Draft of Cover Letter (Also no peer review feedback)
Dear Megan,
The term that I will be constructing a definitional presentation for is Julian Assange, due to his prominence in the modern day political atmosphere. Julian Assange, undoubtedly took shots at Hilary Clinton, candidate for the United States. His relevance should be defined for this purpose along with his numerous other actions over the last decade. For this assignment, I decided to do an interactive polling simulation. The decision to utilize this medium was not immediate and involved plenty of contemplation between other methods of visual/verbal presentation. I chose this choice because it retains the attention of the audience (unlike other mediums), clears up misconceptions that exist towards the definition, and follows the “learning by error” approach. I will go further into what exactly an interactive polling presentation is while going into further details pertaining to my justification as to why I selected this medium. Also, I will go into reasoning as to why I selected academics as my targeted audience for this presentation.
Before I describe the structure of the presentation, I will explain my description of Julian Assange. After dissecting multiple bibliographies of Julian Assange, I came up with the following list of adjectives that I felt best described him: peculiar, committed, radical, controversial, subjectively moral, loyal, generous, poor hygienic, paranoid, and witty. This description takes into account his life and actions before he produced his renowned WikiLeaks website. This description also goes beyond what the media decides is important for us to know. Julian Assange has been defined by the average person by his repercussions on society, however there is much more to his character than that. Thus, collectively, I believe that this list of adjectives is a rather unbiased and accurate collection of words that best fit “Julian Assange.”
This medium involves me asking that the audience puts themselves into the shoes of the notorious Julian Assange for the duration of the presentation. I then present the audiences with both real and theoretical situations involving decisions having to be made by Julian Assange. Using the polling technology offered by the site “Poll Everywhere,” participants will utilize their devices to address the scenario as they see Julian Assange would. The audience will select from two different potential “Julian decisions.” The submissions will immediately reveal on the screen. After analysis of the results, I will ask for participants to share their justification for their choice. After the discussion, I will reveal the correct choice and provide the correct explanation for this choice. Then this process will repeat for the remainder of the presentation. In addition to actively interacting with the audience, this medium for presentation forces the audience to utilize critical thinking skills, thus advancing their mental academic performances. These scenarios range from fairly easy to answer to extremely mentally demanding. Individuals will learn about Julian Assange through error and it is undeniable that committing errors is a great learning experience. Thus through this mechanism of presenting, the audience will be constantly participating and exercising their immense mental capacities.
From my prior academic experiences, I have come to the conclusion that capturing and maintaining the attentions of your audience during presentations is rather difficult. It is easy to get distracted during videos and podcasts, making them an unreliable manifestation of communication. I have endured countless lectures and presentations which have put me to sleep, hence accomplishing nothing; this is what I sought to avoid through this presentation. Immediately in the brainstorming process, I eliminated the common presentation mediums such as videos, PowerPoints, posters, and podcasts from my list of potential presentation types. Thus, in order to avoid this pattern of attention loss during presentations, I decided that the medium I selected would best harbor the audience’s attentions by having them actively participate during the majority of the presentation. This process constantly demands the attention and participation of the audience which I believe is key to retaining the audience’s attention, which is elemental in accomplishing the purpose of any presentation. First off, students will be using their devices for the presentation thus they would not be able to get distracted by other activities going on with their devices. Secondly, the polling scenarios require intensive thought, thus keeping their attention as well. The discussion that follows the poll also represents a captivating and interesting way of interacting with my audience. Collectively, the majority of the presentation implements methods that submerges my audience into the presentation which in turn nearly forces knowledge.
Secondly, my definitional project will attempt to clarify the misconceptions of Julian Assange by putting the audience in scenarios that reveal Assange’s personality. Many people only know Assange by what the media portrays him as and it is important that the individuals have a round and inclusive impression of Assange. Thus, the scenarios presented during this interactive polling simulation are diverse and tend to reveal different personality attributes of Assange. After research of various situations that Assange as faced I have come to define him by the following list of adjectives: peculiar, committed, radical, controversial, subjectively moral, loyal, generous, poor hygienic, paranoid, and witty. Each of the scenarios that I developed/found illustrates one or more of these definitional adjectives of Assange. Many of these scenarios were found in biographical articles including: http://list25.com/25-things-you-didnt-know-about-julian-assange-and-wikileaks/5/ and http://www.biography.com/people/julian-assange-20688499#founding-of-wikileaks. My definition of Julian Assange eliminates the bias of the media’s definition of Julian Assange because my definition is derived from his obscure actions in addition to his well-known publicized actions. Thus the media’s definition tends to be inaccurate due to their biased business oriented agenda. My presentation attempts to eliminate this distorted vision of Julian Assange by exposing my audience to these obscure aspects of Assange’s personality. Furthermore, the structure of the presentation and the source of the information being presented cooperate to provide an unbiased and accurate display of the definition behind “Julian Assange.”
