduction and conclusion later in the process. I turned in one draft to Professor [William] Trollinger and met with the Core Write Place consultants twice before finishing the final draft.

The One, The Intellect, And The Soul … Oh My!, Dorian A. Miller

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Outlining this essay required many steps between reconstruction and comparison among Plotinus’s Enneads, Plato’s Republic, and Genesis Chapters 1-3. First in the draft, I reconstructed Plotinus’s argument about the three hypostases and his cosmos. Next, I compared Plotinus’s theory of the Intellect to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and concluded with a comparison between Plotinus’s three hypostases and Genesis Chapters 1-3. I created my first full rough draft and attended a conference with Dr. [Elizabeth] Mackay; from there I used her provided revisions for a second rough draft. I then met with a Write Place consultant for a proofread and …

The Irony Of The “God Fearing Man”, Melina A. Durham

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

In this essay, my class was required to summarize Martin Luther's idea of justification by faith and then agree or disagree with his argument. I disagreed with Luther; then, I concluded my essay as to how his ideas still exist today in my hometown.

Video For All: An Argument Towards Standardization Of Video Production Practices And Research, Kelley Bostian

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Instructional videos, a subset of video pedagogy, are becoming valuable pedagogical tools for instructors within both higher education and professional writing environments. By researching contemporary academic literature and creating video artifacts that put theory into practice, this capstone project answers three important questions: 1) How could video pedagogy shift student attitudes or engagement with course content in digital learning environments? 2) What benefits and limitations of standardizing and researching video pedagogy are valuable for educators interested in creating video to understand, including educators with limited or no video production experience? 3) In what ways could certain production techniques in video …

On Narrative Approaches To Conspiracy Theory, John Hydrisko

Honors Theses

This thesis handles narrative approaches to conspiracy theory. It provides an overview of conspiracy theory and narrative before affirming a relationship between the two. It then introduces Fenster’s work on conspiracy narrative before engaging with the considerations therein. After discussing the tradition of visualizing narrative structure, it applies these practices to conspiracy narrative. This application allows for a discussion of recent innovations within conspiracy narrative. By using the QAnon as a case study, the paper investigates the emergence of protagonism and non-narrativism within the genre. Ultimately, this investigation suggests that contemporary conspiracy narrative is both better suited to the modern …

Feminist Rhetorics: Theory And Practice Of Strategic Silence, Paolena Comouche

English (MA) Theses

Building upon the concepts discussed by Cheryl Glenn in her book Unspoken: A Rhetoric of Silence, I conduct a thorough exploration of how silence can be used rhetorically as a unique and powerful form of communication. Because traditional rhetorical theory is rooted in patriarchal bias that “embodies ‘experiences and concerns of the white male as a standard,’” traditional rhetoric is exclusive of groups outside of those that have dominated the discipline (Glenn 155). As a result, it is important to explore rhetoric beyond traditional theory with consideration of feminist and multicultural perspectives, as the exclusion of these perspectives limits the …

Ancestral Pursuits: A Multicultural Celebration Of Identity & Race, Charlotte Cates Castro

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using critical historical rhetorical methods along with critical race and decolonial theory, this project situates ancestral pursuits as a communication-centered discursive formation by investigating the rhetorical strategies modern biotech and genealogy companies utilize to influence contemporary discourse around identity and belonging and narrate ethnicity and genealogy as acts of consumption. Through direct-to-consumer DNA testing and complimentary services, modern day biotech and genealogy companies like Ancestry and 23andMe market personalized insights into ancestry, genealogy, inherited traits, and health data that promise to connect users to their past, as well as to situate them in present-day society, through a deeper understanding of …

Transnational Writing Program Administration: Mobility, Entanglement, Work., Joseph Franklin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation advances the global turn in writing studies by examining academic mobilities through an ethnographic study of transnational writing program administrative (TWPA) work outside of the United States. The literature review reads global writing studies scholarship through a critical-transnational lens to locate the gap for new knowledge in TWPA work. Influenced by Dorothy Smith’s Institutional Ethnography, this dissertation grounds the findings of its interview-based study in the terms of everyday lived experiences by internationally mobile scholars currently doing WPA work in order to construct more nuanced narratives of navigation and sensemaking. Participants discussed the consequences and limitations of us/them …

