Academic Showcase Submissions
Spotfiy Wrapped: Turning Data into Digital Experiences
Julia Marilena Zelle
M.A. in Professional Communication, College of Arts and Sciences
The project I chose for this academic showcase is one I worked on for my Technical Communication class. For our final project, we had to identify a real-world example of technical communication, analyze it and justify our choice. Considering that infographics are examples of technical communication, I focused on a campaign released every December by the music streaming company Spotify, that relies on colorful and engaging infographics. The campaign, called "Spotify Wrapped", turns massive quantities of data into digital experiences their users can enjoy and share. Comparing 3 different versions of this campaign (2018, 2019, and 2020), I analyzed their content as well as their style, highlighting changes and improvements made over the years. Additionally, since infographics are considered a great tool for storytelling, I asked myself the following questions and tried to answer them through my analysis, which I shared in the video for this academic showcase: - What does storytelling mean when considered in the context of technical communication?
- Why is it important?
- How can it be done effectively?
Female Firearm Suicides: Precipitating Factors Across the Lifespan
Brianna Agnew
Master of Public Health, School of Nursing and Health Professions
A descriptive study using the Center for Disease Control and Prevention National Violent Death Reporting System to explore the precipitating circumstances of female firearm suicides and examine circumstantial differences across the lifespan. The findings of this study can be used to generate research on effective, evidence-based prevention strategies. Suicide is a complex issue associated with many circumstantial variables. However, prevention will be more effectively utilized through targeted, age-specific, interventions – with the understanding of how the precipitating circumstances to female firearm suicide shift across the lifespan.
Community Cultural Wealth in Academic Writing: Centering the Voices of First-Generation Latinx Students
Stacey Kling
M.A. Organization and Leadership, School of Education
The purpose of this thesis is to conduct a phenomenological study in order to understand the experiences and conceptualizations of first-generation Latinx college students in relation to support systems and academic writing. The researcher aims to understand how the participants in the study describe themselves as writers and what has influenced this writer identity. In addition, the researcher intends to analyze the collected data for ways the participants may have leveraged community wealth in their navigation of academic writing.