Digital Media
Short Vine Literary Journal, Campaign Proposal
Social Media and Society Coursework
Summary: I created this social media campaign proposal as a part of my Social Media and Society course. Prior to this project, I also conducted a social media audit for the same organization. For both of these projects I chose to work with my university’s undergraduate literary journal, Short Vine, to help them increase their social media engagement. I started these projects by getting in touch with Short Vine's social media intern to discuss the information needed for me to create an audit and campaign proposal that aligned with their goals. From there, I researched effective social media strategies as well as what similar organizations were posting. I crafted this campaign with a unique content strategy plan, mockup content, and sample weekly posting schedule for Short Vine’s use. This campaign proposal illustrates my understanding of effective social media strategy and content creation as well as my proposal writing and research proficiencies.
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Reflection: This project was particularly interesting to me because it was one of the first client-based projects I had the opportunity to work on, which felt very gratifying. Before taking the Social Media & Society course, I was always interested in social media, but I lacked the formal training to be able to articulate a successful campaign proposal. After taking this course and completing this project, I am much more confident in my ability to create a successful social media campaign. This assignment helped me to not only grow as a writer, but also as a strategic thinker, and it helped me to understand what the process of working for a client would look like, which will be incredibly valuable moving forward in my career. I specifically enjoyed being able to combine research and analytics with making creative mockups. Throughout the process of creating this document, I strengthened both the analytical and creative skills necessary to successfully create a social media campaign.
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Click on the button to view a downloadable version of my Short Vine Campaign Proposal or view the PDF file to the right.
Short Vine Literary Journal, Sample Social Media Posts
Short Vine Literary Journal Internship
Summary: For my Copyediting and Publishing internship, I worked with my university’s undergraduate literary journal, Short Vine. In this internship, I took on several roles, including being Short Vine’s social media manager. In my role as social media manager, I created, edited, and posted all content for Short Vine’s three social media accounts: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. I also worked with a group of four editors to decide on the design for social media posts and to formulate an initial strategy to work off of. Throughout the semester, I posted on Short Vine’s three accounts two to three times per week with the goal of increasing journal submissions as well as creating a space where undergraduate writers and artists could find community, resources, and support. The following document includes a few samples of the visuals I created for social media as well as the accompanying captions that I wrote. I created all the visuals through Canva.
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Reflection: I enjoyed working with Short Vine on social media as it gave me an opportunity to use and implement my skills from coursework in social media in a practical setting. In addition, since I was in charge of social media largely on my own, I was able to gain experience working independently on a creative project. I felt proud to be able to take full agency over Short Vine's social media accounts during my semester interning. Taking on this role was daunting to begin with, but, as I fell into the role, I was able to create and post content confidently. I found it especially gratifying to use the social media campaign project from my previous semester (shown above) and dive deeply into implementing, improving, and finessing my ideas into a practical campaign that I was in charge of.
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Click on the button to view a downloadable version of my sample social media posts for Short Vine or view the PDF file to the right
HTML Project
Introduction to Web Authoring
Summary: In my final semester in the Rhetoric and Professional Writing program, I took Introduction to Web Authoring, which covered foundational information regarding web content writing, website analysis, web design, and website creation through WordPress and HTML coding. For this project, I learned common HTML codes and created an entire website from scratch using the code shown. Although it is less common to manually code an entire website with the efficiency of website builders such as Wix or SquareSpace, this project was valuable because it gave me a foundational understanding of HTML and CSS coding. I chose to include this project in my ePortfolio to illustrate my skills in coding and capability with website creation.
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Reflection: As someone who had no experience with coding before entering this course, this project presented a bit of a learning curve for me. Coding felt so different to so many other skills that I have been building throughout this program. Despite feeling intimidated at first, I was excited to take on this project as I have always wanted to learn how to do HTML coding and know how useful this skill is when working with digital media. I was glad to have the chance to build the foundational skills for HTML coding during Introduction to Web Authoring and pushed myself to learn beyond the required codes for this project. For instance, rather than creating a bulleted navigational structure, I was interested in learning how to create a designed navigation bar at the top of the page that would be more aesthetically pleasing and functional. In addition, for the Contact page, I learned how to create a question form. I am proud of the functional code I was able to produce and am excited to continue my HTML journey in the future.
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Click on the button to view my HTML code and screenshots of the final website or view the PDF file to the right
UC Center for Field Studies Project Report
Rhetoric and Professional Writing Capstone
Summary: For my final project as a Rhetoric and Professional Writing student, I worked with a team of two other students to produce impactful deliverables for our client, The UC Center for Field Studies (UCCFS). This project was completed over the entire semester and was geared towards creating content that met the client’s goals for the organization. For the UC Center for Field Studies, my team created an entirely new Wix website, a newsletter, a newsletter template, two style and usage guides (one for the website, one for the newsletter), and two blog posts that are integrated into the website and newsletter. My group members each worked on all deliverables of the project, but I had additional responsibility of designing and coordinating the newsletter. I also served as the team leader for this project, so I was also responsible for making sure that my team stayed on track and in communicating with the client and the course instructors. This project replicated what it would be like to work on a professional writing project in a “real-world” setting. I chose to include this project in my ePortfolio to highlight my professional skillset and the breadth of my skills.
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Reflection: Taking on this Capstone project was intimidating at first. Although I had worked on client-based projects before, I had never worked with a client to this capacity with this large of a project. I came into this project determined to both showcase the skills that I've gained over the past three years and to learn as much as I could before I left the Rhetoric and Professional Writing program.
This project helped me to hone my skills in communication with my client, team, and instructors and helped me to gain additional experience leading a team. Throughout the project, I found that communication played an instrumental role in addition to creating valuable deliverables as I balanced my team's schedules with the client's expectations and administrative roadblocks we hit along the way. Overall, I am proud both of the quantity and quality of work that we were able to produce during the semester, and I could not have asked for a better client, team, or Capstone project experience to end my time with the Rhetoric and Professional Writing program.
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Click on the button to view a downloadable version of my Capstone Project Report or view the PDF file to the right
UC Center for Field Studies Event Newsletter
Marketing and Communications Internship
Summary: As part of my internship with the University of Cincinnati Center for Field Studies, I was in charge of creating marketing emails that were sent to our entire mailing list. I created these emails using Constant Contact for the purpose of promoting our upcoming event, Connect with Nature Day. After working on email newsletters with Cincinnati Children's Drug and Poison Information Center since October 2020, I was excited to expand on my email marketing knowledge to promote events for the center. This project gave me the opportunity to hone my email marketing and document design skills and showcases my marketing copywriting for a wide audience.
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Reflection: I enjoyed the process of creating the e-newsletter and the challenge of tailoring my content for a variety of audiences, including University of Cincinnati students and staff as well as Cincinnati-area community members. I was also excited to be able to directly promote Connect with Nature Day, an important event that the center holds each Summer. Throughout this internship, I have had the opportunity to gain ownership and independence over my marketing projects, which has helped me to grow significantly as a professional writer and document designer.
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Click on the button to view a downloadable version of the newsletter or view the PDF file to the right