Considering Visual Elements

Unsplash. "Child Girl Balloon Dog Puppy Female Portrait." 10/2015 via pixabay. Public Domain CC0. 

In this post, I will be talking about the visual elements within my article and how they help to enhance my message. I will answer questions from the reader to help get me thinking about what I want to do in my article.

• How might I vary the fonts in my projects for emphasis, such as in the title and body of my project?

I plan on bolding the heading and making the words the larger than the rest of the text so the title pops and hopefully helps draw in the reader. I will also want to bold some quotes from different scientific sources so that they help keep the reader going on the point I want to make in my article. But I want my normal font to be legible in Times New Roman or some type of classic font. When it gets too fancy it becomes harder to read. 

• What types of text or associations do the font(s) produce? What types of text might my reader think of when they see the font?

When you use a classic font like Times New Roman, it often reminds one of essay or more academic sort of pieces. But in a way, that is what this sort of is is an academic piece. You want your reader to take you seriously. If you start using curly fancy font, the article loses that appeal. 

• Is the theme or association that the image produces relevant ot the theme of my argument?

I am using a video by TEDD talk posted on YouTube. It is appropriate to my topic because it describes stems cells in an easy, efficient manner. It tells about the controversy I have the opinion on. It helps the reader understand the topic so then my point comes across better and is also more memorable. 

• Does the image inform or emphasize m argument in an important way, or does it seem superficial or unrelated to my argument? 

By understanding stem cells better, the reader can understand my argument better. If you don't know what stems cells are or their purpose for research, it is hard to agree with the point to sacrifice a potential human life in the name of science. The audience has to understand how far we have come in stem cell research and how if we continue to support it, it is will only grow and improve. They are not only used for finding cures for genetic like diseases, but also can be used for drug testing to better our medicine to human needs, also to eliminate testing on animals. 

• Do your eyes move easily from section to section in the order that you intended?

I feel that my outline does move fluently from one idea to the next. The video is a good start to the flow since it gives the background information about the stem cells themselves. Then I move onto the controversy I am trying to argue about. I then mention my thesis statement. It is not one long introduction paragraph, but a few little ones. Two for the introduction and the next for the thesis statement. 

• Do too many visual images make my text busy or disorganized? If so, which images might you omit?

Yes it can if there are too many. It can take away from the actual text and focus more on the images. In this case, I don't think I will include any more visuals after the video link. The article should not be that long where I need more visuals to keep the reader engaged. They should be interesting in learning more about the topic and not so consumed with the pictures of stem cells. Though including an image of a magnified stem cell might be interesting to show.

Reflection: 

I read Chloe's and Alex's blog posts. Alex made me think more about the color schemes I want to use in my article. I don't want to use really dramatic colors because I want to make sure my message doesn't lose its professional appeal but yet I want to have it stand out to my reader. This is a college student looking at this and I need to persuade them to think that reading this article is worth their time. They need to have a good first impression of the article.