Online Magazine Project

*Create a link to your magazine’s site in the “Composition” page of your Gen Ed ePortfolio*

Objectives:

In this final project, you will revise 3of the 4 papers and 2 of the smaller projects that you wrote/created throughout the semester in order to understand, analyze, and evaluate your own writing within the context of professional discourses on public and global issues. You will learn to revise your papers to meet the research, style, mechanics, and design requirements for specific writing genres (report, sophisticated argument, profile or review, memoir, letter to the editor, creative project, and the ad/cartoons). You will also learn how to reevaluate your use of sources and your writing style in each paper that you revise. Finally, by the end of this project, you will understand visual design elements and their function in modern written texts. NOTE: you must revise your memoir for the magazine.

The Project:

After the extensive research you have already performed on your chosen topic, you will begin to analyze and evaluate how effectively you have communicated in each genre (go back and reread each paper’s assignment description). This means you should pay close attention to what you have said, how you have said it, why you said it, and what all these things have in common. Try to make connections between the different genres and attempt to evaluate how all these genres use the elements of argument. Pay attention to ethos, pathos, and logos: how do these rhetorical methods work together? How do you use them in your writing?

Once you have spent time analyzing and discussing your writing with yourself and your classmates, you will revise your 3 papers, your “letter to the editor”, and/or the ads/cartoons you created, and/or your creative project and combine them to create your online magazine. Visually, the final project document will look like an online magazine, that will include your revised work, and an editor’s note (see description below) which will summarize, analyze, and synthesize what you have written about and why, as well as what you have learned about the writing process. Finally, your magazine should have an engaginghomepage, and a specific navigation menu that outlines the contents of the online magazine.

You will build a website to construct your online magazine. You can do this by copying and pasting, taking screen shots, uploading pictures, etc. from your revised work into the website. Use appropriate design and layout techniques for an online magazine. Consider creating your online magazine on the same platform that you used to build your Gen Ed ePortfolio. For example, if you used Weebly for your Gen Ed ePortfolio, it would be wise to create another site on Weebly for your online magazine. Yola, Weebly, and Wordpress allow you to create more than one site on their platforms. After you have completed your online magazine project, create a link to it in the “Composition” page of your ePortfolio. I will explain how I want the “Composition” page organized in class on Nov. 17th.

To see a student example of an online magazine visit:

Optional Additions to the Magazine:

The options detailed below are not required to complete the magazine project, but can be used to apply specific skills you learned from your textbook directly to your writing. If these optional assignments are incorporated well and enhance the meaning and purpose of the magazine, you can earn up to 5 points of extra credit on each feature. NOTE: extra credit cannot be earned if your magazine does not meet the requirements outlined earlier in this description.

▪ Rhetorical Strategy Article: In this article, you will explore the rhetorical elements of ethos, logos, and pathos, and how they are employed in one of the sources you used for your research. Analyze how and why they are used. Identify the genre of the source. Why does this particular genre use one method more than others? What effect do these elements have on the viewer/reader/listener?

▪ Follow-up: In this section, you can present information that follows up on one of the places, politicians, people, organizations etc., from your main body of research. Explain what has happened to this person, or this place, since you began your research or how things have changed since you wrote a particular paper.

▪ Review: In the review, you will review one of your sources (or a documentary, feature film, television program, album, etc. that deals with your subject). Follow the format of an album or book review, where you summarize and evaluate the entire piece and then give it an overall assessment. Address both positive and negative features of the source. You may only choose this option if you wrote a PROFILE paper.

▪ Fallacious Quotes: Choose a list of 5 or more quotes taken from your research that can be identified as fallacies. Write the quote, the speaker/author, and then identify what kind of fallacy it is and why it is the fallacy you have identified it as. Be specific and very detailed.

▪ Cartoons: Pick 3 to 4 political cartoons, in addition to the cartoons you created for the fallacies post, to add as a feature to your magazine. Only choose this option if you can find cartoons that refer specifically to something on your subject or to one of the sources you used in your research and writing. Write captions that describe how the cartoons relate to your subject and how they use labeling, exaggeration, juxtaposition, analogy, irony, ethos, logos, and pathos, and cite the source.

