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Key Features: a description of the visual - some contextual information - attention to any words - close ANALYSIS of the message - insight into what the visual says PART 6 DESIGN / MAKE AN IMPRESSION Chapter 26 Using Visuals USE A PICTURE. IT'S WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS. -ARTHUR BRISBANE I'M A VISUAL THINKER. WITH ALMOST ALL MY WRITING, I START WITH SOMETHING VISUAL.

-GERALD VIZENOR Many of the texts we write include visuals of various kinds-photos, maps, tables, charts and graphs, still or moving images-all of which can help draw readers in and support what we have to say. In some cases, visuals can make information much easier to understand than it would be with words alone.

You'll likely have reason to include visuals in some of your academic writing: paintings or drawings in an art history essay, bar graphs or pie charts in a business proposal, historical documents and maps in a history presentation. Whatever visuals you include, make sure that they support what you're saying-and that you use them both carefully and ethically. KINDS OF VISUALS Photos can help readers visualize what you are describing or explaining.

Imagine describing with words alone this scene from Akhnaten , an opera by Philip Glass, in which jugglers visually represent the rhythms of Glass's music. You could do it-but the photo lets readers see what you're describing. Maps can help orient readers to a place you refer to in your text. The map here is one you might include in a literary analysis of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Return of the King , showing Gondor, where much of the story takes place.

Table 1 US College Degrees by Males and Females, 2020 Source: US Department of Education Tables are a way of presenting data in columns, which makes it easier to see than it would be in a paragraph-and are especially useful for comparing data. The table here compares college degree data for US college graduates in 2020. See page 346 on setting up tables MLA style, and pages 388-89 for APA style. Bar graphs are useful for comparing quantitative data.

In this example, the bars make it easy to see at a glance what a sample of voters thought about the government's involvement in solving the economic fallout from the coronavirus. Line graphs are useful for showing changes in data that occur over time. One data set can be shown with a single line-as in the example here. Two or more data sets show how they compare over time.

Pie charts provide a broad overview of how parts of a whole relate to one another-for example, how much of a family's earnings go for food, housing, transportation, savings, charity, and so on. Each part needs to be clearly labeled, and it's best to have no more than six or seven parts, because if the slices are too small, they can be hard to see or interpret. Glossary MLA STYLE, 305-56 A system of DOCUMENTATION established by the Modern Language Association and used in the humanities.

APA STYLE, 357-403 A system of DOCUMENTATION used in the social sciences. APA stands for the American Psychological Association. USING VISUALS ETHICALLY What you see is what you get. A picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe so, but maybe not. These familiar sayings rest on the assumption that what we see with our own eyes is real and true, unmediated, while words somehow come between us and reality, shaping and altering it, for better or worse.

It's true that our brains process images much faster than words: in fact, our eyes will recognize a familiar image in 100 milliseconds, 60 times faster than they can process the words for that image. Perhaps it's the sheer speed with which images enter our consciousness that makes them seem more trustworthy: seeing is believing, as the saying goes. But speed doesn't equal accuracy, much less truth or fairness.

And as contemporary technology has made achingly clear, pictures are just as constructed as sentences or paragraphs. Not only constructed: they can be manipulated, even falsified. Be aware of doctored photos In June 1994, both Time and Newsweek featured the same photo of O. J. Simpson on their covers. Sharp-eyed readers were quick to point out, however, that Simpson's skin color was decidedly darker on the Time cover.

When questioned, the photo artist for Time said that he simply wanted to give the image a dramatic tone and that no deception or racial implication was intended. Maybe so, maybe not, but the altered image caused a huge public outcry against such practices. You can see these two magazine covers at letstalklibrary.com . So images and especially photographs can be problematic, to say the least.

Over two decades ago, environmentalist Kenneth Brower raised an alarm in an essay titled Photography in the Age of Falsification, in which he pointed out that even well-established magazines like National Geographic had been known to doctor photographs to make them more appealing. Noting that while the wildlife images we see in movies and magazines are often stunning, they may well be fake, enhanced, or manufactured by . . .

digital technologies that have transformed-some say contaminated-the photography landscape. In Brower's view, such alterations raise serious ethical questions. A leopard can't change his spots, but the modern photographer can easily do it for him. -KENNETH BROWER Faking a sunset or moving animals around in a photo is deceptive, but some altered images go beyond deception and cause harm or embarrassment.

