WRITING 220
Writing 220 is so much more than just a course that introduces you to the Minor in Writing program. This semester has helped me tremendous amounts in strengthening and expanding my relationship with writing. With the help of my professor, my peers, and many workshops, I worked with many different mediums and platforms that helped me discover new ways to think and write. The re-purposing and re-mediation projects exposed me to a variety of styles and genres that I had not worked with prior. Experimenting with them helped me expand my abilities and versatility as a writer. This course was integral in the development of new skills and ideas that helped further my writing goals. Here are the major works that have contributed to my growth:
Why we do anything is a very difficult question to answer, so when we were first posed the question "Why do you write?", I panicked because I didn't know. Though I've spent a good chunk of my life writing in some form or another, from scribbles as a young'un to serious essays as an adult, it was difficult to come up with one reason that seemed strong enough in defining my purpose as a writer. What I love most about writing is the effect that it can have on people; whether the words move you to tears or make you angry enough to take action, words are more powerful than we often give them credit for. In this essay, I consider a moment when writing affected me extraordinarily. I chronicle my rediscovery of my love for writing and outline what I hope to use writing for. Through this story, I hope your understanding of me as a writer becomes clearer.
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I chose to re-purpose an ANTHRCUL101 paper I wrote 2 years ago on an ethnographic study I did on the relationship between food and gender. It was very interesting to observe how one's gender can influence how much one eats, so I decided to broaden the topic to environmental and psychological factors that can subconsciously affect our food intake volume. Though we interact with food in many different ways, we mostly just consider food for its taste and its ability to fill us up, so I decided to investigate a less obvious relationship with food. I incorporated the information I learned from research papers into informal blog-style articles that would (hypothetically) be published on the popular website Psychology Today, which features a wide variety of topics (from diet to relationships to ethics to politics) covered by professionals of many different specialties. Using multiple models ("How to Break the Cycle of Rejection," "Your Social Life Is Not Your Social Media,"and "Can I Be Happy at Work if I Don't Like My Teammates?") to form 3 articles, each slightly different in structure and style, I aimed to inform people of the social and environmental that can influence how our brain perceives food volume and how much we eat.
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I decided to remediate the 3 articles on subconscious eating into an ad campaign that focuses on educating people on ways food intake can be reduced through different eating habits. This project highlights the visual cues we encounter daily but hardly give thought to. With the magic of Adobe Photoshop, I produced images that demonstrated how easily visual information can be misinterpreted. Laying the photos out side-by-side made obvious the limitations of our brain; without a companion photo, our mind is unable to accurately assess volume. As a neuroscience major and a foodie, I find it fascinating how our mind can be fooled into perceiving information one way and how changing small details can make it believe the opposite. My ads aim to help people take advantage of these small details so that they can be more conscious of how much they are eating. Ads are perfect for getting information succinctly and effectively across to a large audience. It's hard to see the immediate harms of overeating, but in the long run, it can lead to obesity and a multitude of cardiovascular and other health problems, so this project works to shed light on healthy eating habits that can help prevent the development of certain diseases.
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Writing 220 asks us to blog about our reactions to and thoughts on topics such as rhetoric and genre and on our progress on our projects. If you're interested in following the struggles and successes of my works, feel free to check out my posts. I welcome all comments, criticisms, and suggestions!
Photo Credit: Sophia Peng