Rhetoric is the art of understanding how you can craft a message that will affect your audience. Up until now, we have discussed how to do this through words alone, but images and design also can have a powerful rhetorical impact.
The links on this page cover the basic principles of visual rhetoric – effective communication to an audience through images and design. In this week and the following, you will then work to apply these principles to craft a presentation that summarizes your research paper.
This video uses an analysis of a burger advertisement to illustrate key principles of visual rhetoric. It also might help you design a note to keep your neighbors quiet at night.
This presentation shows how principles of visual rhetoric and design, as well as presentation skills, can be applied to creating an effective PowerPoint presentation.
Marketer Seth Godin has a bold approach to PowerPoint. It runs counter to what most people (other than the late Steve Jobs) do, but it works.
Remember his five rules from the end of this post and you will be crafting effective presentations that complement your writing rather than duplicating it.
So, as we've seen, using images is a powerful way to make your presentations more memorable and effective. Here are some general rules on how to do so legally, without violating copyright.
The simple rule on images is that if you don't know if you can use it, don't use it.
For Creative Commons images, make sure you understand the terms of the license – most commonly, it involves attribution (a link back to the original source). See this summary of the different Creative Commons licenses.
Additionally, there are many stock photo companies that can provide images for your use, including some that offer stock photos for free.
Interpreting & Using Charts and Graphs
Watch: Interpreting Charts and Graphs
Sometimes you will need to "read" numerical data in your courses. These Khan Academy videos give a brief introduction to three common ways of presenting numerical data visually: bar graphs, line graphs, and pie charts.
This reference article shows how to cite figures (charts, graphs, diagrams) in APA style, if you wish to include any in your writing.
Charts, graphs, and diagrams may be used in your writing, with citation, but you should make sure that you give substantial commentary on them, not just use them as "padding" for your paper.