Questions to Consider
- How do the graphic icons that Cipiti uses directly contribute to his argument? What is it about their design that garners a response from the reader?
- Cipiti talks about the direct, linear construction of his infographic in the reflection. How might creating a linear argument be more persuasive for his audience?
- Every aspect of an infographic should be intentional and vital for your reader’s understanding. How does the construction of Cipiti’s title and opening section on Columbus pollution create a strong hook for his project?
A Note from the Instructor—Camellia Azzi
Anson’s multimodal project on the problem of air pollution in Columbus, OH, demonstrates the importance of making rhetorical decisions that are designed to appeal to a target audience and, in this context, provide them with exigencies to take action against the environmental and health consequences of air pollution in their community. Throughout his research and writing process, Anson was willing to experiment with digital tools and analyze other examples of successful infographics—which is always helpful when writing and composing in a new genre —to identify strategies for translating his research argument into a visually cohesive and rhetorically appropriate multimodal project for Columbus residents. As he explains in his reflection essay, the strategic order and presentation of information in his infographic are meant to create a sense of urgency for his target audience by prioritizing accessible statistics and charts to highlight the gravity of the issue before proposing solutions at the individual and communal level. The title of his infographic and section headings also work effectively to directly address Columbus residents and emphasize their personal stakes in the issue. Additionally, the infographic strikes an important balance between alphabetic and visual modalities to diversify the presentation of information and make it more accessible through color contrast, visual symbols relevant to the argument, and varied sizes of different elements to increase the impact of the visual rhetoric expressed in the infographic.
The Fight for Clean Air in Columbus
Click here to view infographic.
Writer’s Reflection
Dear Reader,
Creating an infographic based on the arguments from my research paper was certainly a new and challenging experience, but I came to really enjoy using the new tools and thinking about how I can use visual design concepts to add rhetorical appeal. The audience I chose to build my remediation around was Columbus residents because that is the group of stakeholders most negatively affected by the issue of particle pollution. Because of my specific audience, I focused my solutions on what people could do as individuals to work against pollution. I divided these solutions into two categories, the first being smaller things people can do like riding a bike or public transportation instead of driving and finding ways to use less electricity at home. The second part of my solution argument is a call to action for residents to come together to put pressure on the local government to do more about the wider-scale problems causing pollution in my city, specifically by demanding improved public transportation and cleaner energy sources.
The software I primarily used to make the infographic was Canva, which turned out to be much less of a challenge than I thought it would be. I had never used Canva and had minimal experience using any visual design tools so I was definitely worried about a steep learning curve slowing my progress, but I was able to figure out how to use all the resources after only an hour or so of trial-and-error experimenting with them. The software also ended up being a great resource for my infographic beyond the editing tools with all the images I was able to find there and templates I took a lot of inspiration from. My main sources of inspiration for the visual design of my infographic were the Canva templates and the infographics we looked at in class, especially the one also covering air pollution. The air pollution infographic we reviewed in class gave me a lot of ideas for how I can use images and color to create rhetorical appeal, which I mostly applied to the dark area showing a polluted cityscape at the top of my infographic and the colors in the two charts to add pathos and draw attention to important information.
I knew from the beginning that this project would involve a lot more planning beforehand than I am accustomed to, so a large portion of my process was dedicated to creating outlines to decide where and how I wanted to present my information. I chose to include some facts about the danger of Columbus’ pollution directly under the title to immediately highlight the issue’s importance to my community and increase the sense of urgency. This information also adds to the pathos in the eyes of Columbus residents since nobody wants to imagine the city they take pride in living in being the worst in the country in something. Another important area of focus was the more detailed presentation of the pollution problem in the first large section of my infographic. I chose to show Columbus’ pollution levels on a chart compared to different standards of air quality, which showed that we have nearly triple the World Health Organization standard for healthy air. I placed the chart so that the red highlighted bar showing our PM2.5 (fine particle matter that induce adverse health effects) levels was directly next to the health effects to further add to the logos and pathos and show the danger to our community. I was originally planning on having the sections on health effects and pollution sources reversed from where they are now, but decided the dangers should precede the sources because a reader would not have as much of a reason to care about the sources before knowing all the problems they are causing.
The affordances of an infographic gave me a significant degree of freedom in adapting my argument to best appeal to Columbus residents. Compared to the paper I wrote before, it was much easier to express the magnitude of the issue in an easily understandable way with the aid of images. I used mostly simple, white images that would add an emotional appeal but mainly gave a sense of logos and showed the audience that air pollution should be taken seriously. I believe the visual medium was best able to enhance my argument with the two charts showing Columbus’ pollution levels compared to different standards and Ohio’s energy sources. Showing a bar or a portion of a pie chart taking up nearly the whole chart gives the audience a much better understanding of how bad it actually is than a statistic buried in the middle of a page of writing. Another way I attempted to appeal specifically to Columbus residents was through the “fight” motif in the title and section headings. People in Columbus are known to be competitive, so I chose to incorporate this into the title—“The Fight for Clean Air in Columbus”—and in the solution section heading—“What you can do to fight pollution”. I made a few changes to how I wanted to cite my sources along the way; originally I planned on having the full citations in a small area under each section, but decided to instead use parenthetical citations in the body of the infographic and have a dedicated works cited section at the bottom to not disrupt the flow. I did end up placing some parenthetical citations at the bottom of a section with a short note to not distract from key areas of information.
Overall, I believe I gained a lot of insight on how to use rhetoric and multimodality over my time completing this project. I was able to apply the same strategies I used for written rhetorical appeal in my paper, but add a whole new layer on top of that with the visual tools. I must have made hundreds of changes to everything in my infographic along the way—color, layout, images, spacing—none of it is the same as when I started, but each time I was able to test a new idea and learn what works and what does not. I am quite satisfied with the final product, but if there was anything I could change with more time it would be increasing the sense of urgency with more specific data on how people are being affected right now in Columbus and projections on how many more people will be affected by particle pollution in the future. I expect multimodal composing to be a very important part of my time in college and my career afterwards when I need to make presentations, and I look forward to those opportunities to utilize what I have learned about using rhetoric in a multimodal text.