Description

• Infographic Assignment 10%

  Assignment: Infographic Assignment 10% 

  Due: Friday, June 19th by 11:59PM

  Submission Details: Online (see submission page and instructions at the bottom of this module) 

  Based on the TedTalk: "How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day" by Tristan Harris OR “Connected, but alone?” by Sherry Turkle

  Task: Create a one-page infographic that informs the viewer about the central message and supporting evidence from either Tristan Harris’s TedTalk OR Sherry Turkle’s TedTalk. Include a one paragraph reflection (5-7 sentence) with your infographic (see details below).

  Requirements: (a) Infographic – one page, includes data, text, images and a reference in APA at the bottom. (b) Reflection – one paragraph (150-200 words).

  Assignment Description: Tristan Harris and Sherry Turkle are giving a virtual presentation for Seneca on June 30th, 2020 to give their talks, "How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day" and “Connected, but alone?” in the Seneca Library. You have been hired to make an infographic to be included on the Seneca website to give students an idea about what Tristan Harris OR Sherry Turkle will be discussing. Your infographic should visually represent the main idea (thesis) of the talk while attempting to create interest for students who might want to attend. In a one-page infographic, present the main ideas and supporting ideas from one of the two TedTalks in a way that both informs and persuades the viewer. Along with your infographic, write a brief reflection, explaining your choices.

  Your Purpose: Your purpose is to visually represent the main purpose and supporting ideas of one of the two TedTalks in a way that is clear and easy to understand. You need to both inform and persuade. That is, your infographic should attempt to highlight the central ideas of the talk, while presenting those ideas in a way that is persuasive, creating interest for students to attend.

  Your Audience: Imagine you are creating your infographic to be posted to the Seneca College website. It will be posted on a public setting—online. It is intended to reach students at the college. This means that it needs to look professional; it needs to be accurate; it needs to be clear; and it ought to be visually appealing and appropriate in order to connect with students at Seneca. Ask yourself: What would be appealing and appropriate for you?

  Your Genre: Firstly, you are creating something to be shared over social media. What does this mean? It means that it can be shared. It means that many people could potentially see it (including Tristan Harris and Sherry Turkle). It also means that how you convey ideas through social media is more flexible. You are not writing an academic summary here; you are summarizing something to be presented visually. Secondly, you are creating an infographic. While there is a lot of room for interpretation as to what constitutes an infographic, you should aim to balance your data, text and images. That is, an infographic makes meaning by relating data, text and images together. A paragraph is just words on a page. A statistic is words and numbers. A picture is an image of something. In an infographic, you have the advantage of combing all three.

  Your Language and Tone: For this assignment, you will need to consider your “visual” language and tone, as well as the language and tone of your words. You will also need to consider your purpose—to inform and to persuade.

  Your infographic should be visually appealing:

  • Easy to follow
  • Well organized
  • Have clear relationships between segments (parts of the infographic)
  • Use an appropriate font size and graphics that are properly sized and well balanced
  • Considers things like spacing, colour, orientation, scale etc.

  Essentially, your infographic should be interesting to look at and easy to follow. By its very definition, an infographic attempts to simplify complex ideas by including visuals and a logical structure.

  Your infographic should also be persuasive. This means using language and tone that appeals to logic, emotion and/or credibility. This could be with the use of words or images or data. A statistic (data) can be a very persuasive piece of evidence. A picture can carry emotions very well. Quotations can help to establish credibility.

  Identifying main ideas and support ideas: Focus on the TedTalk’s thesis, evidence to support the thesis, and solutions to the problem set out by the speaker. Ask yourself: Why did he/she say this? To inform? To persuade? To argue? To show? Next, ask: What is the thesis? What is his/her solution to the problem? By answering these questions, you will be able to narrow down the purpose and main idea of the talk. Lastly, ask: How does he/she support the thesis? What key supporting points does he/she make in order to prove his/her main ideas? You will need to make a lot of choices about what not to include in your infographic. By focusing on the above questions, you will be able to decide what a potential audience member would need to know about the TedTalk.

  
  

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  What kind of text, data and images should I include? (Grade Breakdown)

  As discussed earlier, an infographic is a visual way to communicate key ideas from a story, an article or statistics. It uses images and limited words to make complex information accessible to a broad population.

  Title: (2 marks)

  The title of your infographic should be a thesis or central message of one of the two TedTalks. Keep it concise and direct. Remember that the title of your infographic should somehow instruct the viewer on how to understand your infographic. DO NOT SIMPLY USE THE NAME OF THE TEDTALK AS THE TITLE OF YOUR INFOGRAPHIC!

  Info: (4 marks) 

  Your infographic must inform your audience about four to five supporting ideas or pieces of evidence from the talk. No more than two direct quotes should be used. Instead, paraphrase the key points about the talk in clear, accessible language for a general audience. You may also want to go elsewhere to support the ideas in the TedTalk. That is, you may want to find some compelling pieces of data or statistics that help to support the speaker’s overall thesis. For example, you could find out statistics related to social media consumption; or you could find statistics related to the number of cell phones people have; or you could find out the number of apps people use in a day. Ask: what compelling evidence, idea, quote, statistic, chart, map, etc. might help to convey the speaker's message visually? Secondary sources are permitted as long as you cite where you are getting the information.

  Graphics: (3 marks)

  Select and integrate four or more well-selected (appropriate to the content and to a general audience) images to help illustrate your four to five main ideas. Your images can include:

  • a pie chart or graph
  • a clip-art, illustration or cartoon image

  Remember: All images under copyright must be cited using APA at the bottom of the infographic.

  Design: (3 marks)

  The goal for your infographic is to:

  • Present key ideas from the talk in a persuasive way to illustrate the thesis and/or the title of the infographic
  • Be easy to read and logically organized

  References (Include a "Source" line at the bottom): (1 mark)

  At the bottom of your infographic, you need to include your sources in proper APA format. This is similar to a Reference page for an essay. The difference is that in an infographic, it is entitled, “Sources” after which you list all of the sources you used to create the infographic. At the very least you will need to include the TedTalk information under your sources, but you may also need to include information about any pictures you used that have copyright restrictions, as well as any secondary sources (other articles, charts, facts, quotes).

  One Paragraph Reflection: (2 marks) 

  As well as the infographic, you are required to submit a brief reflection (one paragraph/150-200 words), answering the following questions:

  • What is the main idea and purpose of the TedTalk?
  • What were some of the most persuasive aspects of the talk?
  • How did you communicate the main idea and purpose of the talk in your infographic?
  • How did you use persuasion in your infographic?