This happened to President Trump in 2019, when he spoke at conference hosted by the conservative organization Turning Point USA. As he walked onto the stage, a large presidential seal went up on a screen. But the seal had been altered. The eagle had two heads, much like the one on the national emblem of Russia. And rather than arrows and olive branches, the bird was clutching a set of golf clubs and a wad of dollar bills.

And then there was the banner: in place of E Pluribus Unum (Latin for Out of Many, One), it said 45 Es un Ttere: Spanish for 45 Is a Puppet. It turned out that someone from Turning Point had to find an image of the presidential seal in a hurry and found this one on the internet-and no one checked to be sure it was the actual seal rather than a fake seal aiming to criticize 45. President Trump addressing a Turning Point USA conference in 2019.

Think before taking and sharing photos President Trump's experience is all too common today, as Photoshop and other tools make it easier than ever to alter images. So the warning Kenneth Brower sounded over two decades ago is more pertinent than ever. In fact, the easy manipulation of images has led to a new field of study, visual ethics, that explores the way in which images, altered or unaltered, always reflect a particular point of view and hence have ethical dimensions.

Think for a moment of the highly unflattering photos of politicians used in ads against them-or of ones that have been enhanced to make them look flawless: Are those photos fair? And think of your own experience: Has a photo ever represented you in ways you felt were unfair, especially if it was taken without your knowledge?

That's what leads scholars of visual ethics to argue that both the production and reception of images always have ethical dimensions and to ask that photographers especially consider when it is morally acceptable to photograph people who may be highly vulnerable. Take the case of an image of a father and daughter who drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande that circulated widely in the summer of 2019.

Some felt that it helped raise awareness of the dire circumstances leading refugees to seek asylum in the United States; others found it to be insensitive and demeaning-in short, unethical. What's your take? scar Martnez Ramrez and his daughter, Salvadoran migrants who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande.

Certainly, Paul Martin Lester wishes he had thought more carefully when as a young reporter he was sent to an airport on assignment to photograph the reunion of two brothers who'd been separated for forty years. A ho-hum assignment, he thought, but as he waited for the brothers to emerge, something unexpected happened: Faye Dunaway, a very big star back then, exited the plane-and when she saw Lester and all his cameras, she screamed and turned her face to the wall.

Lester was frozen in place for a moment, realizing that he hadn't been sent there to photograph her. But when, still badly shaken, she pulled herself together enough to walk toward him, he automatically took a flash photo. He says that this was the most unethical photo he's ever taken, so much so that he now begins every photography class he teaches with this story and his realization that he had acted in a selfish, intrusive, and unethical way.

In short, he made a bad choice he doesn't want his students to replicate! You may never have such challenging decisions to make, but even so you need to be aware of the issues involved in taking and sharing photos-and to think critically and carefully before you post or repost images, as well as when you yourself take photos. Consider this advice from one professional photographer: If you are taking a photograph, ask yourself why you are doing it. Try to imagine yourself on the other side of the camera.

Would you want that picture taken, maybe published in blogs or magazines? Would you want this particular [image to represent you] or your community? If you can answer with an informed yes, then you are good to go. -GRAHAM MacINDOE Get permission, credit sources It's likely that you will use photos and other visuals drawn from other sources.

In such cases, remember that the legal doctrine of fair use allows you to use images without explicit permission in your college writing-IF that writing is not going to be published. Today, some online works may be published under a CREATIVE COMMONS license, which grants permission to use the work as long as you credit the person who created the work.

In such cases, you'll need to send an email asking for permission, explaining why you want to use the image, saying where it will appear, and saying that full credit will be given and documented. If it is for educational use and will not be for sale, you may receive permission. Add alt text Alt text is a way of describing images in digital texts for readers who are visually impaired or when computers do not load images.

The goal is to describe the image in enough detail that readers who cannot see the image will be able to understand what it shows. That said, it needs to be succinct, generally no more than 125 characters. What detail you provide depends on the RHETORICAL SITUATION . If readers need to know only what or who is in the image, your description might be just what you'd see at a glance. Say you were writing about a specific couple and needed to describe a photo of them.

You might write Susanna and Jeremy holding their dog Gus. If, however, you were writing about the gentrification of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York, you might describe the same photo differently: A young white couple in front of a modest wooden house in Brooklyn. She holds a little dog; he's holding boxes from Amazon. And some images need to be named but do not need to be described: a McDonald's hamburger, for instance, or the Nike swoosh.

The way you provide alt text will depend on where the text will be read. Word has a built-in tool for inserting alt text, but any text that will be read on the internet needs to be embedded using HTML. Some social media programs allow you to include alt text with any images that you post. On Twitter , for example, you can add descriptions of up to 1,000 characters when posting a photo by clicking the alt button.

