Table of Contents: 2025

Locating the Conversation

Early in the process, writers engage with other perspectives, “listening to” sources and seeking connections to their own ideas—and thus creating new meaning and knowledge. In this section, writers reveal how they engage in the important work of rhetorical invention by summarizing, synthesizing, and responding to others’ ideas.

What is Originality?: How Dice Can Explain the Theory of Multiple Discovery

Katie Carroll

Video Game Magic: Algorithms as Narratives Playing in Historical Models

Kurt Hunziker

Constructivism Alt Lit Review

Hyabel Kefela

Researching the Human Costs of U.S. Immigration Detention and Deportation

Alondra Nieves Rivera

Interrogating Culture

Writers often find topics in the world around them, looking closely at the cultural texts, trends, and systems we often take for granted. In this section, our writers all examine a cultural phenomenon critically, to understand the implications and complications we may not always see. .

Empathy for Sale: Ethics and Accountability in the True Crime Industry

Isabella Hrga

A Cavern on 16th Street: How does the removal of public artistic expression affect national consciousness of experiences? 

Stella Keskey

Who Belongs on the Bookshelf: LGBTQ Representations in Children’s Literature

CP Pototsky

Exploring Experiences

Our experiences shape how we react to the world around us, as well as providing points of entry for exploring complex issues. Whether they dive deeply into their own lives or connect their lived curiosities to research, the writers in this section use the personal to make meaning for the reader.

I.M.P’s venue ownership: positive, negative, or somewhere in between?

Logan Finn

Pages as Mirrors

‘Deji Jones

Interwoven Wilderness: We are the Wild

Chloe Chen Raymond
Writer as Witness Essay Competition Winner

Stained Hands

Kausar Shaik

Hoaxing: An Epidemic of Mind-Twisting Propaganda

June Thackry

Reframing Understanding

In the writing process readers question what they read and research, interrogating a work’s meanings, its claims, and the quality of its evidence. In this section, these writers make the important moves of acknowledging other ways of looking at their ideas, even going so far as to entertaining objections.

The Desperate Need for for the Reprogramming of the Hearts in Silicon Valley

Samuel J. Alvarez

Out of Reach No More: Ward 8 Medical Desert

Liana Arnold

Understanding Tragedy 

Ashley Conclon

Hearing the Community: What community-based learning volunteers need to do to support the communities they serve

Mia Friedlander

The Class of ‘45 Library: A Symbol of Privilege and Exclusivity

Ella Mattson

Following the Research

In following the research these essays go beyond established ideas, engaging in inquiry that brings a new understanding of existing evidence. These writers raise meaningful questions about their world, and through the discovery of insight, come to new conclusions.

“Your Trade Route has Been Plundered”: Using Model Evaluation Techniques to Appraise the Strategy Game Sid Meier’s Civilization as a Model for World Economics

Kurt Hunziker

How Terror Management Theory Reversed Cancel Culture Postmortem: The Case of Liam Payne

Breanna Jimenez
Winner, University Library Prize for Best College Writing Research Paper

“You Guys are Gavones, Dude!”: @theragingitalian and Social Media Identity Subversion

Michael Marion

The Unaliving of Online Political Discourse: TikTok’s Algospeak as a Euphemistic Marketing Tool Reinforcing The Fantasy of Participation

Isabel Taylor

Reflecting on Choices

Writers make rhetorical choices to best present their ideas for specific audiences and contexts, choices that need to be mindful. In this section, writers demonstrate their thinking about such choices, whether by reflecting on their own work or by adapting the genre and form of their ideas to fit different rhetorical situations.