Visual Analysis
Overview
For this assignment, you will examine a visual argument of your choice. Your essay will explain
the visual argument’s message, purpose, and the multimodal techniques used to express that
message before providing an analysis of how effectively your chosen visual accomplishes these
goals. This assignment is an analysis. An analysis involves breaking something down,
examining its parts, and figuring out how it works. In doing this analysis, you’ll become more
aware of the subtle rhetorical strategies that composers use to sway their audiences.
Outcomes
● Critically interpret and analyze texts from multiple discourse communities
● Evaluate the affordances and constraints of different multimodal genres and rhetorical
strategies for specific communication purposes
Summary
● Length of assignment: 900–1100 words (3–4 typed, double-spaced pages)
● Grading: I will evaluate your project based on the following criteria (see the Rubric and
Guidelines for more details):
o Visual Source Selection: Is your visual-of-choice appropriate for the
assignment? Will you be able to engage with an analysis of this piece
meaningfully within the word count?
o Organization: Do you clearly divide your essay by sections? Are your sections
presented in an easy-to-follow sequence?
o Context: Do you provide readers background information (year, genre, location,
etc.) about and vivid description of your visual? Your readers should be able to
follow your analysis without needing to have your visual in front of them.
o Analysis: Do you move beyond explaining what’s happening in your visual,
instead focusing on the choices made by the creators and the intended effect of
those choices? Is your process logical and explicitly presented/defended?
o Style: Is the writing concise and clear? Does it show sentence variety and
authorial voice? Are there minimal issues of spelling, grammar, usage, and
punctuation?
Guidelines
Here are some questions to guide your analysis:
• What is purpose of the visual artifact / composition? Is it purely to entertain, to tell a story, to
make an argument, to evoke an emotion, to convince you of something, to convince you to
do something, or something else entirely?
• What is the context for this visual? What point is it making or what story is it telling? Never
assume your audience knows what your visual is, so background information is going to be
necessary. This question speaks to the visual’s logic. The purpose plus the context come
together to create the reason for creating the visual. Here you might also consider the
creator of the visual and how it has been used by its creator.
• What evidence supports your analysis, i.e. colors, fonts, shapes, framing/layout, movement,
hidden details? You may have to do some outside research. Here you might focus on the
supports your analysis, i.e. colors, fonts, shapes, framing/layout, movement,
hidden details? You may have to do some outside research. Here you might focus on the
emotions these details evoke in you as the audience. How do they make you feel and how
does that serve the purpose you identified above?
• How do you better understand the parts of this visual after analysis?
• What terms do you need to define for your audience to understand your analysis of this
visual?
• How, specifically, can this text be criticized or praised, based on your understanding of the
visual’s goals and use of rhetorical strategies?
Cover Letter / Project Reflection
As a final step, please create a cover letter (approx. 500 words) reflecting on your answers to
these questions:
• What was your process like for writing your paper? How did you approach your writing
for this project?
• What stages of drafting did you move through and why?
• What are the conventions of the genre you’re writing in?
• Compared to other genres of writing you’re familiar with, how did the genre conventions
for this piece challenge you or change you as a writer? And why?
