Chapter 19 Summary - The Bedford Researcher

In chapter 19 of The Bedford Researcher Mike Palmquist describes in detail all of the different elements of designing documents and presentations. He goes through the different designs of different types of documents and presentations, things like academic essays, multimodal essays, articles, web sites, oral presentations, multimedia presentations, and poster presentations. Some of the steps of designing these are the same so in this summary I'm only going to cover the steps about designing academic essays since that is something I am currently working on. The first thing Palmquist says to do is consider your purpose. According to Palmquist, it use to be that most academic essays were very bland when it came to color, image usage, borders, as so on; but with almost everyone's ability to access to word processing technology, academic essays have become a bit flasher and can even include video clips and sound files. Palmquist's says that the next step is to consider the readers' expectations about design. In most cases academic essays are written for an instructor so it s best to follow your instructor's guidance when it comes to margins, font, etc... The last step Palmquist gives for academic essays design is to ask your instructor for a sample essay. By viewing someone else's work you can get an idea of what you instructor expects and some inspiration for your paper.