Brecken MacDougall

CADD Major at Millersville University

[dearcher]

Prompt 3: what do you like the most about your responses to the interview questions?

I liked that I was able to find my writing goals from the beginning of the semester and reflect on it to see where I have improved and where I haven’t. I think that is important to do to see if I actually did improve on my goals compared to the beginning of the semester. I liked that I was able to track my growth when responding to that part of the interview questions. This way I am able to refresh my memory on my goals and see if I have achieved them or not.

[breckenmacdougall]

@dearcher I agree that it is important to return to previous goals and reflect on whether you actually improved on and accomplished these goals. If you are able to determine which goals you have successfully accomplished and which goals you still need to work on, it can help you to know what goals would be helpful to set in the future and what you might need to change about your unmet goals to make them more attainable. This can allow you to continue to improve and grow your writing skills and knowledge.

[patrickmcnulty311]

Original Content Writing #2

What do you like most about your learning? 

One thing that I like most about my learning is that I learned how to address a specific audience. I learned how the tone that you use when you are writing should change depending on who the target audience of your writing is. I like this because this is something that helped me to succeed in this web writing course and because this is something that will help me succeed for the rest of my college career and in my future career. I believe that this is a valuable skill to have and is important to consider when writing any piece of content in any setting.

[breckenmacdougall]

@patrickmcnulty311 I agree that audience is a very important topic that we learned in this course! It is always important to know how to write for a specific audience, whether you are completing a school assignment, writing an email, or creating a project proposal in a future career. In order to communicate effectively, you need to know who you are writing for and take this into account throughout your writing, making decisions that cater to this specific audience in order to get your point across.

[breckenmacdougall]

Original Content Post #3

What do you like the most about your responses to the interview questions?

The thing that I like the most about my responses to the interview questions is that they let me reflect on this entire course and everything that I have learned as a whole. Throughout this course, I have been mainly focused on completing the assignments and learning the specific information required for that week. These interview questions allow me to take a step back and look at the big picture of this course and all that it has taught me about writing and web writing. By answering these questions, I get the chance to reflect on the main takeaways, skills, and information that I have gained from this writing course.

[breckenmacdougall]

Original Content Post #2

What are you most proud of with your writing process?

One thing that I am most proud of with my writing process is my ability to put my thoughts into words and convey my point affectively. I feel that the initial stage of my writing process, where I am just writing all of the information down and trying to convey my point across for the first draft, tends to go very well. I am able to make a good first draft that creates a solid starting point to revise and edit so that I do not have to make too many drastic changes or additions to my paper and can just focus on strengthening the information that I have from the initial draft. I think that this is a useful skill because being able to write a decent first draft makes the revision and editing steps of the writing process much easier, making the whole process easier overall.

[breckenmacdougall]

Original Content Post #1

Peer Feedback Request:

As I am writing my responses to the interview questions for the Content Learning Final, I am trying to include as many examples as possible to support my writing. I am considering whether I should use examples from multiple college courses that I have taken in the past or if I should mainly use examples from this course when answering these questions. As the audience and as members of the #writ318mu discourse community, do you think it would make more sense to include examples from multiple courses or only from this course? Would it be confusing to be reading examples citing projects that you have never heard of nor completed yourselves, or do you think having a wider range of examples from multiple different courses would make my writing easier to understand?

[breckenmacdougall]

Thursday Check-in Post

What questions about writing skill development do you have?

As I am in my senior year here at Millersville, I will soon graduate and start working. When I am done with school, I will no longer have writing assignments and teachers to give me feedback on my writing to help me develop my writing skills. What tips do you have for how students can continue to write and develop their writing skills after they graduate?

@npfannen

[breckenmacdougall]

One of my favorite snacks is apples and caramel! It is a light snack and gives me something sweet to snack on while I work on my schoolwork.

[eggmiosi]

Feedback Requested

• Are these conclusions ROBUST? Or are they obvious?

• Does it make sense to talk about the discrepancies in the data?

•Does it need to connect more to content strategy?

You can ignore the "expand" note, that's for myself so I can keep track of my revision process. I feel like this is the weakest section of my data. I'm having trouble connecting everything back to content strategy.

[breckenmacdougall]

@eggmiosi I think that you do connect your analysis back to content strategy, but you could be more obvious about it if you are worried that it is not emphasized enough in your writing. You connect your analysis back to content strategy by saying how posting videos could increase a post's chances of receiving comments due to the higher engagement levels of video posts. This connects to content strategy since the choice to post content in the form of an image or a video is a part of each creator's content strategy. You could highlight this by commenting on how creators can tailor their content strategy to receive more comments by choosing a strategy that prioritizes posting videos over images since video posts receive higher engagement levels and therefore higher numbers of comments.

[realasever11]

Peer Feedback Request 1: Data Presentation

My analysis highlights that Family Vlog/Routine content has the lowest Like Ratio (1.96%) and Comment Ratio (0.46%). The bar chart's Y-axis is necessarily large to accommodate the high views of Special Events and Pranks. Does the visual impact of the Routine category bars (far right) clearly communicate that this content should be limited due to its extremely low normalized engagement metrics, or does its small size make it seem insignificant?

[breckenmacdougall]

@realasever11 since the y-axis is so large, the short bars for all of the categories other than Special Event look very similar in size, making it hard for the reader to differentiate between the ratios of these smaller categories. I think that you could make this more obvious by including the data labels to show the numbers above each bar so that the reader can read the actual percentage that each bar is at. Otherwise, you could try to split it up into multiple graphs so that the y-axis is more appropriately sized to make the patterns in your data easier to see for the data if you want to ensure that readers notice that this category receives the lowest engagement levels.

