Progress Report 3

Introduction: This proposal will explain my plan to develop a rhetorical analysis of machinima projects as part of a wider discourse community.

Work Completed: I finished a complete draft of my proposal this weekend, including a more complete (albeit in the wrong format) bibliography and chapter outline. Dr. H. was pleased with this draft, but of course there was some room for improvement. I'm awaiting further comments and suggestions from peer evaluation, but I think I'm on the right track. Also, I've decided to build a multimedia presentation for the MM portion of the class deliverables. I'm very excited about this part, as it will give me the opportunity to showcase what I've been studying about machinima in a medium that I think is better suited to that mode.

Next Steps: As we enter the last couple weeks before the deadline, there's quite a lot of work to finish before the exam. The next thing I'll be focusing on is the video. By combining motion and stills with either prerecorded dialog or talking through the presentation, I'll build a convincing case for my thesis. I'm also going to select the videos I will be examining in the thesis itself. If I can show these in my presentation, I think the presentation will be stronger and my dedication to the thesis much more clear. It's going to be a long production weekend, as usual.

Conclusion: It feels great to have a draft of the thesis finished and to know that there are only a couple hours of minor changes left on it. The report and the video are the last two steps, and that's fine by me. I'm just excited to be getting things done and to know that my screwball ideas are actually coming to fruition.