The topic of my inquiry-based research essay was about the effects rape has on victims and different ways we can minimize the numbers of rape. I want to go on the same path by writing about violence against women in every form. I want to focus on the people who are not interested in the topic understand the issue and also those who disagree with certain parts of the topic. I will be using videos of victims expressing their feelings and what they went through. I will also be using data that will prove the massive number of women who are going through physical harassment every single day. I want to make a video because it will give the audience a clear visual of how affected these individuals are from the trauma they are going through. Which will help them to understand the situations these women go through and spread awareness about this issue.
Another genre to spread awareness about violence against women and the effects is an opinion editorial. It will provide me with more information and maybe help me to look at the issue from a different perspective. I will be able to use more information and knowledge on how we can provide safety to the women population.

For Essay #3- Composition in Two Genres, I would like to explore the contrast of opinions centered around one of the possible contributing factors to the Covid-19 crime spike. As addressed in my research-based essay, the divide among Americans when it comes to law enforcement is growing alongside social and political unrest. These existing contentions may have been further aggravated by the mandated stay-at-home orders and eventual virus fatigue leading to widespread eruptions of discontent. Because my intended audience are working class and urban dwelling citizens who watch local news broadcasts and read national newspapers, I would like to borrow from The New Yorker magazine’s cartoon captioning contest concept and alter two cartoon captions to represent opposition of the same issue. My ultimate goal is to locate one cartoon that can embody two contradictory mindsets just by adapting the nuance of the caption. A cartoon that is subtle enough in its illustration to run in two distinctly different publications that target audiences with opposite viewpoints by simply manipulating the text presented underneath. I was mindful in my research paper to present both supporting and challenging stances to influential crime factors; I think it would be interesting to represent that same model in a pictorial context. I am also considering writing a Letter to the Editor in response to one of the feature articles sourced for my paper. This would be my secondary genre alongside the visual genre.

I again want to focus on homelessness for this assignment. I will continue to focus on the issue of homelessness in New York City. When looking at the sample assignments, I became inspired because I have seen many political cartoons, social media memes, and ads regarding my topic. But, once I read that I had to create my own visual aids, I was worried if my own version of images like this would be too similar to some that already exist. However, I want my two genres to be a poster and a political cartoon. I feel that, when not too hard to interpret or analyze, political cartoons and posters are very effective in getting a message across to an audience. Despite this, I was also thinking about using advertisements, as I have seen advertisements speaking on the topic of homelessness. Or maybe even commercials. But, I am not sure how to make my own commercial. I want to communicate how important this issue is to my audience. Because it is such a normalized injustice, as we are often exposed to homeless people, I feel that our society just accepts how things are. Maybe I can communicate how, just like that, you could be homeless as well. People get so comfortable in the positions they are in regarding money or housing, the possibility of any of us becoming homeless seems so out of reach. Nonetheless, things happen, people who are not homeless end up becoming homeless. For example, my coworker’s building caught on fire when she was younger. She lost everything and had to live in a church. Maybe I will include how one can be a solution to this issue. I know when we come together as a community to help someone, a lot can be done. For example, many gofundme pages go around detailing someone in a vulnerable situation, in need of money. Maybe people can become encouraged to pool money among a lot of people to donate towards organizations that aid and support our homeless population. I want my target audience to be citizens of the United States. I want to encourage my audience to think critically about their place in this world, how they can help uplift our homeless population, how privileged we really are.

My inquiry based research essay was written on the topic about the abuse of immigrant detention centers and the concerning impacts it has on detainees. I think for this essay I want to continue my based essay on immigrant facility abuse on and focus my audience on educators and government officials. I want to use the political cartoon and poster as my use of pushing my topic to a view of understanding. Since my audience are going to be mainly educators and government officials I feel that a political cartoon will further give a visual representation of what is clearly going on in the picture. Furthermore, I will also elaborate the posters and political cartoon to give a specific explanation of what is being showcased and the message it is trying to send to the audience. I am thinking of considering the option of using additional visual representations to represent the message and impact that the immigration detention centers have on detainees that are locked under inhuman conditions. I feel that the visual genre is the best route for me because the representation of what men, women, and children go through from beginning to end in detention facilities. I feel that I should incorporate real life situations as a result of abuse in detention centers, because most people do not receive the recognition needed to showcase the real life things happening. Beginning the process by researching political cartoons and real life visuals with quotes from people who have experienced being in a detention centers and what is was like.

