American Tutor

About the Creators and Distributors • Who created this visual text? Who distributed it? • What can you find out about these people and other work that they have done? • What does the creatorʼs attitude seem to be toward the image? • What do the creator and the distributor intend its effects to be? Do they have the same

intentions?

About the Medium • Which media are used for this visual text? Images only? Words and imagines? Sound,

video, graphs, or charts? • How are the media used to communicate words and images? How do various media

work together? • What effect does the medium have on the message of the visual text? How would the

message be altered if different media were used? • What role is played by the words that accompany the visual text? How do they clarify,

reinforce, blur, or contradict the imageʼs message?

About Viewers and Readers • What does the visual text assume about its viewers and about what they know and

agree with? • What overall impression does the visual text create in you? • What positive or negative feelings about individuals, scenes, or ideas does the visual

intend to evoke in viewers?

About Content and Purpose • What argumentative purpose does the visual text convey? What is it designed to

convey? • What cultural values does the visual evoke? The good life? Love and harmony? Sex

appeal? Youth? Adventure? Economic power or dominance? Freedom? Does the visual reinforce these values or question them? What does the visual do to strengthen the argument?

• What emotions does the visual evoke? Are these the emotions that it intends to evoke?

About Design • How is the visual text composed? Whatʼs your eye drawn to first? Why? • Whatʼs in the foreground? The background? Whatʼs in or out of focus? Whatʼs

moving? Whatʼs placed high, and whatʼs placed low? Whatʼs to the left, in the center, and to the right? What effect do these placements have on the message?

• Is any information (such as name, face, or scene) highlighted or stressed to attract your attention?

• How are light and color used? What effects are they intended to have on you? • What details are included or emphasized? What details are omitted or deemphasized?

To what effect? Is anything downplayed, ambiguous, confusing, distracting, or obviously omitted?

Analyzing Visual Elements of Arguments - From everythingʼs an argument, Andrea Lunsford

• What, if anything, is surprising about the design of the visual text? What do you think is the purpose of that surprise?

• Is anything in the visual repeated, intensified, or exaggerated? Is anything presented as “supernormal” or idealistic? What effects are intended by these strategies and what effects do they have on you as a viewer? How do they clarify or reinforce (or blur or contradict) the message?

• How are you directed to move within the argument? Are you encouraged to read further? Click on a link? Scroll down? Fill out a form? Provide your email address? Place an order?

Analyzing Visual Elements of Arguments - From everythingʼs an argument, Andrea Lunsford