I thought her greatest strength as a student was her ability to combine innovative ideas with thepainstaking detail work necessary to make the communication succeed. During the group workproject in the film course, for example, she had the great idea of making a DVD to show in classthat would explain the abstract film theory concept of "remediation." That meant the long,careful process of coming up with the best visual examples that would at once make the conceptclear to others in the class and yet also preserve the complexity of the concept. Her honors thesisturned on a brilliantly original concept of representations of identity in written texts and in film.She made it work in the argument by doing all the necessary research and then continuallyfinetuning her language until it conveyed exactly what she wanted. She has taken the time overthe course of her education to make herself into a remarkably good writer anyway, but she neverjust relies on those solid basic skills. In each essay she reworks what she already possesses intosomething specifically suited to the occasion.

She works very well in groups, as I had the chance to observe in the film course with the smallpeer review groups to revise papers and in the larger group project for class presentation. At thesame time, however, she has the kind of self-discipline necessary to excel at independent work.During the two terms of working on the honors thesis she laid out her timetable ahead of time foreach step ofthe process and consistently met her goals. It's very tempting just to make a blanketstatement that she can succeed at anything she wants to do, though I would emphasize herspecial abilities at creative innovation, painstakingly careful research and communication skills. Irecommend her as strongly as possible.

Sincerely,

~0P1NEvan Watkins, ProfessorDepartment of EnglishUniversity of California, DavisDavis, CA 95616epwatkins@ucdavis.edu