Lesson 2 of 4 · about 18 minutes
The Polemic Version and the Infographic
You'll be able to
- Rewrite a news story as a polemic without adding facts the records do not support
- Write a concession and a dated remedy
- Plan an infographic around one comparison and write its text alternative
- Keep opinion, hyperbole and factual charges clearly apart
The news article ran on July 6. Readers wrote in. A few wanted Rae Dunmore to say what she thought. So she wrote a second piece, this time with her name on an opinion.
Same county, same contract, same evidence table. The polemic gets no new facts. It gets a claim, a voice and a thing for readers to do.
From story to claim
The module on How to Write a Polemic starts with a single sentence the whole piece has to prove. Rae wrote hers on an index card and taped it to her monitor:
The Fennick County Commission used a $41,200 washout to dodge the bidding law on a $418,600 contract, and it should rebid everything but the washout on July 14.
Everything in that sentence has a row. The $41,200 is attachment B, line 3. The $418,600 is the contract, page 1. "Dodge the bidding law" is her opinion, and it rests on two facts: the statute requires sealed bids over $250,000, and the commission skipped them by declaring an emergency. Readers can check the facts and decide whether "dodge" is fair.
"Trowbridge is corrupt" would be a different claim. Rae has no row for it. The records show a family tie, a nondisclosure and a suspiciously early estimate. They do not show that money moved to Trowbridge. So the word stays out.
The outline
| Section | Job | Rows used |
|---|---|---|
| Open | The 400 feet versus the 2.3 miles | contract p. 1; May 21 memo |
| Concession | The washout was real and dangerous | May 21 memo; barricade log |
| The math | $41,200 against $377,400 | attachment B |
| The calendar | Estimate dated May 28, emergency June 9 | attachment B header; June 9 minutes |
| The family | Brother-in-law, sister, no disclosure | SOS filing; obituary; video 0:47:12 |
| Their side | Trowbridge's quote, Kettle's review | interview notes; Kettle email |
| Remedy | Rebid on July 14 | July 14 agenda |
The family section comes fifth, on purpose. Open with the brother-in-law and readers decide it is a gossip piece. Open with the arithmetic and they reach the family tie already suspicious.
Excerpt: open, concession and the calendar
Open: Four hundred feet of Cutler Bench Road washed out on May 20. Three weeks later, the county commission declared an emergency and handed out a contract for 2.3 miles. That is about 30 times the damage. Nobody else was allowed to bid.
Concession: Start with what Commissioner Trowbridge gets right. The washout was dangerous. The road supervisor's memo describes a drop deep enough to swallow a pickup's front wheel, and the barricades went up the same day. Fixing that stretch fast was the job. Nobody should argue otherwise, and I won't.
The calendar: Here is the part I can't make add up. Ames Grade and Gravel's estimate for the full 2.3 miles is dated May 28. The commission didn't declare the emergency until June 9. So the contractor had priced the whole rebuild twelve days before the county decided it was an emergency. At this rate a pothole on Main Street will get its own state of emergency and a new bridge.
Look at the last line. It is a joke, an obvious exaggeration nobody reads as a fact. The Supreme Court in Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. drew the line between statements that can be proved false and loose, figurative language. The pothole line is figurative. "The estimate is dated May 28" is provable, and Rae can prove it. Keep the two kinds of sentence visibly different and readers will trust both.
The remedy
Excerpt: remedy
Chair Kettle says she will ask for a review on July 14. A review can mean anything. Ask for something specific. The commission should pay Ames for the washout work already done, cancel the rest, and put the remaining 2.2 miles out for sealed bids as state law requires for a job that size. The meeting starts at 9 a.m. in the commission chambers. Public comment is the first item. Three minutes each. Bring the page numbers.
Every piece of that is doable. A body, a date, a time, an act. Readers can't do anything with "throw the bums out." They can show up on July 14.
The infographic
The module on Creating and Using Images in Articles teaches one rule above the others: one chart, one idea. Rae's idea is the size of the gap. So the chart is two bars.
Sample: the chart and its caption
What Rae left off the chart is as important as what she put on. No photo of Trowbridge. No red arrows. No word "scandal" in giant type. The two bars do the work, and anyone who doubts them can open attachment B.
Checks before it ships
- Zero baseline. Start this axis at $30,000 and the small bar shrinks to a sliver, so a gap of about 10 times looks like about 35 times. Lying with a true number is still lying.
- Contrast. WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion 1.4.3 asks for 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. The small source line at the bottom is the one that usually fails. Check it.
- Labels on the bars. Never make a reader match colors to a legend.
- Text alternative. The W3C's complex images tutorial calls for a short description plus the essential data in text. Rae's caption carries both numbers and the ratio, so a screen reader user gets everything.
- Size. One square version for the article and social feeds, one tall version for stories. Same numbers, re-laid out, never stretched.
Rae built the chart herself, in a spreadsheet, and exported it. She used ImageStudio only for the header image: a gravel road under a gray sky, no people, no county logo, labeled "AI-generated illustration" in the caption. An AI picture can set a mood. It should never stand in for evidence or put a face on a real person.
Try it
Use the story and evidence table from the last lesson.
- Write your claim in one sentence. Underline every fact in it and write the evidence row next to each. If a fact has no row, rewrite the sentence.
- Outline the polemic in a table like Rae's: section, job, rows used. Put your strongest fact first and the most emotional one later.
- Write the open and the concession, under 200 words together. The concession has to give the other side something true.
- Write a remedy with a body, a date and an act.
- Map the claim and its supporting points in the Article Values Graph. Look for any value your piece leans on that your evidence does not reach.
- Pick the one comparison that carries your point and chart it. Start bars at zero. Write a caption that includes every number on the chart.
- If you want a header image, make it in ImageStudio at 1024x1024 for the article and 1080x1920 for stories. Label it as AI-generated. No real faces, no real logos.
Check yourself
1. What changes between Rae's news article and her polemic?
Same records, same rows. The polemic adds a claim, a tone and a remedy. It never adds a fact that lacks a row in the table.
2. Which line from the polemic is hyperbole rather than a factual charge?
No reader takes the pothole line as a literal claim. The others are checkable facts from the records.
3. The infographic compares $41,200 and $418,600. Why must the bars start at zero?
Readers judge bars by length. Start the axis at $30,000 and the short bar nearly vanishes, which exaggerates the gap.
4. What makes Rae's remedy work?
A remedy needs a specific act, a specific body and a date. Readers can show up on July 14.
5. Under WCAG 2.2, what is the minimum contrast ratio for normal-size text on the infographic?
Success Criterion 1.4.3, Level AA, sets 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
Terms in this lesson
- Concession
- The part of a polemic that admits what the other side gets right, placed early enough to earn the reader's trust.
- Remedy
- The specific action a polemic asks readers or officials to take, with a date.
- Text alternative
- A written version of what a chart shows, with its key numbers, for readers who cannot see the image.
- Hyperbole
- Obvious exaggeration for effect that no reasonable reader would take as a literal statement of fact.
Sources
- WCAG 2.2 Understanding SC 1.4.3: Contrast (Minimum) checked 2026-10
- W3C WAI Images Tutorial: Complex Images checked 2026-10
- Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990) checked 2026-10
- Idaho Code 67-2805, Procurement of public works construction by political subdivisions checked 2026-10