As it has become easier to integrate images, audio, video, and other forms of media into essays, a new genre has emerged: the multimodal essay. Multimodal essays are characterized by their essayistic form and their use of multiple types of media. As essays, they present information in a linear sequence, one idea after another. As multimodal documents, they combine text with images, animation, sound, and/or video to establish a line of argument and support the writer’s points.

Multimodal essays began appearing several years ago, most often on Web sites such as CNN.com and Salon, but also in blogs whose writers wanted to make use of images, video, and audio. More recently, publications that have focused traditionally on print have begun developing sophisticated multimodal essays. Increasingly, writing instructors are assigning multimodal essays, sometimes as original documents and sometimes as extensions of more traditional print-based academic essays.

To create a multimodal essay, build on your understanding of how to compose an academic essay, and then learn how to use digital composing tools to create a document that helps you accomplish your writing goals and address your readers’ expectations.