For this assignment, I am thinking about exploring the genres of visual essays, opinion editorials, and memes for my composition. These genres feel like something I can work with easily for this new project. I’ve never gotten the chance to work visually or try to convey a message using stuff other than words. However, I also like writing my own opinions on these topics. Instead of having to do research and writing based on facts, I can finally write my own real thoughts and incorporate my ideas into my work. Visual essays also appeal to me because it would be my first time trying something new. I’ve never done a visual essay and at first my understanding of what this was completely changed my perspective. It would be really cool if I tried to represent my thoughts with photos, because photos do tell stories too. I think it would also be easy for me to use memes in my project because I interact with memes all the time, it shouldn’t be hard to make my own and relate it to something educational. I plan to target the general public so that others are on board with my ideas and use their voices and platforms to amplify my voice. If I follow through with the visual components, I can even try and post them on my own social medias or create a page dedicated to it.

My inquiry-based research essay was written in regards to the topic of Psychedelic legalization and effects they have. I think for this type of paper I want to focus my audience primarily on the US government by using the genre’s of a poster and a political cartoon. I think focusing my audience towards the US government will allow me to make the attempt to raise the case for Psychedelic medical legalization. I think this is an important issue because of present and previous research and I believe the best way to represent this issue towards the US government would be through the mediums of a political cartoon and a poster. Political cartoons have been used since the dawn of the American government to critique the actions it takes and is so easily recognizable and understandable that it can be shared with almost anyone. I think for these reasons a political cartoon would represent the topic of medical psychedelics amicably. I think a poster does similar things a political cartoon does. However I believe, where a poster is stronger than a political cartoon is in its share-ability. A political cartoon is already quite spreadable to the masses but a poster is stripped down even further and that is why they can be seen in various public places while political cartoons generally have their home in newspapers and magazines. With these two mediums I believe our audience, that being the US government, will be able to quickly and easily understand my position and my motive and very quickly at that. This is certainly not the most effective way of conveying information. For that I believe an essay or even a film would be a better medium. However the mediums I have chosen are the best for quick and impactful understanding which I feel is necessary in the busy lives of politicians and other various representatives of our democracy.

In my essay #2, the topic I explored was school bullying. So I wanted to use the genre of posters to explain my topic. Since the audience of my research paper is people working as educators and parents students, I want to use poster to show my audience about the dangers of school bullying and the effects of school bullying on society. I want to use the rhetoric of warning or caution to show that school bullying is not as easy to solve as we think, nor is it so simple to prevent school bullying. I would like to use many real cases or survey reports to show how negative school violence is, so that it seems more realistic. In addition, I can talk about several effective measures to protect students from school bullying, which can be better illustrated in the form of pictures and articles to better illustrate the prevention methods. Put some proof of the victim’s injuries on the poster and make elaboration on how the person in the picture was injured. This is the only way to get parents to focus on the education and protection of their children.

Another genre is to exhibit the dangers of school bullying in the form of advertisements. Advertisements can visually better promote the resistance to school bullying. Also, school bullying is a social problem. The form of advertisement can give more parents and students legal knowledge about campus bullying, and protecting themselves with a professional perspective is also a measure to prevent campus bullying.

No matter it is in the form of posters or advertisements, I hope to convey the theme of staying away from school bullying or solving the problem of preventing school bullying. Furthermore, I hope that school bullying problem can be reduced in the society and a perfect education system can be found to prevent school bullying.

I am thinking to consider visual genres, such as using memes and posters in my composition. My primary audiences are college students and educators from institutions of higher education as my topic is about the depression of college students, and how institutions of higher education and students, themselves could do to reduce these risk factors of the matter, but also to improve the depression condition caused by it. Both of these will have the rhetorical strategies of logos

The posters I will use as part of my genre will be placed inside of the colleges as part of its medium. Students and educators from there would be able to see the poster easier, which is very noticeable once they pass from it. It will contain images, texts, and some quotes from people who have suffered depression. Moreover, another genre I am considering is a meme, it will be also great to be placed in social media because nowadays technology is a great source to communicate with people, and it is the fastest way to transfer ideas and information to others, especially for teenagers such as college students, who are most likely to be on social media. It is easier for them to get the knowledge and opportunity to look at it. Next, as for memes part of my genre to my audience, it will include images and texts as well to show the significance of the topic of depression for college students.