[tori-aiello]

Week 13 Prompt 3

Prompt: Post an image of an element of your Content Analysis that needs input from your peers. Post an image AND request the feedback you want. 

Response: From this chart can you tell that the content type is being matched with the number of engagement from the creators posts? 

[breckenmacdougall]

@tori-aiello from the chart I can tell that you are showing the engagement received by the posts of each content type from this creator, however it is not clear what type of engagement you are referring to. It might be beneficial to say what type of engagement the graph covers in the title or to label the axis of the chart to reflect which type of engagement you are showing in this graph.

[breckenmacdougall]

Original Content Writing #3

Peer Feedback Request

I received feedback on my draft saying that I should use posts as evidence to support the claims that I make in the Audience Analysis portion of my paper. Below is an image of my existing Audience Analysis.

What post images would be beneficial to support this section? Would it be helpful for the reader to see a post showing the creator crocheting a project to back up my claims that the audience values crochet? Would an image of the bio of one of the Instagram accounts be beneficial in supporting the claim that the audience is expected to know how to navigate Instagram and the creator's account? Or do I need more concrete or specific examples to back up these claims?

[breckenmacdougall]

Original Content Writing #2

Peer Feedback Request

One thing that I received feedback on was that I should add images of posts by the content creators to back up what I talk about in the background sections of my paper. I added in these images shown in the picture below to go with my descriptions of each of the accounts that I chose to study.

I chose to format this page in this way with the images and text alternating to make it more visually appealing while still having the description next to the image of the account that it describes. With this format, is it easy to tell which description goes with which image? Or is it confusing to the reader what is happening with the images and the text? Do you have any suggestions on how I could better format this page to make it easy to understand while also being visually appealing to the reader?

[breckenmacdougall]

Original Content Writing #1

Peer Feedback Request

I received feedback on my draft that I need more graphs in my analysis section. Right now, I have one bar graph for each account showing the average engagement levels of image posts and video posts, as well as one pie chart for each account depicting the number of image and video posts that were collected, resulting in six total graphs like the two shown in the image below.

I am studying whether engagement level is affected by content format based on whether the post is in the form of an image or a video.

Do these graphs do a good enough job of showing my data in a visual manner and representing the patterns that I found through my analysis? Are there any other graphs that you think would make my point and my findings clearer to the reader?

I was considering adding in more bar graphs that show the average engagement levels of image and video posts from all three accounts separated out by type of engagement, such as one graph showing average likes, one showing average comments, and one showing average shares across all three accounts. Would this be beneficial or is it too similar to my other bar graphs to provide any meaningful information?

[breckenmacdougall]

One place where I see data posted in the real world is on the weather app. I check the weather on a regular basis and use the data that they post there to know what the weather will be like throughout the day so that I can plan accordingly.

[eggmiosi]

Sandwich Core 🥪

I am developing style to build my argument in the content analysis by differentiating the headings and subheadings using design. This will keep a natural flow to the reading experience and allow each section to build on each other without melting together. I also designed a cover page to strengthen the integrity of my topic with a professional & functional feel. Should I consider adding color to the body of the work? Or would that be unprofessional or distracting?

[breckenmacdougall]

@eggmiosi I think you did a really great job with your title page! It is very well designed and visually appealing and makes me want to read your paper! I also think that your title page and your table of contents look very professional and organized. I think you could add some color to the body of your work, such as adding color to the headings or adding color through images or graphs. I think that this will not be unprofessional or distracting as long as you use the color tastefully and do not get carried away with it.

[taylorrathman]

How Am I Using Style to Develop My Argument:

After receiving feedback from my content analysis draft, I am making revisions to incorporate and better organize elements of style into my essay. Specifically, I need to have the images of graphs incorporated near the information it supports. Second, I plan on transferring this essay into a powerpoint, as I believe I will be able to include more stylistic elements this way. To provide more eye catching details, I will include different color and text choices, for the subheadings, graphs, hypothesis and research question, citations, etc. I think adapting this essay into powerpoint will allow me to include more images that support the claims, as well as have a more visually supportive argument and title page.

[breckenmacdougall]

@taylorrathman these seem like good revisions to be making! It is important to have your graphs placed near the information that they support so that readers can see this information in two different forms side by side and can visually see the patterns and results from your analysis. I am also working on including color and text choices, such as formatting my headings and subheadings and making them different colors. I am doing this to make it more visually appealing while also making it easier for readers to find information throughout my paper by making the headings and subheadings stand out more. I think adapting your essay into a PowerPoint sounds like a great idea. I think that it will help you embrace more stylistic and design choices when creating the PowerPoint and will help with separating your paper into different parts since you could make a slide for each heading or subheading in your paper.

[ldfilak-deactivated20251227]

Original Content #1

What does your final revision process look like? Based on the comments I received on my last draft, I need to add to my analysis and continue to incorporate my images and graphs into my paper. I also need to work on my title page. The last two things are mostly cosmetic, while the first requires me to think deeper into my data and what it means. I also need to include my raw data in an appendix, which will require some formatting.

[breckenmacdougall]

@ldfilak your final revision process looks similar to mine! I am focusing on adding to my analysis and finding points throughout my paper where more information needs to be added. I am also editing my formatting in some places and formatting my headings and subheadings so that they stand out more and are easier to find. I think it is smart that you are incorporating images and graphs into your paper. Graphs are very important to your analysis and to communicate this analysis to readers so that they can visually see the patterns that you are finding and can reach the same conclusions about your data that you found.