Welcome to Issue 12.2/13.1 of Xchanges!
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Greetings from the Xchanges editorial staff! We're excited to present this latest issue-- a double issue!-- of Xchanges. We feature here five articles by graduate student scholars and one by an undergraduate student scholar, representing universities across the United States. The issues confronted by these researchers reflect current areas of study within the broad expanse of Writing Studies fields. We hope you will read all of this issue's articles, wherein you will encounter new research on: • the incorporation of blogs as multimodal learning supplements in first-year writing classes ("Exploring the Benefits of Blog Use in First-Year Composition: A Pilot Study," by Jennifer Hewerdine) • linguistic analyses of "markers" of certainly and uncertaintly in government and public health guidelines ("Epistemic Certainty Surrounding Dietary Recommendations for Meat," by Ellen Street) • the relationship between typeface and place as a necessary consideration within the field of technical communication ("Contextualizing Place as Type: Creating an Auburn Typeface," by Harry Lewis) • the tactics of scam emails as conforming or failing to conform with developed expectations of "credibility" in this genre ("The Genre of Scams," by Gordon Byrd) • how a virtual reality film depicting the experiences of transborder students can enhance educators' empathy for these students' circumstances ("Visualising Affect Using Virtual Reality," by Polly Card & Michelle Ruiz) • the strategies used in a major beauty product line's advertising campaign to establish corporate ethos and social media success ("Influential Advertising: Dove and Its Use of Rhetorical Elements in Commercials and Social Media," by Paulina Alvarez) By including quick summaries above of this issue's six articles, we hope the range of topics this issue addresses resonates with our readers (you!) -- and that this range points to how Xchanges's authors continue to engage with research topics indicative of the depth and inventiveness of inquiry that drives emerging scholarship across Writing Studies fields today. The graduate-student scholars published in this issue are MA- and Ph.D.-level researchers (and one recent graduate!) from an array of institutions: San Diego State University and the University of California, Berkeley (Polly Card and Michelle Ruiz), Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (Jennifer Hewerdine), Auburn University (Harry Lewis), East Carolina University (Gordon Byrd), and Oregon State University (Ellen Street). Our undergraduate author is from the University of Central Florida (Paulina Alvarez). We look forward to future issues of Xchanges to build upon the exciting momentum we’ve developed over our sixteen-year history. Thanks to you all for your continued support of Xchanges and we are excited for you to read each of the engaging articles in this issue. I also want to thank Xchanges's intern, Ashleigh Topping, and the students in my ENGL 415 ("Workshop in Digital Publishing") for their incredible work on the production on this issue. Some exciting developments will be afoot with Xchanges in the coming year, so do stay tuned! -- Julianne Newmark, Editor in Chief |