Introduction

            Some of the things that I have struggled with in this course was being able to maintain the workload. This is my first time taking an English since high school circa 2009-2010. This was definitely a wakeup call for all the things that I had forgotten that comes with an English course. I also have not had to wake up ever so early for a class or work in so long! Being an adult, I made sure to have a tolerable and maintainable schedule. It was very challenging practicing self-discipline. Moving forward and working on these issues, I will need to implement a lot more self-discipline because I know that my career will countless project with very unreasonable schedules. This is something that I have to really get used to. I can do this by choosing to have an earlier bedtime which can result in an earlier wake up time. Getting enough rest, a balanced breakfast, setting alarms, and just taking myself through “waking up early” bootcamp. Writing skills that I have improved over the course of this class are learning how to properly write essays in the MLA format. I have not had to write a paper that required this format before taking this English course. I now know how to put a paper in the normally expected format, and this will definitely help me for future classes and projects. My strengths as a writer consist of creativity and a good choice of words. I think that especially when there is a required amount of words or pages for a specific assignment are due, I do a really good job of stretching out sentences in a good way. I am very critical on myself when writing because I know how intelligent I am, and I take pride in the fact that I can show my intelligence through my writing.

Rhetorical Analysis

            I learned the actual definition of rhetoric and rhetorical analysis. This too was the first time that I have ever had to write a rhetorical analysis paper. I learned that the goal of a rhetorical analysis is to articulate how the author writes, rather than what they actually wrote. In doing so, you will utilize strategies to the goals or purpose of writing the piece. Analysis is different from other forms of writing because it evaluates strengths and weaknesses, it makes reasoned judgments, and draws conclusions. Other writing forms only explain a theory or recount the events that have taken place. In the terms of other forms of writing, analysis teaches on to write in a different because it has a bit more of a personal touch to the information that will be included on the paper. There is a lot of opinions within a rhetorical analysis after doing research of whatever topic you may be writing about. I struggled with identifying strengths in weaknesses. Although, it is easy to figure out basic ins and outs of a paper, I wanted to think a bit more outside the box. Essentially, dive a little deeper into the problems and the good ways to improve writing about them. The things I did well was completing the essay in an overall quality manner. I believe that I made a lot of good points on my topic and portrayed them as such within my essay.

Exploratory Essay

            I learned that an exploratory essay is a paper in which the writer works through problems or examines an idea of experience without the requirement of backing up or supporting the claim or thesis. I learned that it is a special type of paper which gives the writer privilege to explore the problem when writing. While working on it, you do not need to make a thesis and find and give the supporting argument. You are able to feel free to make a research on your subject and show it to people. It wasn’t difficult to not take a position on a topic, but it was a bit tough trying to use the proper tense when writing the paper. I noticed I would go back and forth with the different tenses I was writing in and had to teach myself to do it the same way throughout the entire paper. Exploratory essays play the function in other types of essays in college by once you have completed said essay, you are able to use the different ways you can obtain information for future topics and future assignments. I struggled with organizing my topic into a specific order that was easy to understand and would not be difficult for my audience to read. The things I did well was using the links and information I found in my essay and making it sound good.

Research Essay

            I learned that a research essay is a clearly written and well-organized essay that involves researching materials using sources and synthesizing what you learn from it with your own ideas. I also learned that its structure is very typical to the normal essays that may be written in an English course. Research essays are different from other forms of writing because this kind of essay is all informational and factually based. Whereas in other forms of writing, there are a lot of opinions, this kind of essay is not opinion based at all. It was incredibly difficult to find information on my topic. I think that my topic of creative directing is not necessarily a common career and topic to write a research paper on. Using the online resources that we were taught to use in class helped in my journey to complete the paper but finding proper articles and links to complete the essay was a big challenge that I had to tackle to get it done. It was not difficult to stick with only one position as I believed that all of sections of the essay itself correlated with each other. Research essays teach you how to properly locate information and facts for your paper but also apply said learned research skills to any other forms of writing that you may have complete in future writing projects and assignments. I struggled with finding the write information for my paper. I did really well with organizing my facts into paragraphs and pages for my paper once I was able to find them.

