More likely than not, you’ve seen a multimodal text at some point during your daily activities, and the ones that particularly catch your attention or seem most memorable are the ones that have effective designs, the kinds that you want to make. Writers have a number of techniques to make an effective text.

Rhetoric and Multimodality

Effective should be considered in terms of rhetoric — the study of making texts that effectively persuade an audience to change. They have a good purpose and persuade the audience to shift direction in some method. Think of it as a musician making a song. The more universal the message of their song is, or the more captivating their rhythm is, the more likely you will buy the song and play it again. The audience’s reaction depends on how effectively the author handles the rhetorical situation (the circumstances of the situation), which may include the intended audience, why they’re making the text (purpose), and what the text actually says (content).

Analyzing a Rhetorical Situation

Rhetorical analysis is thinking through the rhetorical situation. This can result in the creation of new texts including papers and presentations, but it can also be a means to improve the project being analyzed as well. During these analyses, the text is being described in terms of audience, purpose, context, and design.

Audience

This is the demographic intended to read the text, which can be very broad or very narrow. The main goal is to understand how the primary and secondary audiences will react.

Purpose

What is this text meant to accomplish is the sole question being answered when analyzing a text for purpose. This sounds very simple, but it is extremely important to consider because although it may have a single overarching message, there can be numerous smaller ones that others can interpret, which should be noted.

Context

This is the broadest of all the categories in which a text is analyzed considering it may be physical such as the location of publication. Is it online or is it in a public library? Moreover, how is the text suppose to be read? Does the reader need to focus throughout or does it only need a quick skim? Likewise, the time period when it is published impacts the socio-cultural beliefs held by the audience.

Analyzing Design Choices

There are 6 key design concepts: emphasis, contrast, color, organization, alignment, proximity.

Emphasis

Regardless of in speech or in writing, means stressing a word/ group of words. This places increased importance to some aspects over others which may guide the reading of the text.

Contrast

The difference between elements when in combination makes one stand out. You can add contrast by differing color, size, placement, shape, and content. Contrast plays a role in emphasis.

Color

Manipulating the color scheme creates visual emphasis. Warm colors create emotionally intense feelings while cool colors are calming and lessen the visual emphasis.

Organization is the way in which elements are spatially arranged to form a whole unit.

Alignment

Alignment literally means the way the components line up. Composition accented with good alignment to control how the reader’s eyes move along the text make it an effective text. Centered alignment causes our eyes to move around the space with less determination. Justified alignment evenly stretches the text across the page, keeping the right and left margins equally. Strong left alignment gives something to follow visually, while strong right alignment makes a hard edge that connects separated elements, Grouping components can be very helpful in connecting ideas together.

Proximity

Refers to closeness in space. In visual texts, proximity focuses on grouping and the relationship to one another. Proximity can apply to any visual elements, such as texts and images. This concept is relevant when managing multimedia elements in animated text.

What does multimodal mean?

The word multimodal essentially describes our ability to communicate information to others through varying modalities, whether it be memes on social media or reports in scientific journals. Anything — and yes that means anything (i.e. sounds visuals, and movements) — that conveys a message is considered a text.

What is multimodal composing?

The mode in which writers share their text can either be a conscious or unconscious decision, but when the mode is chosen consciously, the text’s design now has a purpose. In research papers, simply reading the words is enough to understand the text’s argument but in other text’s, the audience may need to take the text’s other elements such as imaging, captions, color, and structure, into consideration. All in all, knowing the type of text being presented influences the audience’s perception of it.

Why does composition matter?

Multimodal projects are similar to writing in that they are fun, useful and flexible; the main difference is multimodal projects have sublayers to convey communication. Understanding how to compose multimedia prepares one for writing in any nature. The main goals of design and writing are identical: critical thinking to communicate a situation, choosing resources to make the text effective, and create a change as a result of it. With so many distinct languages spanning the globe, using imagery can overcome the barriers of language and spread the intended message to a larger group of people than plain English words could have.

How does the writing process differ from the designing process?

The typical research paper is more than spontaneously spewing words onto a page; it takes thought and research. A single research paper undergoes countless rounds of drafts. The writing process is recursive because, in the editing process, the writers interact with the audience for feedback prior to publication. The multimodal project, however, can assume a number of forms, not necessarily digital. The process cycles through a designing stage, redesigning, and taking inspiration from available designs. Different stages in the design process may have varying reliance on a particular step in the cycle. An example of this would be making a storyboard to pitch a film, which is much simpler and easier to change than actually recording the movie and then needing to reorder the scenes.

What are touchpoints?

They are how the designers reflect on all of the steps of the text as the audience would interpret it. It is the interaction between the stakeholder (audience) in the design process, which can vary based on the type of experience. All-in-all, touch points ensure that designers understand the scope of work needed to successfully provide the audience with a need.

How does multimodality work?

The combination of all the modes (linguistic, visual, aural, spatial, and gestural) creates a completed message ready for mass exposure to an audience; each individual component, known as textual elements, targets a specific aspect of the audience that would make the message more appealing. The linguistic mode includes written or spoken words. Considerations to take when implementing words include (1) word choice, (2) organization and structure, and (3) form of delivery. Visual modes refer to the imagery that attracts attention, which may focus on color, layout, perspective, and framing. However, there are audiences that may not be able to perceive linguistic or visual modes, hence the use of aural or spatial modes. Aural modes focus on sounds either through music, silence, tone, and volume. The run of the mill sounds is often overlooked by most people, which is why using peculiar sounds that are catchy or even silence makes the product memorable. Spatial mode is about the physical arrangement of images and information; a good way to think about it is the panels in a brochure. Good spatial arrangement can make sure readers have a difficulty free experience. Finally, the use of gestures or movements can create meaning. Body language is a prime example of gesturing because they convey emotion and a sublayer of understanding in face-to-face conversations and in theater. Unlike linguistic mode, gestures can attend to the audience’s multiple senses, leaving some room for interpretation. The strengths and benefits of the form of media used and the modes included in the text are called affordances.