As I have continued to develop my website over winter quarter, the organization and structure has remained relatively the same as fall quarter. However, I have definitely noticed some changes throughout my website that have contributed to its overall unity. I have become more comfortable with incorporating various visual elements such as GIFs and additional videos that I believe have made my pages more engaging than last quarter. I also experimented with adding links within the text, for example, when I inserted links for each of the medical conditions I listed in my "Drawing Connections" page. I think this addition makes the page more thorough and allows the viewer to gain further understanding of the subject. I have also improved in my ability to compare and contrast historical concepts presented in readings and lectures with contemporary concepts that I have learned about or experienced in my own life. I had a lot of fun this quarter exploring sources and media that are very relevant to my own life, from annotating techniques, to childhood animations, to current issues. Given that the topics I explored were more interesting to me, I willingly spent more time working on and expanding each page. I think these winter quarter pages are a more accurate, step-by-step representation of my thought processes than the fall quarter pages. These more drawn-out pages, along with my use of carefully selected examples, have allowed me to establish a more educated ethos. I noticed that my writing for my website audience is definitely more casual and concise than my writing in my essays. I recognize that my website audience does not want to read paragraph after paragraph of text, therefore I make sure to break up the text with engaging pictures and videos throughout that make the viewing experience more enjoyable.
Next quarter, as I begin the long-awaited research project, I am certainly open to considering additional topics. However, I really enjoyed the topics discussed in Professor Imada's lectures this quarter, specifically animalization in freak shows and comparisons of Hansen's disease to COVID-19. There is a lot more that I want to learn about pertaining to these topics, but I believe that either of them would be great to further explore in the research project.