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Using Multimedia in your Research

This guide goes over the basics of incorporating multimedia into research projects and presentations and accompanies a Savvy Researcher Workshop.

About this guide

In today’s connected world, there is so much information surrounding us all the time. Not everything is presented through scholarly journals. This guide will introduce a couple of media platforms that can be used for research. We will go over images, videos and podcasts, and how you can use and cite them for research.

Why use multimedia?

Multimedia can be used in both putting your research together and presenting it to other people. Here are some of the advantages of using multimedia:

  • Provides a wider range of expression and creativity for researcher 
  • Accounts for diversity of dissemination methods and allows for knowledge not written about in scholarly journals to be used. Having the opportunity to publish in a journal may not be an option for many people. 
  • More immediate than many scholarly articles, so may be useful for current topics
  • More inclusive for a wider variety of voices—not just academics and researchers
  • Makes your presentation more interesting for an audience
  • Accounts for different learning styles—research about education tells us that not everyone prefers to learn the same way  and having visual/written/audio components aid learning

Examples

Scholarly article incorporating multimedia: #TheJayZMixtape from Publishing Without Walls

Infographic about climate change and transportation:

Climate change and transport infographic