PowerPoint knowledge presentation as a digital genre has established itself as the main software by which the findings of theses are disseminated in the academic settings. Although the importance of PowerPoint presentations is typically realized in academic settings like lectures, conferences, and seminars, the study of the visual features of presentations has received little attention. The current study scrutinizes the visualization processes applied in the PowerPoint defense session presentations prepared by Iranian Master of Arts students majoring in Applied Linguistics. The study aims at describing the semiotic purposes of the PowerPoint presentations by categorizing the utilized visuals within the presentations according to their communicative purposes. To this end, the study analyzes 70 PowerPoint defense session presentations in Applied Linguistics given at various universities across Iran. For analytic purposes, the study draws on the typology of visuals introduced by Rowley-Jolivet for classifying the types of visuals. The results of visual analysis mirrors the fact that PowerPoint defense session presentations in Applied Linguistics visualized themselves more by scriptural visuals to their members of discourse community. The findings, moreover, demand a framework of presentations in Applied Linguistics for more norm-compatible presentations.