Multimodal Project

            I learned that a multimodal project is one the uses visuals and audio to complete a project based on an essay that was written. Multimodal projects are different from other forms of writing because it is essentially the only assignment that we have completed that requires an actual presentation and visual explanation and representation of the topic of the essay and the information that is being presented within the essay. It was only a little difficult to locate media to utilize in my multimodal project. The difficulty came to be when I was trying to apply said media to my essay. I feel like I struggled with meeting the time requirements of the slides and the overall project itself. What I did was well was use my creativity to put together a really good and visually pleasing project.

Conclusion

            After completing this course, I wish I would I have maintained deadlines better and put forth more effort to understand the assignment instructions in full detail. I think my arrogance in me being a good writer got the best of me when taking this course and has humbled me very much so. I am very proud of not stressing myself out with the workload, granted it became and has been very overwhelming given the current global circumstances, I have given myself multiple pep talks to stay focused and complete the course. The completion of this course and the assignments within it, has taught me how to write academically in a very structured way. I have a lot more organization and understanding for the organization required within the assignments. I will use the knowledge I have learned of writing all the many essays to be able to write better and more academically competent assignments. One piece of advice that I would give to someone who is taking this course in the future is to stay focused, keep a leveled head, and invest in a planner to better organize assignments and deadlines for the assignments.

Introduction

            There is always a question on what you would do for the love of your career. What would a creative do to properly manage and maintain their career in order to be successful? A creative director determines the creative vision of a brand or project and manifests that vision through digital, print and film installations. Creative directing can be an incredibly complex career. Majority of all the people that have chosen or are choosing to become a creative director are multi-talented. Some of the different lanes that they can explore are photography, graphic and fashion design, marketing, communications, advertising, media, music, and film. With all of these many skills, duties, and projects, comes also, with deadlines that need to be met. This issue not only extends within the last and/or the next 5 years of creative directing, but it will continue to be an issue that creative directors deal with. Current and aspiring creative directors need a way to be able to efficiently and quickly organize and maintain their projects and deadlines. Not only to be able to address these issues, but to be able to put a proper balance on the workload and stress that a creative director would typically take on when dealing with agencies that they work for or the teams that they are leading. An idea that would could be helpful for those within this career field, is to create an app or program of some sort that can easily manage this for them. Almost in the sense of planner, but with a more precise notification of each. Adding a strategic and computer analyzed plan to set up and organize the dates of all the projects and required deadlines. It would be able to set up these deadlines in a very organized manner, as well using provided data to connect creative directors with the right jobs for them. Being able to have a comfortable work environment, as well as being comfortable with their co-workers and employees. This idea would be beneficial to creative directors, their clients, and other businesses that can would be able to utilize it. Not only would an app or program like such be fast and efficient, it could also be a good way to market and build clientele. If potential clients see that there is high supply and demand of a certain respect and ethic for their time and companies, it creates certain bridges of trust. With each of these positive outcomes and beneficial reasons standing behind the idea itself, it would certainly grow to be something that those people within the creative community will appreciate.

Main Argument #1

Being the leader of a project, organization, or business, it requires necessary skills, decision making, and understanding to be able to properly assess and execute plans for an assignment. In order to be to properly organize and meet these project deadlines, a creative director must dedicate serious time and effort. For projects that creative directors are the creative heads, they are constantly juggling multiple responsibilities that are categorized in many different departments. Professionals in this field can experience amounts of stress that are detrimental. Some of these of responsibilities can be tough to manage for directors of the sort, but there are ways that it can be resolved, and there are ways that it could be turned into a negative experience.

