Media is how the document is visually presented to you. This could include digital forms such as documents, PowerPoint presentations and videos, etc. Or it can include physical forms such as pamphlets, letters, index cards, and more.

Media is the only rhetorical element I feel I had a good grasp on during this course. This is because I have experimented in previous classes with other forms of media, such as the examples mentioned above. Media as a concept is a critical element to consider during the process of writing, as it is the first thing people notice when reading your work. You have to consider different circumstances, such as if they have access to it physically or digitally, or if other mediums such as PowerPoints or documents would work better for this situation. It can change the entire outlook of how you want to present the content of your work, so it is something I took into deep consideration.

One example of this was how our engineering proposals took advantage of multimodal writing, the process of using multiple mediums to convey our work. My group working on this had to construct a several page document and a presentation on our proposal, having us construct different forms of documents to convey our information in two different settings. Figure 1 depicts how we went about writing our objective statement in the document portion of the assignment. We had to write in full detail on what we plan to do, as well as why it was necessary, and all the specificities included with them.

This heavily contrasts with Figure 2 depicting how we presented our objective statement in our presentation. In this medium, we had to construct it more loosely and only cover the main points because putting too much information on a presentation would clutter up the slides. This shows the important of genre in of itself, as it can mold the way our content can be delivered to our audience effectively.