Instagram uses object recognition technology to provide alt text for images posted there-and lets you write your own alt text if you prefer. Think about your own use of visuals Consider whether any visuals you use will speak to your AUDIENCE . Will they understand any charts or graphs you want to use? Be sure that any photos you take or use represent your subjects accurately and fairly. Avoid stereotyping; be aware of your own biases, and don't let them influence images you take or use.

Provide any necessary visual CONTEXT . Editing out essential contextual detail can make a photo misleading or hard to understand. Treat everything and everyone you photograph with RESPECT . Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects. Be sure to include a CAPTION with every visual you include. Remember that visuals do not speak for themselves; introduce every visual before it appears in your text, and explain how it supports your point (as the following pie chart demonstrates, . . .).

DOCUMENT any visuals you don't create yourself. See Chapter 20 on MLA style and Chapter 21 on APA style for advice on documenting sources and setting up figures and tables. In academic writing, provide a number (Figure 1, Table 1) and a descriptive title above each visual, and an explanatory caption and source note below. REFLECT! Choose an essay or something else you've written for a class, and read it over with an eye for how visuals might help support your point.

Is there something you describe where a photo would help? Do you include any numerical data that would be easier to understand in a line or bar graph? If so, give it a try. Ask a friend to read the before and after and tell you which version is more persuasive. Glossary CREATIVE COMMONS, 297, 466 A non-profit organization that licenses creative works in order to make them more accessible than they would be with traditional copyright.

RHETORICAL SITUATION, 25-28, 81-82 The circumstances that affect writing or other communication, including PURPOSE , AUDIENCE , GENRE , STANCE , CONTEXT , MEDIA , and DESIGN . AUDIENCE, 25-26 Those to whom a text is directed-the people who read, listen to, or view the text. Audience is a key part of any RHETORICAL SITUATION .

CONTEXT, 17, 27-28, 59 Part of any RHETORICAL SITUATION , conditions affecting the text such as what else has been said about a topic; social, economic, and other factors; and any constants such as due date and length. RESPECT, 29-41 The act of giving someone or something your careful attention, listening with an open mind, being polite and considerate, and according someone else the same right to speak that you wish for yourself.

CAPTION, 346, 467 A brief explanation accompanying a photograph, diagram, chart, and screen shot, or other visual that appears in a written document. DOCUMENTATION, 309-44, 360-86 Publication information about the sources cited in a text. IN-TEXT DOCUMENTATION usually appears in parentheses at the point where it's cited or in an endnote or a footnote. Complete documentation usually appears as a list of WORKS CITED or REFERENCES at the end of the text. Documentation styles vary by discipline.

See also APA STYLE ; MLA STYLE MLA STYLE, 305-56 A system of DOCUMENTATION established by the Modern Language Association and used in the humanities. APA STYLE, 357-403 A system of DOCUMENTATION used in the social sciences. APA stands for the American Psychological Association. PART 7 MEDIA / A PORTFOLIO Chapter 27 Print ALL I NEED IS A SHEET OF PAPER AND SOMETHING TO WRITE WITH, AND I CAN TURN THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN.

-FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE THE HUMBLE PRINT PIECE OFTEN DOES EXACTLY WHAT THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES AIM FOR, WITH FAR LESS COST AND EFFORT. -TONY AGUERO Have you seen the YouTube video of a medieval helpdesk, where a puzzled patron sits in front of a printed book and just stares at it, unable to imagine what to do with it since he has never seen one before? He doesn't even know to open it up! Today, when books and other print texts are everywhere, it's hard to imagine a time when they didn't exist.

But when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press nearly 600 years ago, he set off a communication revolution that is still unfolding. Rather than the months and months it took for scribes to copy out a text onto goatskin or parchment, Gutenberg's press could turn out multiple copies of a page at one time, greatly increasing the availability of books and reducing their cost. The culture of the book was born-and it held sway for hundreds of years.

Check out the medieval helpdesk video at letstalklibrary.com . Fast-forward to the twenty-first century, however, to a time when print texts are no longer the only ones we have available. Today's technologies enable readers to access digital texts with the click of a button-so much so that some pundits argue that print texts are going the way of the dodo bird and other extinct species. But not so fast. While digital texts offer many advantages, print texts are still holding their own.

Some people say they're easier to read and that it's easier to find something you're looking for in a print text-and the fact is sometimes they're really needed. You'll surely have some assignments that require you to turn in hard copy. Think too of posters, handouts, grocery lists, letters to elderly grandparents who may not be on email. And even if you read and write on a computer, there's a reason that all computers include a Print function.

