The following statements were developed, for the most part, during a series of workshops conducted with Year 2 Visual Communication students over the Spring and Summer Terms. Under the title ‘Explain Yourself’ these sessions were dedicated to producing a concise statement of roughly 250 words about some key aspect of their individual practice – an overall strategy, a specific project or an insight. The aim was for each student to discover an appropriate language and form for their statement: to reject standard modes of academic discourse and discover a critical narrative of their own. This in turn posed a larger question: how can visual practice use text to communicate more effectively?