            After looking into the profession, it was found that there are positive and negative ways about going to be a creative director. For example, a good creative director will assign and work together with their team. They know their responsibilities and leverage their team to their advantage. Making sure projects are evenly distributed and handled by the designers who will do their best job on the assigned project. (Brandpad) A good creative director can actively listen to their team. Teams are always filled with different opinions and ways of thinking. It is very easy for information and thoughts to be misconstrued. To be able to do a good job of managing these issues, a director will be aware of this. When overseeing a project, it is important to listen to their team. This will give their ultimate result more creative power. (Brandpad) With this information, a bad creative director will not listen to the overall plan and options that their team or teams have to offer. It will it always be a dictatorship of assignments that will cause their creative to lack their necessary drive and desire to complete said assignments. They believe that their knowledge and design skills are the only way to go. Rather than listening to their team and allowing them to inject their own ideas into the project, a bad creative director will negatively criticize and judge the team’s project based on their own methods. (Brandpad)

            There needs to be a very strict, yet open way of going about being a creative lead. It is very easy to come with a full ego of knowing everything that needs to be completed. Listening and working with the team being a major one. There should be classes or programs that provide training and teaching of skills that many creative directors may not be aware of being essential. Interpersonal skills and behaviors can be taught in a classroom but that does not mean they will be easily implemented.

Main Argument #2

Once a creative director has finally grasped a strong hold on being the best creative director they can be, the next step is learning to manage time. Time management is the process of organizing and planning how to divide one’s time between specific activities. (Mindtools.com) Learning how to manage time as a creative director can be the first step to great success. Being as though it is a creative leads main job duty to be able to juggle and manage different projects, people, and departments in order for assignments for clients and companies to go as expected. Benefits to having proper time management are greater productivity and efficiency, a better professional reputation, increased opportunities for advancement, greater opportunities to achieve important life and career goals, and most importantly, less stress. (Mindtools.com) Failing to manage your tie effectively can have some very undesirable consequences. These consequences include missed deadlines, inefficient work flor, poor work quality, a poor professional reputation and a stalled career. The worst consequence and main point of this argument is higher stress levels. (Mindtools.com)

Creating an online or virtual program that can better analyze the kind of people, types of work, and work environments that a creative lead will have the best matched potential to explore and extend their creative experience will only benefit everyone in the industry.

Some great tips for learning how to properly manage your time as a creative director in a means to eliminate stress are: mentally mature oneself, learn to respect the audience and the team, hire fresh graduates, let go of personal ego, the more diversity in a team, the better, treat everyone like individuals, team bonding exercises, let the team have some leadership, give a clear direction when working on projects, and never say ‘I don’t want to limit your creativity – you can do whatever.’ (Rebecca L.) Creatives are the spoilt kids in the jungle; they will yell at colleagues, disrespect clients and fail to show up at work on time. However, if you’re a creative person, you need to discipline yourself and force yourself to mature in a short amount of time (Rebeca L.) It is important to respect the audience first as if creatives are not in the fine arts industry. Creatives are a business, and advertising is just a creative solution to solve a problem. (Rebecca L.) All of these tips and methods are great ways to manage any type of high or low stress levels that could be obtained as a creative lead. The next step to be the creative director one can be is to choose the right the environment. Applying for and working the company and/or agency that best suits the creative director will be a great factor in future successes. 

Main Argument #3

The third argument that is being made to better help up and coming and current creative director to better manage their careers is that creative leads have issues with is if they are satisfied with the agency that they are working with. There are two different kind of agencies: In House marketing and Outside marketing. In house marketing is the choice of a company to produce their own advertising program. They have control over the advertising, cost savings, the people working within the team, the accountability and experience, as well as continuity that is being provided as a whole for the team. Outside advertising gives the control of the company’s advertisement to a different agencies department, people, methods, and even more, the costs that will be applied for the services being provided.

To be a creative director and figuring out whether the best fit for them and their long-term career development is a big deal. This is because it will be the beginning of if they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the agency that they are working for. If a creative lead is dissatisfied with their position, policies, the company, or the team, that they are working with and for, it can cause certain levels of stress that will block their creative process. This, in turn, will create time management issues and troubles with balancing out assigned project and adhering to the desires of the company that they are working for. This could easily create a downhill snowball effect for that creative directors’ career. On the other hand, if the creative director is completely or even moderately satisfied with their positions, they will be much more enthused to that work. They will be able to provide that needed leadership skills and directions to their team to be able to provide an above average result for their project. Not only will the performance of the creative lead and team be up to par, but the team’s and creative lead’s time management will hold the necessary balance to be able to withstand face paced projects that need to be completed in a timely manner.

