Project 3: Beautiful Evidence and September 11th Reporting

important links

the assignment

We began the semester looking at representations of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, considering how the medium-print, web, audio, video-effected the way we as readers and viewers understood the events of that day. For this final assignment of the semester we will again visit the events of that day, to consider a major article and accompanying multimedia published in print and online by the New York Times: "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died." A PDF copy of the printable version is available for your convenience (57kb).

Schematic of the Twin Towers with the floors where the plans hit highlighted

In "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died" and the accompanying Interactives multimedia-"Inside the Towers" and "Chronology"-Jim Dwyer, Eric Lipton, Kevin Flynn, James Glanz, and Ford Fessenden (published May 26, 2002), report "a haunting chronicle of the final 102 minutes at the World Trade Center . . . , built on scores of phone conversations and e-mail and voice messages. These accounts, along with the testimony of the handful of people who escaped, provide the first sweeping views from the floors directly hit by the airplanes and above." In short, the article and multimedia attempt to provide evidence for what happened in the upper floors of the Towers between the times of impact and their ultimate fall.

For this final assignment, I would like you to use Tufte's, Sante's, and Bolter's ideas to come to your own conclusion about whether or not the Interactives multimedia that accompany "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died" are examples of beautiful evidence.

When writing this assignment there are many terms and ideas you may wish to take into consideration, including: evidence presentation, the relationship between text and image, the position of images within text, the role of remediation in the creation of evidence; how writing space media impact evidence; and many others. Of course, you will have to read the full article. You may also wish to see how the article looked when it first appeared in print. The library has the New York Times on microfilm, which is available on the 2nd floor, Periodicals, between the hours 8am and midnight. An assistant is available to help you between 8:00am and 9:00pm.

You are required to use screen shots (at least 3) of the multimedia presentations in your essay, and the presentation of such screen shots should follow Tufte's ideas on image placement within a text. If you will find it more useful to use a program, like Quark, to create the layout for the essay, that is fine. If so, please turn your essay in as a PDF file (or, if possible, export it to a Word or RTF document).

Though the essay is only required to be handed in a Word document, you have the option of creating an online version of the essay, complete with hyperlinks (as needed) and images. The web page version is not required, but completing it may contribute toward going "significantly beyond the required course work in one or more course strands."

due dates and page requirements

Screen Shot Analysis and Tuftean Description
Monday, December 4, at noon; 3 full pages
Bring two printed versions to class
Upload to WebCT
Rough Draft
Monday, December 11, at noon; 5 - 7 pages
Page length does not include images
If Word doc, bring electronic version to class
If Quark doc, bring 2 printed copies to class
Upload to WebCT (if Quark Doc, convert to PDF and/or Word doc before upload)
Final Draft
Monday, December 18, 6:30pm, 7 - 10 pages
Page length does not include images
Upload to WebCT (if Quark Doc, convert to PDF and/or Word doc before upload)
Optional Web Version
Wednesday, December 20, 5:00pm
Add link from your home page
Email Dr. Wolff with URL
Dr. Wolff will be in the classroom 6:30 - 8:00pm on Dec. 18 to answer questions for those making a web version.
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