The Rhetorical Mediator: Understanding Agency In Indigenous Translation And Interpretation Through Indigenous Approaches To Ux, Nora Karina Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In 2018, I became involved in a collaborative community-based project to co-organize an event with the purpose of collecting resources to help in the professionalization efforts of Indigenous translators and interpreters. Drawing on Indigenous and decolonial theories, this interdisciplinary study examines the work done during this event through a user experience (UX) research lens that analyzes the various ways in which Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) and Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) can better support Indigenous language practices. The colonization of the Americas brought a layer of issues that continue to affect the way in which Indigenous communities conduct their …

The Tiered Workshop: The Effects Of Using A Paced Workshop In A Composition Classroom, Madison Shockley

English (MA) Theses

What are the effects of a paced workshop (defined as a slower writing approach rooted in a scaffolded three-day process working toward a completed rough draft) and how can teachers and students alike benefit from these effects within the scope and situations of a composition classroom and potentially those beyond it? This I.R.B approved study aims to discover how my version of a scaffolded workshop fits into the larger picture of rhetoric and composition and how a paced workshop design can not only offer potential to reframe how scholars structure writing within a composition classroom, but also if it can …

Nonprofit Social Media Internships: A Handbook, Allison Laroy

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

This thesis examines how nonprofits can best prepare their interns and how interns can best prepare themselves for a role in engaging audiences through social media. Through a literature review on nonprofit social media and internships, a series of qualitative interviews with interns and supervisors, and my own lived experiences as a social media intern, I develop a handbook for nonprofit social media internships. This guide is relevant to the specific experiences of nonprofit social media internships, includes advice on training, mentorship, and best practices, and finally, it incorporates further resources on nonprofit social media that interns and supervisors can …

Memory And Rememory: Critically Cultivating An Appropriate Response Through A Storied Approach To Listening, Katie W. Powell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues for a storied approach to listening from the perspective of a white Southern woman. To do this, I carefully followed the work of two community groups. One, the Washington County Community Remembrance Project, is working to install a marker venerating Aaron, Anthony, and Randall, three enslaved people who were lynched in our area in 1856. The other, the James H. Berry United Daughters of the Confederacy, is responsible for installing a Confederate statue on the Bentonville Square in 1908 that was removed in 2020. As illustrated by the use of archival research and embedded participation in interracial …

From Starter To Finish: Learning The Literacy Of Sourdough, Molly Mcconnell

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Using the New Literacy Studies and the work of James Paul Gee, the process of making sourdough bread is conceptualized as a literacy, which is then located within food literacy. The literacy of sourdough offers an alternative to neoliberal discourse. The literacy is linked to the rise in popularity of sourdough during the COVID-19 pandemic and is used to explore Bourdieu’s cultural capital. It also connects, rhizomatically (Deleuze and Guattari), and is used to explore concepts of interdependence and time. After establishing this literacy, a pedagogically- focused essay draws upon ecocomposition to expand on what a composition process would look …

Women's Self Perceptions And Fashion Industry Rhetoric, Grace Cody

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Building A (Great) Wall: A Semiotic Analysis Of The Rhetoric Of President Donald J. Trump, Lauren Gilmore

Honors Theses

When Donald J. Trump announced he was running for president of the United States, the country was thrown into division. He was an abnormality as a presidential candidate and a rhetorical oddity since so many of his messages were ones of ignorance and bigotry rather than understanding and inclusion, the expected rhetoric of a president. Through a semiotic analysis, this study aims to understand who the people were that supported Trump, why his rhetoric appealed to them, the ways in which Trump talked about America and its people, and how his supporters interpreted his language. Semiotics is the study of …