To the resources to best match these new and current creative directors to their dream jobs, an app or website would greatly benefit their careers and the companies that will hire these creative directors in the future. It could only be beneficial and ever more so growing for the creative industry as a whole.

Refutation

Creative stress and disorganization are a common issue for anyone that is working within the creative field. This stress can be a factor as to why they may procrastinate. Creatives will hit a roadblock during their process, and this can cause them to postpone their efforts towards finishing the project that is due (marketing.com). Being able to organize all of their due dates and their projects would be an amazing way to eliminate stress with the creative space and the workspace.

Not being able to eliminate this creative stress could be the reason for a creative leader’s success is hindered. It is one of the five biggest mistakes that creative directors make within their careers. One problem that is made is admitting that there is an actual problem with having an over-abundance of work that is due within a close range of each other. If they had the proper organizational tools to rid them of these crowded schedules, it could be a great defense tactic against procrastination. This will not only fight against procrastination, but this will also take of the creative stress problem. The plan to get an app and/or website operational for all creatives and their creative needs, will be essentially killing two birds with one stone. It would be the first plan among many to hopefully follow to better the creative industry and the work that is being applied.

In the article read, the first step is to deal with the problem by admitting that one exists. Most of the tasks that they post pone are not difficult, but the longer that they put them off, the harder that they can become. Harder tasks, shorter deadlines, will only result in a significantly negative rise in creative stress for any creative lead doing so. While providing a complete file system for creative leads to easily and efficiently organize their work, they’ll be able to apply some very help tips to better their workload in the future preventing unnecessary stress factors that may occur. For example, breaking down a complex project into small tasks and begin to tackle each of them piece by piece. It is said that a good tip to also maximize their scheduled workload is to deal with the hard tasks when their focus and energy is at their peak. Their confidence will be at its peak and will be another asset to helping ensure their success as a creative lead for the company that they work for. (Marketing-interactive.com)

Being able to better manage stress when their a few organizational issues within their projects speaks volumes about that creative lead, but a creative lead means that they are the leader of a team. Having a team requires many attributes and qualities to be able to maintain and manage projects in a timely and organized manner.

Conclusion

            Creating an efficient, easy to use program for creative directors to utilize to better excel their success in the industry and expand their knowledge and potential would be a fantastic idea. Of course, like with any new idea, there will be many kinks that need to be worked out in order to ensure that everything will run smoothly for creative leads, teams, and clients alike. Once all the hard parts of data gathering, analyzation, and processing is complete for those who choose to use the virtual program, they will be able to move swiftly through the industry by finding the perfect company to work for, the perfect team to hire, and the right tools to help maintain their assigned projects and overall workload.

Works Cited

Staff Writer. “5 biggest mistakes you are making as a creative director”, marketing-interactive.com, https://www.marketing-interactive.com/5-biggest-mistakes-making-creative-director , May 06, 2015

MacLeod, Charlie, “In-House or Outside Advertising Agency?”, Smmadvertising.com, https://smmadvertising.com/house-outside-advertising-agency/ , January 16, 2015

Creative Bloq Staff, “Creative director: Pro Advice for snagging the top spot”, creativebloq.com, https://www.creativebloq.com/career/how-become-creative-director-11121363 , January 28, 2019

“5 Takeaways From the New Creative Director Report” , workfront.com, https://www.workfront.com/blog/5-takeaways-from-the-new-creative-director-report , May 07, 2018

Mind Tools Content Team, “What is Time Management?”, mindtools.com, https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_00.htm

L., Rebecca, “10 Management Tips From a Creative Director”, hivelife.com, https://hivelife.com/10-management-tips-from-a-creative-director/ , May 12, 2017

