Just as well-planned essays begin with a working thesis statement, your multimodal project should have a main idea around which the entire composition is focused. And be sure that your main idea addresses the “So what?” question (see section MM7-b)—your main idea should be compelling and interesting and address a question or concern of interest to others. Having a main idea will help you select the best images, audio, and other elements for support. You may have to whittle away at a big, general idea to settle on a manageable main idea.
As you get started on a project, you’ll likely have lots of ideas to explore. Sometimes it’s tempting to stick with a broad subject. Most writers find, however, that doing so can actually be overwhelming, as there’s too much material to cover and it’s tricky to figure out how to approach the subject. “The World Wide Web,” for instance, is a gigantic subject, but certainly a lot of academic writers get a lot of mileage out of projects about the Web. The trick is to ask questions about the subject in an attempt to narrow it to a topic and to find your particular angle, one that matters to you.
| broad subject | The World Wide Web |
| question | Great for shopping and communication, but what good is it doing in the world? |
| narrower topic | Using the Web during and after a disaster |
| question | Where have we seen this? What has been the effect? Why is it important? |
| main idea | How Japanese citizens have used the Web as a tool for activism in the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear disaster and slow government response |
Brainstorming ideas and then focusing and whittling down those ideas is a great way to get started. When student composer Alyson D’Amato started thinking about creating a project focused on tea (a broad subject), she came up with a list of possible angles:
| organic tea | tea growing | history of tea |
| store-bought tea | tea brands or companies | tea flavors |
| black teas | fair trade teas | uses of tea |
| green teas | tea plants | bottled tea vs. brewed tea |
| tea and health | tea popularity | serving tea (different rituals) |
| tea in different cultures | brewing tea yourself |
D’Amato knew that she couldn’t address all of these possibilities in one project. Some of the issues—tea in different cultures, for example—seemed too complex for the scope of the assignment. Other ideas—store-bought tea, for example—seemed as though they might not be interesting for her or her audience.
She identified three possibilities from the big list she generated, and then she brainstormed what she might cover for each of those possibilities:
Because she was so personally interested and invested in tea brewing herself, D’Amato decided to choose the third option, to compose a project that would teach people about brewing tea. She knew she would further develop and refine her main idea as she researched her topic, but now she had a focused starting point. (See your handbook for more on narrowing a subject to a topic and more on developing thesis statements.)