Portfolio
I've always been passionate about my studies and the different causes I support, which includes feminist issues, environmentalism, and sustainability. As I've been in school for the past several years, many of my artifacts are from my undergraduate education at Auburn University. Listed below are some of the works that I am most proud of. These assorted and diverse projects show my skill as a writer, an activist, an editor, a graphic designer, and a content organizer.
Invisible Women Book Review (2020)
For Research in Human Communication with Dr. Martinez, I reviewed Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Emma Criado Perez. This helped me expand my horizons on the different issues women face across the globe. Each of Criado Perez's chapters addresses a different area where women are discriminated against: Everyday, at work, through architectural and object design, medically, and publicly. This work is particularly important to me because it teaches the importance of diverse voices in the workplace and the necessity of inclusion.
Criado Perez is a feminist activist who has a history of campaigning for women’s rights, including a campaign to prevent the Bank of England from removing the sole woman from the back of their banknotes, which she describes in the introduction of her book (Criado Perez, 11). She has received several human rights awards, one of which her website lists as being in 2020 as the recipient of Finland’s HÄN award.
Read my book review here: Invisible Women Book Review
Rhetorical Advocacy Project: Save the Bees (2020)
In Dr. Wickman's class, Public Writing, I created a project that was intended to engage with the problem of massive honeybee death rates within the United States and circulate artifacts that promote organizations who are actively trying to help fix this issue. Using Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Canva, and Adobe Suite, I created artifacts and assembled them onto one cohesive PDF. The artifacts I created are also targeted to influence potential research proposals to help fund scientific studies to help save the bees.
Read rhetorical advocacy project here: Rhetorical Advocacy Project: Save the Bees
Case Studies Brief (2020)
I created my case study brief in my Law & Justice class with Dr. Eidson. I made this brief describing the outcome of the Madison v. Alabama case. This brief takes a very objective look through the facts of the case, analyzing the decision, and detailing what steps it took to get there. Using a memo format, I sorted the content into individual sections that make the brief easily accessible and quick to read. Since many court decisions take pages to go through and come to a decision, my case studies brief quickly sums up the content of the case in a language that many people find easier to understand. As someone who tries to be a bridge that brings authors' content closer to their readers, I think this is an excellent example of my work in making that connection.
Read my case brief here: Case Brief
Opus Major (2019) Revised (2020)
After writing my Opus Major as a culmination of everything I learned in my Medieval Literature class with Dr. Craig Bertolet, I later chose to revise the document to better reflect how my writing has improved. This essay started out around 19 pages long with citations. I added several different sentences and explanations for the terms used in my paper. I also broke up several overly long paragraphs and sentences into smaller ones. I finally cut out many unnecessary terms, words, and prepositional phrases that I had used egregiously. After extensive revision, my Opus Major ended up at 18 pages long with citations.
The assignment criteria of the Opus Major project were to focus on an event in medieval London and how that event shaped a text of literature. I chose to write extensively on the Black Death and how it was an important inspiration for Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale. The Black Death drastically changed the shape of medieval London, as well as all of Europe. Many different traditions were born and discarded because of the plague. Some major changes included an evolution of funeral rites, new types of art such as Memento Mori and Danse Macabre, a surge in the creation of tapestries, and a restructuring of London's guilds. People feared the Black Death, and this fear was prominently shown in The Pardoner's Tale.
Read my Opus Major here: Opus Major
Medieval Plague Doctor Mask (2019)
In my English: Medieval Literature in Translation class, I crafted a medieval plague doctor mask worn during the Black Death. Without the tools of modern germ theory, physicians believed that "bad air" was what caused diseases to spread. Medieval plague doctors would wear protective gear such as gloves, floor-length robes, and masks to prevent this bad air from reaching and infecting them. The iconic bird-like image of the plague doctor mask arose around the 17th century, but plague doctor masks have been around since the first emergence of the plague during the 14th century.
Plague doctors would often fill the beaks of the mask with various herbs to mask the smell of death and to prevent it from infecting them. I grow my own herbs at my house, so I was able to fill a small sachet with a mixture of herbs and flowers, including rosemary and thyme. These herbs were used by medieval physicians for various ailments, and would likely have been stuffed into the plague doctors' masks to help ward off the plague.
By creating the plague doctor mask and conducting research to make sure it was as historically accurate as possible, I became more aware of medieval society's reaction to the Black Death and the various methods used to fight it off. I also was able to better understand why the image of the masked and robed plague doctors became as iconic as they are today.
Recycling Website (2018)
I created this blog in Dr. Gruwell's class as a culmination of everything we learned about Digital Rhetoric. My blog mainly focused on recycling, but also had instances of gardening and reusability. Not only is the content of this blog important to note, but the layout is also an excellent showcase of my online learning experience. I created each picture for my blog using a combination of copyright free stock images and Adobe Photoshop. Each blog post has several terms attached to it for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that helps attract traffic to my website. This website is important because it shows my dedication to the environment, and shows how much I have improved in the last two years of my career as a professional.
View my website here: Recycling Website