Talley, Jenell, “What Does a Creative Director Do?” mediabistro.com, https://www.mediabistro.com/climb-the-ladder/skills-expertise/what-does-a-creative-director-do/

Brandpad, “What Is the Difference between a Good Creative Director – and a Bad One?”, medium.com, https://medium.com/brandpad/what-is-the-difference-between-a-good-creative-director-and-a-bad-one-a3048be2ffb1 , October 16, 2018

Burns, Will, “Three Ways To Tease Out ‘Likes’ and ‘Dislikes’ Before Creative Development Begins, forbes.com, https://www.forbes.com/sites/willburns/2020/02/07/three-ways-to-tease-out-likes-and-dislikes-before-creative-development-begins/#7fb9e4c37d74 , February 07, 2020

Ward, Jared, “How to Become a Creative Director: Education and Career Roadmap”, study.com, https://study.com/articles/How_to_Become_a_Creative_Director_Education_and_Career_Roadmap.html , March 05, 2020

           “Inventing the University” written by Dr. David Bartholomae is an article that sheds light on the difficulty’s students face when preparing and presenting writing pieces. One of the main points that Bartholomae made within his article was how much he noticed that students choose a more basic course of writing and language to their audience. The student must be able to assume the authority, language, knowledge, and comfortability of whatever subject that are to write about. Bartholomae insisted that this happen even despite having no experience or knowledge of the subject. Bartholomae discussed multiple essays from differently skilled, student writers. Bartholomae went over the different attributes, strong and weak, that were shown among these student writers based off their writing style, ways that they addressed their audience, and exactly how they viewed the readers of their writing. Bartholomae described a writer who wrote an essay about creating a clay model of the earth. In this essay, they wrote as if they were speaking to university staff, yet, were still described as a basic writer. Another essay Bartholomae mentioned was one of which a writer that was able to incorporate the commonplace, or an elaboration of a cultural or institutionalized concept. It is heavily mentioned by Bartholomae that student writers need be obtain the education of using commonplaces, habits, rituals, and connections within the academic community. University faculty are looking to see originality, possession of authority, while being able to go into many different discourses from student writers.

           Inventing the University can initially, be a bit confusing. The way that the information is presented is clearly in the discourse of a professor or university faculty member. Although Bartholomae’s purpose was consistent throughout the article, it did not immediately give you a clear understanding of what exactly the article was about. Bartholomae used many different words that are not commonly used in day to day conversations. For example, in his article Bartholomae states, “The students have to appropriate (or be appropriated by) a specialized discourse, and they have to do this as though they were easily and comfortably one with their audience, as though they were members of the academy, or historians or anthropologists or economists; they have to invent the university by assembling and mimicking its language, finding some compromise between idiosyncracy, a personal history, and the requirements of convention, the history of a discipline. They must learn to speak our language.” (4-5) His choice on how to present the article, makes it clear that Bartholomae’s audience was intended to be those within the university community. This being first, professors and other university faculty members, then with time, students as well.  After reading the article, it showed that the expected affects were to be able to teach students how to properly convey an essay and provide insight to university faculty members on what is being done wrong within student writing. Bartholomae states “Expert writers, in other words, can better imagine how a reader will respond to a text and can transform or restructure what they have to say around a goal shared with a reader. Teaching students to revise for readers, then, will better prepare them to write initially with a reader in mind” (8). This quote shows that Bartholomae is speaking to other professors and university faculty members by saying “teaching students”.

