Michael Shipp 11/8/12

Visual Essay
Over the past forty years, Title IX has both expanded opportunities for women in sports and also been the source of much controversy. The goal of my visual essay was to show that Title IX has made steps in the right direction toward equality, but it has not lived up to its expectations. This essay was constructed to appeal to people of all races and genders. The essay is done on a serious topic, but I made it to inform my peers. A lot of students dont know the foundations of Title IX legislation and how it affects our daily lives. A visual essay enhances the experience for the observer by conveying thoughts, expressions, and statistics through visual means. It makes this topic more enticing to a media-driven younger generation. My argument is mainly backed by statistical evidence so I experimented with different tools to see which one would present my information most effectively. I chose Keynote because I was able to utilize transitions, effects, and animations to convey rhetorical aspects of my essay and enhance the overall visual experience for the observer. I used transition effects to visually express the meaning of words presented like change and progress. I also utilized growth effects to not only animate the word growth, but also emphasize important ideas and amplify comparisons in graphs. By changing the background color, I was able to effectively change the tone of specific portions of the essay. The bright yellow background appears when Title IX is being shown in a positive light while the dark grayish-black background is associated with the negative aspects of Title IX. Choosing colors was difficult but I did a lot of it based on color association. Financial information was presented in green to represent the color we associate with

money. Meanwhile, red (a typically feminine color) was linked to women in the graphs while blue was linked to men. I did the majority of my research using Notre Dame Library databases. I used several peer-reviewed academic journals on Academic Search Premier and CQ Researcher. I also found an article from the National Womens Law Center on the Internet and it was a valuable source of statistical information. Although it didnt come from a library database, it has an extensive bibliography.

Sources: Kennedy, Charles. "The Athletic Directors Dilemma: $$$ & Womens Sports." Gender Issues 24.2 (2007): 34-45. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. Tigay, Chanan. "Women and Sports." CQ Researcher 21.12 (2011): 265-68. Web. 6 Nov. 2012. <http://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/2011_8_battle_in_college_athletics_final.p df>