College Writing Assignments

Pandemic's Polarity: The Effects of COVID-19 on Each Aspect of Our Lives

I had to write a justification paper for an infographic I designed. Link to the infographic right below.

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFx7XE1V0s/q2lHJ_XbJPdQ4kZ1Mjzd4w/edit?utm_content=DAFx7XE1V0s&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton 

The coronavirus disease has impacted our daily lives for the past three years. Not just the people in the U.S, but everyone around the world in some way. Although many of us are finally adapting to this new normal and prefer to leave the past behind, the effects of it linger. Depending on the individual, the pandemic can be perceived in a positive or negative way. I wanted to capture the duality of it in my infographic and appeal to a broad audience.

Pathos, aural, and alphabetic modes are used for an emotive effect. I like to use alliteration in the titles of most of my papers, because it is the first thing that can captivate the viewers. Not only can the pronunciation of the title interest the audience, it also may evoke emotions and memories attached to the event. As mentioned in the Multimodal Rhetoric reading, I "use images, designs [and color] to convey appropriate feelings." Oftentimes, red is a color that symbolizes anger, danger, blood, violence, and stress if it is viewed negatively. I made the texts that focused on the negative effects of the pandemic that color. A lot of division, riots, and unfortunate stressful events took place during the peak of the pandemic. The red also represents the deaths or frustration towards covid, suicide, and police brutality. Since red is also a color that denotes a negative balance when it comes to finances, I thought it would be great to represent the recession. Members of the republican party were also looked at negatively as well during the presidential election. For example, Donald Trump received a lot of hate for his facetious remarks regarding covid. All of the events listed were controversial popular topics in the media at that time. I placed red thumbs down symbols right next to the word "negative" in each section for emphasis. The thumbs symbols are commonly used online to express people liking or disliking something so I thought it would be a great design. However, I relied on blue to discuss the positive effects. The color symbolizes stability, trust, tranquility, support, confidence, inspiration, and freedom. Different social media platforms were used as a supportive tool for activism and spreading more awareness for movements like Black Lives Matter (BLM). It helped bring more people together during dark unpredictable times. Some people considered quarantine a vacation, because they had more time to relax and be with loved ones. Since our fast paced capitalistic society had finally slowed down, there was also an improvement in the air and water quality. The blue can also represent the clear, less polluted blue skies and water. Some people experienced a spark in creativity due to having more free time. People were also inspired to find new ways of making money. Blue also symbolizes the opposing democratic party. The media captured all of the different opinions, reactions, and experiences that were caused by the pandemic. Again, I intend to portray the duality of the pandemic so I used white, black, yin and yang symbols. They depict the positive (light) and negative (dark) aspects. I also added a picture of a hand flipping a coin to emphasize how there are "two sides of the same coin," meaning there are different ways the pandemic can be perceived. Purple is a combination of red and blue that I used to cite sources for effects on both sides. Adding symbols, images, and certain colors (visual mode) make the infographic less dull, triggering the audience's pleasant or unpleasant memories and emotions while still supporting the text.

In addition to the pathos appeal presented in my infographic, it also provides logos with facts, statistics, graphs, and organization (spatial mode). As mentioned in the Multimodal Rhetoric reading, I placed my "images and illustrations strategically." I also use headings to guide my viewers through my print. Not only will the use of blue help me gain trust with the audience, but my meticulous nature and ability to "appeal to an audience's intellect by using information that can be fact-checked (using multiple sources) as mentioned in Rhetorical Situations & Appeals, can also make me more credible, creating Ethos. Since I have listed both positive and negative effects of the pandemic, I will appear non biased to viewers.

As for Kairos, the pandemic is an experience that we all share and have been affected by. We are all still mentally, physically, socially, and/or financially recovering from it. With time, I think people will start to perceive it differently than they did in the past. The infographic can help them expand their perspective and possibly find appreciation or balance with both sides to it.