Additionally, the presentation facilitates the process of knowledge acquisition through its learning be error technique. The audience of this presentation will likely answer incorrectly a couple times throughout the presentation, however science has justified the notion that their learning is enhanced because of these errors. Bram Stoker, accomplished author once said, “we learn from failure, not from success!” Since one of the objectives for my medium was ensuring that me audience learned from the presentation, the structure of my presentation worked perfectly. The participants will commit mistakes and as a result gain an expanded understanding behind the mindset of Julian Assange. Thus be the end of the presentation, my goal is that the definition of Julian Assange is absorbed by the audience through the proven effectiveness of trial and error learning.
The targeted audience of this presentation would likely be academics and students because this presentation surpasses the definition of the mainstream media. Students acquire knowledge beyond just the media they are exposed to, often times resorting to case studies and scholarly journals in order to learn in an unbiased and scientifically supporter manner. This project accomplishes that because my scenarios and information are derived from verified bibliographies pertaining to Julian Assange. Furthermore, because this presentation utilizes an alternative way at presenting a term from unbiased and academically valid sources, the targeted audience are students or even curious individuals seeking a greater understanding behind the topic.
After explaining my personal reasoning for why I selected the topic, I hope that it all made sense. In sum, I sought out a unique way of captivating the short attention spans of students, something I’m sure your aware exists. The fact that this presentation is unique, relatively fun, and academically engaging, makes me confidently believe that it accomplished my goal. The target audience would definitely be academics or just curious individuals seeking an unbiased understanding of Julian Assange.
Best, your student,
Al Nafea
Instructor Feedback
“Defining a person is tough. I’m letting you do it because it’s such an intriguing proposition, but I think you likely need to account for how this specific person operates as a definable term”
“It seems odd to me that this first paragraph doesn’t make a single reference to WikiLeaks. Instead of framing Assange via Clinton, perhaps begin with the site, his philosophy behind the site, etc.”
“As this is a fairly short paper, I don’t think this preview is necessary. Remember: this first paragraph sets up the most important pieces of information needed in this letter: the term, your reason for choosing it, and the connection to your medium.”
“This description is useful, but I want to see you connect the content of your text to the purpose you discuss above.”
“Good: this paragraph connects your rhetorical choice, medium, a description of your actual text, and your specific purposes.”
“Think about your organization here: you’re returning to your medium, something you’ve already discussed in some detail above. How can you combine these sections so that your discussion of medium is mostly in one place.”
Revision Plan
“For this project, I had to make some major organizational changes to the cover letter.
I will:
-Address the audience prior to describing the effectiveness of the medium.
-Rewrite the introduction to ensure that I state why I selected the term that I did.
-Remove one of my body paragraphs and blend it in with another.”
Final Project
Dear Megan,
The term that I will be designing a definitional presentation for is Julian Assange due to his prominence in the modern day political atmosphere. Julian Assange is the commando behind WikiLeaks, notorious organization advocating for transparency through leaking confidential government documentation in order to exploit corruption. WikiLeaks and Julian Assange over the past decade has gained momentum and global attention through the Iraqi War logs, Podesta emails, Sarah Palin emails, and Hillary Clinton emails. Because he serves as a central figure to the theme of the course, I felt it would be best to define him. For this presentation, my medium is an interactive, in person, polling presentation through the software provided by “Polling Everywhere.” This medium is appropriate as it captures and retains the audience’s attention, clarifies misconceptions, and implements a strategic learning technique.
In order to prepare the presentation, I went through hours of research to define Julian Assange in an unbiased manner. I scavenged through multiple biographies and came up with the following list of adjectives that best defines Julian Assange: peculiar, committed, radical, controversial, subjectively moral, loyal, generous, paranoid, and witty. I will later describe how these terms translate into my selected medium. This description was created based off of his actions and life prior to WikiLeaks and after his creation of his renowned WikiLeaks. Many only know Julian by what the media defines him as. Thus it is important that we individuals also understand Julian Assange from an unbiased perspective unlike the media (who often times have a personal agenda when reporting news). Thus, I believe that list of adjectives I collected represents an unbiased collection of words that fit “Julian Assange.”