▪ Profile: write a short profile (1-2 pages) of a person or organization directly connected to your issue to provide the human side of the issue. Include scene setting, dialogue, vivid description, and other creative writing techniques (show instead of tell). You may only choose this option if you wrote a REVIEW paper.

Technical Requirements:

  • Revise your work substantially in order to earn a passing grade on the magazine
  • Take my suggestions and your peers’ suggestions seriously when revising. The biggest contribution to your revision choices, however, will be your own ideas for improving your papers.
  • Follow MLA format for in-text citations and Works Cited page. NO FOOTNOTES/ENDNOTES (except for the memoir)
  • List all of your sources in just one place—one big Works Cited at the end of the magazine. This will help readers stay focused on your writing and give you more room for document design.
  • REMINDER: I just want to see one big, comprehensive Works Cited with all your sources listed together.
  • Meet the source requirement for each revised paper. Reread the assignment descriptions for each paper to ensure that you understand and meet the requirements. I will not grade any magazines that do not have both in-text citations and the Works Cited section.
  • Meet the minimum page length or word count requirements for each revised paper.
  • Meet the visual design requirements for each revised paper.
  • Condense your papers so that you are succinct and to the point. I would rather see a shorter, better paper that does not quite meet 1500 words than a long, boring paper that struggles to maintain my interest.
  • Use up as much of the space on the pages as possible. Look at your favorite online magazines/newspapers to give you ideas—and notice how the layout uses up all the space on each page. Your magazine should do the same.
  • Use an appropriate and engaging design.
  • NOTE: You need not follow MLA style for your actual document design. Choose easily readable fonts in smaller (11-12 pt) sizes (SINGLE-SPACED if using columns). Play around with your formatting until it looks good. NOTE: no fat fonts that take up too much room and only fit 2-3 words per line. YOU MUST FOLLOW MLA FORMAT FOR CITING SOURCES!

Editor’s Note

Students will include an editor’s note with their online magazine. The editor’s note should do four main things. First, it should discuss why you choose to revise the papers and smaller projects that you include in the magazine AND why you choose not to revise the others? Offer specific reasons for your choices and explain those reasons with evidence from your work.

Second, the editor’s note should go on to describe your own writing and research process. Why did you select this issue? How did you go about forming your perspective? Did your perspective on the issue change over the course of the semester? How? Why?

Third, it should provide a brief and accurate analysis of the larger rhetorical situation of the magazine. What are readers’ attitudes towards your issue? What are some common assumptions and arguments about the issue? How does your perspective fit within the prevailing debate?

Finally, the editor’s note should provide an evaluation of your own effort and final product. How strong is your magazine in terms of the main objectives? How well researched is it? Where is it perhaps lacking? What did you learn about the writing process throughout the genres?

Tip: To help you answer the above questions, refer to the course objectives and assess how you met, almost met, or did not meet the objectives. The objectives are listed below.

Course Objectives

  • Appropriately adapt strategies of argumentation for a given writing situation.
  • Appropriately adapt style and design for a given writing situation.
  • Write in multiple genres.
  • Conceive, draft, and revise many kinds of documents, and manage these processes independently.
  • Approach READing and research critically, analytically, and rhetorically, choosing appropriate research strategies for a particular writing task.
  • Cite sources appropriately for the writing situation, including using an academic system of citation with a high degree of proficiency.
  • Understand and respond critically to a civic conversation and become a legitimate participant in that conversation.
  • Work collaboratively on writing tasks with other writers.
  • Edit writing so it contains minimal surface errors.

Format

The editor’s note should be 800-1100 words. Think about the design of the editor’s note by including a picture or representative image of the writer (you). The note should be placed in the traditional magazine location: after the cover (and table of contents, but you will have a navigation menu). NOTE: the editor’s note is the most important part of your magazine because it provides context for my reading of the magazine. If the editor’s note is sloppy, too short, and/or does not reflect on the work you produced for the magazine, it will tell me a lot about how to read the rest of the magazine.

1