Introduction
A review of the available peer-reviewed scholarship on multimodal writing, visual literacy, and visual rhetoric shows that scholars and teachers of writing continue to grapple with what it means to effectively teach students to be literate creators and consumers of writing beyond the textual. As students progress through school, we see a consistent emphasis in their curriculum on the textual as the first and most important form of writing, with visual literacy and composition as a secondary, less important sibling.
The result of this focus on the textual is evidenced in the poor quality of PowerPoint slide decks we see so frequently. Terrible PowerPoint presentations have become so ubiquitous in boardrooms, conference centers, and classrooms across the globe that it can be difficult to think of the presentation slide deck without an accompanying sigh or eye-roll (whether you're trying to make a slide deck or being compelled to sit through one). Though PowerPoint itself often receives the blame, the text-filled slides like the one below can more accurately be traced back to a lack of understanding when it comes to thinking of the visual component of writing as equally important to the textual content. In her book Slide:ology, author Nancy Duarte hopes to change this dynamic by offering readers more visually compelling approaches to creating their presentation slides.
The result of this focus on the textual is evidenced in the poor quality of PowerPoint slide decks we see so frequently. Terrible PowerPoint presentations have become so ubiquitous in boardrooms, conference centers, and classrooms across the globe that it can be difficult to think of the presentation slide deck without an accompanying sigh or eye-roll (whether you're trying to make a slide deck or being compelled to sit through one). Though PowerPoint itself often receives the blame, the text-filled slides like the one below can more accurately be traced back to a lack of understanding when it comes to thinking of the visual component of writing as equally important to the textual content. In her book Slide:ology, author Nancy Duarte hopes to change this dynamic by offering readers more visually compelling approaches to creating their presentation slides.
Duarte analyzes the genre of slide-based presentations in order to point out common practices that have led to the “bad PowerPoint” cliché and offer readers a set of new best practices pulled from a combination of various case studies and design principles. Though intended for a business audience, these best practices can offer writing teachers and students a helpful way to tackle
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