Concept explanations may appear in textbooks or magazines, but they also appear in a variety of other contexts. You can find podcasts that explain concepts on iTunes University, or Web tutorials that explain concepts on sites from Microsoft.com to the National Library of Medicine (nlm.nih.gov). Infographics, like the example below from National Geographic Online, are used frequently to explain complex concepts.

In the next section of this chapter, we ask you to explain a concept. Consider how you can best engage your readers’ attention and make the explanation clear to your audience (and possibly yourself). What explanatory strategies will capture your readers’ attention? Should you include visuals, or would conveying your explanation in a different medium (in a graphic or an online tutorial) help engage your readers and enable them to understand the concept more readily? (Consider, too, whether using visuals or conveying your concept explanation in a different medium would be acceptable to your instructor.)