            Once the article is read over a few times and key points are more visible to the reader, it is clear that the problem Bartholomae was addressing was that of students that were incoming college freshman and inexperienced writers being able to utilize the concept of putting oneself in a position of authority and/or privilege. This would help the student manipulate the audience and have control of the commonplace. Bartholomae applies a lot of pressure on being able to speak with such privilege. In support, Bartholomae writes, “Writers who can successfully manipulate an audience (or, to use a less pointed language, writers who can accommodate their motives to their readers’ expectations) are writers who can both imagine and write from a position of privilege. They must, that is, see themselves within a privileged discourse, one that already includes and excludes groups of readers. They must be either equal to or more powerful than those they would address. The writing, then, must somehow transform the political and social relationships between basic writing students and their teachers” (9). He shapes the content within the article to match his audience by the way he speaks. He acknowledges the substitution of abbreviations with their full definition, which in return, provides him with a viewpoint of an expert. Bartholomae uses the word commonplaces and then follows to define it, “A “commonplace,” then, is a culturally or institutionally authorized concept or statement that carries with it its own necessary elaboration” (7). Some of the assumptions being made by the author in the article are that student writers can get straight to the point and not have the confidence necessary to assume the position and voice of privilege. I agree that this process is not a commonly used one until writers are made aware of it. The only bothersome issue within this article is that is very easy to be labeled as a basic writer when one chooses to not take any risks with their writing.

            David Bartholomae wrote his article using the classical structure. The presentation was very direct and there was a lot of authority being established while informing his audience of his purpose. Bartholomae spoke very educated and confidently throughout his article as if the audience reading it already had respect for him. His tone was causal, yet humorously informative. Bartholomae’s tone supported his purpose by using it to keep the attention of his audience on such an in-depth article. For example, in his article, Bartholomae wrote, “I think that all writers, in order to write, must imagine for themselves the privilege of being “insiders” -that is, of being both inside an established and powerful discourse, and of being granted a special right to speak. And I think that right to speak is seldom conferred upon us-upon any of us, teachers or students-by virtue of the fact that we have invented or discovered an original idea” (10). The sentence structures and choice of vocabulary would be considered difficult. Bartholomae’s article presented in very professional manner. He wrote as if his audience would undoubtedly understand his purpose. There were many recurring words within the article and definitions in Bartholomae’s words were provided. Words such as “discourse, appropriation, and commonplace”. Commonplaces are the “controlling ideas” of our composition textbooks, textbooks that not only insist upon a set form for expository writing but a set view of public life (Bartholomae 8). This proved to be effective in understanding what the article was about with detail.

            The article “Inventing the University” was written using evidence that was based around ethos and logos. Bartholomae used a language that addressed his audience as his peers. By doing so, he was able to maintain credibility. Bartholomae used a more advanced nature of vocabulary appealing to his fellow professors and university faculty members. Throughout Bartholomae’s article, he used many different essays that were written by students to use as examples and evidence for his purpose. Bartholomae used Linda Flowers and her argument as an example to state his point of the difficulty’s students can have when writing their essays to different audiences’ (8). Bartholomae writes that students have to extend their ways into commonplaces, set rituals, gestures, habits, and etc., in order to make it normal and comfortable to them. Bartholomae uses Pat Bizzell as a very important scholar who mentioned different problems basic writers may be having when trying to write in an academic discourse (11). This in turn, extends the proof of Bartholomae using logos to connect his logic to his credibility.

            After reading “Inventing the University”, I learned that there are many different ways that a person can appropriate a certain discourse to be able to communicate with the necessary audience. Students can speak the language of authority and knowledge of whatever topic their paper is on and this will help the student become a better writer. Within this publication, Bartholomae highlights beliefs of how to address your audience with your purpose. There is a certain language in the university community that professors and other faculty members expect to hear and be used that Bartholomae emphasizes being a major component when writing papers. Many students do not know about this discourse until they are informed of its necessity. The intent of this publication is to enlighten other professors and university faculty members of the problem’s students face when writing papers. This publication exists for informational and even persuasive purposes. A situation that this article may be read is if a writing or English professor is looking to help his students produce better writing pieces and for future knowledge purposes.

            Inventing the University was relatable to me as a university student because I am taking an English class at which requires writing essays. Writing essays will be something that I will have to do a lot within my college career. Therefore, acquiring the knowledge and wisdom about how to write a paper will assist me in my university future. The article has much potential to be applicable to my coursework because Bartholomae wrote about many tips on writing a proper essay. It was very insightful and has taught me ways of speaking and writing to better appeal to my audience.

Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University” Journal of Basic Writing, Vol. 5, no. 1, 1986, PP. 4 – 22

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

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