For the process to look for the resources, I will look for images and quotes for these types of genres by using the link the professor Shamecca provided to us called, “Owlcation” and maybe I will also draw some if I couldn’t find the ones I am looking for.

Since my inquiry-based research essay was on the topic of the racial wealth gap, and this time I want my audience to be the US government, the genre that I am considering using is a political cartoon. I want this cartoon to show how much laws and policies that the US government has passed since the beginning of American history that oppressed black Americans in accumulating their wealth. I intend on using the rhetorical strategy of pathos so I feel like the genre of a political cartoon is the best way to approach my audience because a visual representation of the racial wealth gap is a powerful form of impacting the audience. They can see how much of the policies they’ve pasted have contributed to the racial wealth gap without them just reading pages of historical policies, which can be boring. It is also a way to capture everything in history in one picture/drawing. In my political cartoon, I want to have white men (representing the government), labeled with the different policies such as redlining, slavery, etc., somehow asserting their dominance over a black man, and it could be them just sitting on top of him or pushing him down.

Another type of genre I would use if the political cartoon genre doesn’t work out is a poster. In the poster, I can include a visual aid, bullet points the laws and policies that the government passed, and directly raise questions to my audience. Overall, I hope that whichever visual genre I intend on using will let the US government be aware of the negative impact they’ve had on the current racial wealth gap and that the issue needs to be resolved.

I was inspired by my first essay’s topic, homelessness. I wanted to do further research, because the eradication of homelessness is very important to me. Although it is very important to me, there is still a lot I do not know in regards to homelessness in New York City. When refining my research question, I considered the feedback the professor gave me. I wanted to analyze how our local government either criminalizes or uplifts our homeless population, so I ended up using the question: How does the local government address homelessness in New York City, and how do their policies affect the homeless population? I was able to examine how the local government affects our homeless population in terms of accessibility to resources like healthcare, overdose prevention, shelters, public spaces, and hygienic necessities. 

I actually found it pretty easy to find information on this topic. There is an abundance of sources on New York City’s homeless population and policies. Sometimes I would come across sources that were not specific to New York City, but that did not affect my process too much as I just moved onto the next one. Despite this, I felt like a lot of my initial sources were too broad and included specific policies, however with little information on said policies. Going to the writing center allowed me to get specific. My writing center tutor helped me take things found in a broader source and locate another source that provided more information on that particular thing. 

When analyzing my sources, I found the reading, Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources, to be very helpful. For the regular news articles, I found it better to read through the whole thing. But, because the scholarly sources can be so long, I located specific words through the “Find” tool on google chrome. I also made sure to look at the abstract, ending, and slowly skim through the meat of the source. I think the sources I used were pretty straightforward. Going to the writing center was helpful as I also looked through all of my sources with my tutor. I will definitely utilize the writing center more moving forward.

My intended audience was New York Citizens and representatives in our local government. I made sure to include locations around the city for certain sections. Sometimes when a New Yorker reads a street number or name of a neighborhood that they recognize, it provides a sense of familiarity and piques more of an interest. At least for me it does. I also included policies implemented by Mayor DeBlasio, a known name throughout the city. I included understandable language and organized my information in a coherent way. I used a news article specific to New York City as my model to emulate a legit source. Including a picture of a homeless man living in the subway in the beginning of my essay gets the topic of the essay across before one even reads any words. It is also a familiar sight, and can evoke feelings of pity, as I do want my audience to feel the urge to do something or think critically about this topic.

I personally liked writing this essay, more so than the first essay. I am used to this type of informative writing style. After this assignment, I know how to better work with long sources instead of getting overwhelmed. In order to be an effective writer, one needs to be able to think critically when analyzing the sources they are gathering. One needs to know how to analyze lengthy time-consuming sources in a way that does not take up too much energy. One needs to know how to create an outline, as a strong foundation does a lot for the completion of a paper. I also think one needs to keep their motive and audience in mind at all times. The hardest thing about this essay was getting started on the actual draft. It was so difficult for me, I was not even able to submit a rough draft. I think my personal life and other classes contributed to this. However, once I left the writing center, I had a newfound sense of motivation, energy, and determination. So once I did start, I was on a roll and happy with the final product.