UNIT 2 REFLECTION
How did you choose the audience for this piece? What specific rhetorical choices did you make in your piece to better reach that audience (quote yourself)?
When making my piece on beauty standards, I carefully selected the audience based on interest and relevance to the topic. Specifically, I aimed to reach individuals who are impacted by or interested in discussions surrounding societal norms of beauty. With this, I tried my very best to achieve quality engagement when it comes to the topics of beauty standards. I took a deep dive into younger generations as statistics have shown they are greatly impacted by beauty standards. To demonstrate I included: “Out of 1000 adolescent girls surveyed, 88% of the girls believe that media puts a lot of pressure on them to be thin.”
How did you challenge yourself in researching this piece? Claim what’s happening in “the conversation” about your topic. What is the quality of the research/sources available? How could they be improved? What further research needs to be done? If you conducted primary research, how does it fit with what you’ve just described?
When researching for this piece I challenged myself to look for sources that went beyond surface-level discussion to get the chance to explore the dynamics when it comes to a complex topic like beauty standards. Finding quality sources that would truly benefit my piece was rather hard considering that the available research and sources that pertain to beauty standards vary significantly. While I do believe that there were quality resources available I still do feel as though there should be more pieces regarding different perspectives that help to acknowledge factors such as race, ethnicity gender, and other topics to help illustrate the greater issue at hand. I found many of the sources to be repetitive and did contain rather similar information. With this being said, I incorporated three different genres of articles to create the most rich and diverse piece surrounding the topic of beauty standards. With the combination of my research for my pitch homework and the information I found on the web, I believe that I had a significant amount of research to help cover almost all aspects of my topic.
Were you successful in engaging your audience in the Pitch HW? Did you get a response to your pitch? Either way, how did you follow up?
I was successful when engaging my audience in the pitch homework because I sent it to my target audience who could relate to my topic at hand. I did get a response to my pitch which helped me see real-world examples of my topic and people's thoughts on specifics when it comes to beauty standards and their perception of it. With the feedback I received, I gained valuable perspectives when it comes to specific aspects of beauty standards when it comes to their perceptions of this topic. This guided me to look for sources that correlated to their responses. This pitch not only helped to enhance my topic but also served as a reminder and opened my eyes to hear from different ages and generations how such a complex topic has its effects on everyone differently.
How could you apply one of the writing/research/design methods from this project to a project in another class or even in your life beyond college (be specific!)?
One method that could be applied from this project to another class or beyond college is the use of primary research methods. These research methods could be anything from interviews and research to observation and surveys. In the context of exploring beauty standards, primary research methods like qualitative interviews, surveys, or participatory action research were used to help me gain insights and perspectives from friends and family directly affected by beauty standards. With this, I can take primary research methods to just about any task that involves research and background information. I can take this research method to my summer internship and just about any job I end up at in the future when having a task that requires research.
I really liked how self aware you were when picking an audience and, I too, agree that the societal norms of beauty are something that many people are interested in right now. You did a great job reflecting and displaying how you can use the techniques you've learned in this unit in your future endeavors. -Maddie Washburn
ReplyDeleteThe structure of your reflection is very smart and I appreciated your specific outlook and responses to the prompts. I agree that beauty standards are a complex topic, but I believe you covered them well in your work and did a good job with analysis of this issue in a broad sense. Great job!
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