A multimodal project often gives you new opportunities for presenting evidence in support of a main idea. You may think of evidence only as quotations from sources or perhaps as data from experiments. Multimodal projects allow you to think more broadly. You can support your idea with quoted written words—but also with quotations in the form of podcasts and other audio files. You can include data in the form of graphs and tables—but you can also present data in animations. Support in a multimodal composition can take the form of words, images, audio/sound, video, and so on.
Think about the visual rendering of student composer Marisa Williamson’s writing process. As the visual shows, she chose to mix images, video, and audio (speech clips, music clips, and her own narration) in her video essay. Since she was planning to argue the thesis that online video-sharing sites such as YouTube bring together people of different generations by letting viewers experience events of the past, she knew that her best evidence was going to be YouTube videos. She made a list of possible events to include and then searched for video footage.
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John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address |
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Dream” speech |
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Assassination of John F. Kennedy |
Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. |
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Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy |
Landing on the moon |
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Woodstock |
Apollo 13 crisis |
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1976 Bicentennial |
Iranian hostage crisis |
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Geraldine Ferraro’s candidacy |
Assassination attempt: Ronald Reagan |
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Birth of MTV |
Space shuttle Challenger |
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Million Man March |
September 11 |
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Hurricane Katrina |
Williamson’s list included patriotic events, political events, cultural events, tragic events, and natural disasters. When she reviewed her list, she decided that she wanted to focus on just one of these categories of events. The event that resonated most strongly for her was the September 11 attacks. She remembered the strong sense of unity throughout the country that followed. So she decided to focus specifically on tragedies that have brought people together in the past and connect generations now through YouTube footage. Even after making that decision, she felt she needed to whittle the list down to one or two tragedies for each generation, so that her audience could easily connect with what other generations had felt.
Since Williamson wanted her audience to be able to experience what each generation saw and heard as these tragedies occurred, she chose to include as evidence excerpts from iconic speeches (of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan) to layer over the images and videos. She could have chosen to support her argument—that YouTube provides much more than a casual distraction—with clips of people talking about how video-sharing sites have revolutionized the way we experience and reexperience events. But she thought primary sounds would be more powerful, more convincing support.
As you mine for and select evidence for your project, keep your purpose in mind. What are you trying to achieve—and why? What types of evidence will help you do so convincingly? Also keep your audience members in mind—their age, experiences, biases, and needs. What kind of evidence will be most effective?
Be sure to evaluate any potential evidence for relevance (to your purpose and audience), authority, currency, and accuracy. You’ll need to question whether a photo, a podcast, a video, or anything else you choose will be compelling and credible to your audience.
Related topics:
Understanding your own composing process
Collaborating effectively with others
Deciding on a main idea
Choosing a genre; deciding on a delivery method
Evaluating sources