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Elisa Ngo

29 January 2023

Lopatko

WRIT 2

From Article to Infographic: A Reflection

I translated the research article, “Vitamin D supplementation improves anxiety but not

depression symptoms in patients with vitamin D deficiency,” into an infographic that is intended

to be found online on medical-related websites or web-pages about Vitamin D deficiency for

individuals who have Vitamin D deficiency or who are thinking that they are Vitamin D deficient

with an anxiety disorder. An infographic or poster-like format allows the key information from

the scholarly article to be focused on and layed out in an organized and simple manner, in which

any person could be able to understand. I created an infographic to be able to convey the

relationship between Vitamin D and mental disorders in order for others, especially patients with

Vitamin D deficiency, to become aware of the benefits of taking Vitamin D supplements and the

treatment of anxiety symptoms.

Translating a scientific research article into an infographic changed the design of the

medium, and therefore transformed the intended audience. While the original article contained

longer, detailed content of data and analysis about the research done on the relationship between

Vitamin D and mental disorders, I had to summarize the experiment and identify the key points

that were essential for a new audience of the general public, people with Vitamin D deficiency, to

understand. The information that I decided to change and add into the infographic were the

complicated words and terminology from the article that was originally meant for other

academics in the field. I had to do some more research on the role and effects of Vitamin D and
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Vitamin D deficiency on the body, as well as explaining some complex words, including the

hormones: norepinephrine and dopamine, since the average person may or may not understand

these scientific terms. The information that I decided to leave out were some of the data results

of two of the scale tests, the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale and the Revised Physical

Anhedonia Scale. These tests were not necessary to add into the infographic since they did not

affect the measurements of depression and anxiety symptoms, as they measured depression in

social withdrawal and physical symptoms.

The layout and design changed from the article to the infographic. The article contained

large amounts of information in paragraphs with graphical and statistical data, and the

infographic was strategically organized with sections of minimal amounts of text and visual

representations that were all designed to be in a pleasing color theme. For the infographic, I

decided to keep the color palette simple with blue, orange, white, and black colors, and a few

simple images or icons that did not block the text. Keeping the headings and titles in large and in

bold will help the reader identify what the topic is for that section of the infographic. The format

of an infographic helps attract the new audience, individuals who are Vitamin D deficient, to be

able to easily read and comprehend the information about the possible treatment of Vitamin D

deficiency as opposed to reading the original wordy article that is too complex to understand.

After creating the infographic, I was faced with some challenges of choosing what

information I wanted to include and constructing a neat and organized layout design. As I was

writing down the information I should include in the infographic, I remembered to keep the

information that is needed or relevant to understand the relief of anxiety symptoms in people

who are Vitamin D deficient due to Vitamin D supplementation. This allowed me to gather some

of the details of the procedure of the experiment and the results of the experiment on the control
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group compared to the intervention, or experimental, group after the six months process. The

other challenge that I was faced with was starting to design the infographic because producing an

infographic or visual piece of medium has endless creative possibilities. I had to research some

examples of infographics to be able to know what a good infographic looks like. I learned that

keeping the format as simple as possible is the best by minimizing the amount of words in each

part and using fewer pictures or images. It keeps the whole infographic pleasant to look at for the

reader to be interested in.

Articles and infographics have their own respective rhetorics, language, and design

formats that are appropriate for their intended audiences. Translating between these two genres

has changed the way to think and approach a certain format in order to reach a certain group of

people and communicate certain kinds of information that are relevant and appropriate. As for

the infographic, the process of leaving out information, including new information, and defining

difficult terms was necessary to convey the information from the scientific article in order for the

average person to understand. Understanding the context of any genre will help convey the

information or message that should be set across in a new format.

Works Cited
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Zhu, Cuizhen, et al. “Vitamin D supplementation improves anxiety but not depression symptoms

in patients with vitamin D deficiency.” Brain & Behavior, vol. 10, no. 11, 2020.