Chapter Nineteen

Chapter nineteen had gone over quite a bit of information when talking about designing documents and presentations.  On the first couple pages, it just went over the basics pretty much for what your instructor expects of you.  A little more into it, multimodal essays came up.  Multimodal essays are characterized by their essayisic form and use of multiple types of illustrations.  Multimodal documents combine text with images, animation, sound and video to establish a line of argument.  These types of essays require careful selection and organization of sources.  They have started emerging as a distinct genre.  The design of articles and the purpose they are written for varies.  As you consider potential design choices, keep your purpose in mind.  Most articles are written for a specific publication.  With that being said, writers usually have a clear picture of their readers and can develop a line of argument that meets their needs and interests.  To gain an understanding of your readers' expectations, scan other others in the publication to give you a better idea with how to go about things.  Web sites, which a lot of us already know by now, consist if linked pages, organized through a home page and navigational devices such as menus, tables of contents, indexes, and maps.  Web sites are able to engage readers in a way that print documents cannot.  The ability to present your ideas through an oral presentation is an important skill that you will not only use in other colleges course, but life itself.  Designing an effective oral presentation involves more than taking what you have written and reading it aloud.  You want to make a personal connection with your audience such as eye contact for example.  Engage with them, keep your audience interested throughout your presentation.