Week 2: visuals as communication tools
You looked at slides last week for my class. Triangles are important. Equilateral triangles, actually. Power Point by MS and later Presentation by Google and a few other platforms shifted communication toward visuals and designed information.
About fifteen years ago, infographics entered our communication universe:
An infographic is a collection of imagery, data visualizations like pie charts and bar graphs, and minimal text that gives an easy-to-understand overview of a topic. (Information is Beautiful seminar, 2022)
One classic+modern tree diagram from infographics teaches us that visualisations are a very old human genre for communication. Skim this Wired piece announcing a new book on tree diagrams.
Here are two selections from visualization history that you should be aware of; first, Florence Nightingale and her circle or rose chart (open access Scientific American article, 2022):
;)
Now, consider these "data portraits" by W.E.B. Du Bois described in a 2018 Smithsonian Magazine article. As in the article noted above, a new book presents his collection (see more at the Library of Congress).
The book cover --> shows his use of strong primary colors, a new aesthetic that represented printing ink innovation but also European design theory including the German Bauhaus group. A note on audience: Du Bois included some notations in French because he was presenting in that country (1900 Paris Exhibition). However, he planned that his primary audience were in the U.S., including politicians and thought leaders. Du Bois' academic and social activism focused primarily on Reconstruction and the Jim Crow south.
His lengthy Wikipedia bio does not say much about these ground-breaking data visualizations.
This Medium piece (is this a platform, a blog, or a publisher?) is a huge deep dive into his data visualization work.I have not curated this link well. Do you trust this? Me? We will talk about ethos framing.
What is a meme, by the way?
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ONLY gif of W.E.B. Du Bois? Do we have a gif maker in the class? Email me.
Marybeth Shea
Notice the format change from Week 1? I will next Wed. and Fri. class journal posts UNDERNEATH the Week n for each Monday. We will look at this in class.
New slide set about audience analysis (four of four) that uses Shakespeare! We will look at them in class. I want to note that you need to think of two contexts for slides:
- rely on presence of presenter to make full use?
- intended to stand alone.
When you search online for information and land on slide sets, see if you can infer the full meaning without the presenter. This ability often depends on your training and expertise.
Now, let's look at slide set 3 about audiences. Preview: two blue triangles used to underscore meaning.
Ok, for Friday, new terms from classical/modern rhetoric: the five canons. Skim these eight slides to acquaint yourself with these five terms and how they fit into the writing process.
Optional culture note: Women in classical rhetoric? Scholars used to say no but Shirley Logan, professor emerita at UMCP (and others) said YES. Aphasia, for one. You may enjoy this 2018 nterview (html article)with Dr. Logan, who is one of my mentors. Interviewer Nabila Hijaz is a Maryland-trained professor of rhetoric.
Shirley Logan, PhD
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday to us all. Jamboard for today (to text and learn)
I will poke through these sources on rhetoric that you may appreciate skimming. You can select the way you want to learn.
- Really good overview here by a communication professional (short html web exhibit)
- Student quiz-card set that you might appreciate (kinesthetic appeal, for one)
- Forest of Rhetoric at BYU that student-above "riffs off" (search engine here)
- A six-slide set--> San Jose State (Hawker, CAUTION -- autormatic PPT download on most browsers)
Option: You could see if OWL at Purdue includes rhetoric resources.
Next: another frame of classical rhetoric is stasis theory. Owl DOES take this on--> Read here, to start. Next, this four-page PDF is a good overview of stasis theory and relies on UMD English professor emerita Jeanne Fahnestock's work (my mentor). Author? Grant-Davy, English professor at Utah State.
I use stasis theory with environmental scientists: preview here (one slide).
Preview of next week and writing assignment No. 1: definition memo about rain gardens! What are they? We will discuss. This is the primary source we will use (do not need to read yet, I promise) 90 pg. PDF from Chesapeake Bay Network.
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