The medium I chose is an interactive, in person, polling presentation which involves me serving as the presenter. For this medium to work, I ask that the audience puts themselves into the shoes and mindset of Julian Assange. I will then guide the audience through seven different scenarios faced by Julian Assange. I will verbally say the scenarios outload and the options that students can select from will appear on the screen. The students will then use their electronic devices to respond to the poll. The software, “Polling Everywhere”, records the student responses and displays them on the screen. Students will be able to view the distribution of the selections on the screen. After everyone has answered I will then ask students why they believed Julian Assange would act that way in that particular situation. After the discussion has concluded, I will then reveal the correct answer and state how it relates to one or more of the descriptive adjectives of Julian Assange that I listed earlier in this letter. These scenarios relate to my description as they reveal the personality traits of Julian Assange which causes him to react to these scenarios in that particular way. As a broad example, imagine one is faced with a situation in which they could return a found wallet or take a found wallet. If the individual who found the lost wallet, returns the wallet, this action shows that he is a generous person. This similar mechanism of understanding one’s character and personality traits is used in my medium to properly define “Julian Assange.” This process repeats for each of the seven scenarios that I produced for the interactive presentation. Thus, my audience is actively participating within the presentation for almost 75% of the presentation which prevents their attention from diverting from my purpose. The premise that the medium is based upon is learning by trial and error. The audience of this presentation will likely answer incorrectly a couple times throughout the presentation, however science has justified the notion that their learning is enhanced because of these errors. Bram Stoker, accomplished author once said, “we learn from failure, not from success!” Since one of the objectives for my medium was ensuring that me audience learned from the presentation, the structure of my presentation worked perfectly. The participants will commit mistakes and as a result gain an expanded understanding behind the mindset of Julian Assange. Thus be the end of the presentation, my goal is that the definition of Julian Assange is absorbed by the audience through the proven effectiveness of trial and error learning.
The targeted audience of this presentation would likely be academics and students because this presentation surpasses the definition of the mainstream media. Students acquire knowledge beyond just the media they are exposed to, often times resorting to case studies
and scholarly journals in order to learn in an unbiased and scientifically supporter manner. This project accomplishes that because my scenarios and information are derived from verified bibliographies pertaining to Julian Assange. Furthermore, because this presentation utilizes an alternative way at presenting a term from unbiased and academically valid sources, the targeted audience are students or even curious individuals seeking a greater understanding behind the topic.
From my prior academic experiences, I have come to the conclusion that capturing and maintaining the attentions of your audience during presentations is rather difficult. It is easy to get distracted during videos and podcasts, making them an unreliable manifestation of communication. I have endured countless lectures and presentations which have put me to sleep, hence accomplishing nothing; this is what I sought to avoid through this presentation. Immediately in the brainstorming process, I eliminated the common presentation mediums such as videos, PowerPoints, posters, and podcasts from my list of potential presentation types because I have come to the conclusion that they fail to captivate the entirety of many audiences, especially students. Thus, in order to avoid this pattern of attention loss during presentations, I decided that the medium I selected would best harbor the audience’s attentions by having them actively participate during the majority of the presentation. This process constantly demands the attention and participation of the audience which I believe is key to retaining the audience’s attention, which is elemental in accomplishing the purpose of any presentation. First off, students will be using their devices for the presentation thus they would not be able to get distracted by other activities going on with their devices. Secondly, the polling scenarios require intensive thought, thus keeping their attention as well. The discussion that follows the poll also represents a captivating and interesting way of interacting with my audience. Collectively, the majority of the presentation implements methods that submerges my audience into the presentation which in turn nearly forces knowledge.
Secondly, my definitional project will attempt to clarify the misconceptions of Julian Assange by putting the audience in scenarios that reveal Assange’s personality. Many people only know Assange by what the media portrays him as and it is important that the individuals have a round and inclusive impression of Assange. Thus, the scenarios presented during this interactive polling simulation are diverse and tend to reveal different personality attributes of Assange. After research of various situations that Assange as faced I have come to define him by the following list of adjectives: peculiar, committed, radical, controversial, subjectively moral, loyal, generous, poor hygienic, paranoid, and witty. Each of the scenarios that I developed/found illustrates one or more of these definitional adjectives of Assange. Many of these scenarios were found in biographical articles including: List 25 (http://list25.com/25-things-you- didnt-know-about-julian-assange-and-wikileaks/5/) and Bibliogrpahy.com (http://www.biography.com/people/julian-assange-20688499#founding-of-wikileaks.) My definition of Julian Assange eliminates the bias of the media’s definition of Julian Assange because my definition is derived from his obscure actions in addition to his well-known publicized actions. Thus the media’s definition tends to be inaccurate due to their biased business oriented agenda. My presentation attempts to eliminate this distorted vision of Julian Assange by exposing my audience to these obscure aspects of Assange’s personality. Furthermore, the structure of the presentation and the source of the information being presented cooperate to provide an unbiased and accurate display of the definition behind “Julian Assange.”
After explaining my personal reasoning for why I selected the topic, I hope that it all made sense. In sum, I sought out a unique way of captivating the short attention spans of students, something I’m sure your aware exists. The fact that this presentation is unique, relatively fun, and academically engaging, makes me confidently believe that it accomplished my goal. The target audience would definitely be academics or just curious individuals seeking an unbiased understanding of Julian Assange.
Best, your student,
Al Nafea