Perhaps most important, you can count on good old paper to be there for you when the technology fails. Consider what happened last year when we were all working from home and Stephen Colbert was broadcasting The Late Show from his house in New Jersey. The guest one night was Daniel Radcliffe (yes, Harry Potter himself), who joined the show via video link from his home. We could see Radcliffe, but we couldn't hear him-and no one was able to fix the problem (even Harry didn't have his wand handy).

So what did he do? He reached for pen and paper, wrote out what he wanted to say, and held it up for viewers to read. In short, print text saved the day. Stephen Colbert and Daniel Radcliffe on The Late Show , March 31, 2020. So it seems likely that print texts will be with us for some time. Here are a few tips to get you thinking about how to make those that you create visually compelling and easy to read: What kind of print text will serve your PURPOSE ?

To publicize a concert, it might be a poster, or maybe a postcard. To express an opinion, it could be an essay-or that too might be a poster: think Black Lives Matter. But is a print text the best way to reach your AUDIENCE ? If they don't use email or social media, it will need to be print. But if it's time-sensitive, better to use email or Twitter . How should your text be organized? Will it be all or mainly in paragraphs, or is there some detail that will be easier to present or understand in a list?

Would headings help you to organize the text-and also help readers to follow it? Would VISUALS help you make or illustrate a point? If so, what kind: photos? charts or graphs? maps? Remember that you'll need to introduce any visual, add a caption, and explain how it relates to your point. Think about what FONTS will be suitable for your purpose-and reflect your STANCE . For most academic writing, you can't go wrong with a serif font such as Times New Roman or Bookman.

But you can be more adventurous with a poster or infographic. And what about color? Will you need to use more than one color-and if so, what for? Following are three print texts that demonstrate some of these elements in an illustrated essay, an infographic, and a poster. Glossary PURPOSE, 25 In writing, your goal: to explore a topic, to express an opinion, to entertain, to report information, to persuade, and so on. Purpose is one element of the RHETORICAL SITUATION .

AUDIENCE, 25-26 Those to whom a text is directed-the people who read, listen to, or view the text. Audience is a key part of any RHETORICAL SITUATION . FONTS, 472 Typefaces, such as Calibri or Times New Roman STANCE, 17-19, 26-27 A writer's attitude toward the subject-for example, reasonable, neutral, angry, curious. Stance is conveyed through TONE and word choice. VISUALS, 455-57, 459-67 Photos, graphs, maps, diagrams, pie charts, tables, videos, and other images.

Visuals can be used to support or illustrate a point and also to present information that is easier to understand in a chart or graph than it would be in a paragraph. AN ILLUSTRATED ESSAY Following is part of an essay that Henry Tsai wrote for a composition course on the rhetoric of the graphic narrative. He graduated from Stanford with a degree in comparative studies in race and ethnicity and is now a product manager at Facebook. Go to letstalklibrary.com to read the full essay.

Imag(in)ed and Imposed Identities: Illustrated Representations of Chinese Immigrants in San Francisco, 1865-1900 In 1848, when newsman Sam Brannon ran into San Francisco shouting, Gold! Gold! From the American River! merchant Chum Ming wrote to his cousin in China (Gold Rush). Word spread quickly, and soon images of gam saan -Gold Mountain-entered the collective imagination of Chinese families impoverished by waves of famine, peasant uprisings, and rebellions (Joe).

Scraping together money for a trip to the land of opportunities, poor families sent their men to the United States to work in the mines, on the railroad, or as common laborers (Chinese Immigration). Starts with background information. However, life in America was harsher and more complicated than the men had imagined.

Despite being welcomed as cheap laborers for the Central Pacific Railroad, Chinese immigrants became a threat when the American economy weakened (Joe) and sparked more jealousy when they discovered gold in mines that white Americans thought barren. Such anti-immigrant sentiments spread: from 1865 to 1900, negative newspaper editorials, congressional testimonies, and illustrations of Chinese immigrant men helped foster an atmosphere of fear and distrust.

In this essay, I explore how these drawings imposed an identity upon Chinese immigrants, how some of these images still affect Asian Americans today, and how this historical context relates to today's immigration debate. *** Introduces a cartoon and describes it in detail. Discusses the implications of what the cartoon shows. The theme of Chinese immigrants monopolizing American industries is a prevalent one. In fig.

3, a Harper's Weekly cartoon titled Another Field of American Industry Invaded by the Chinese, a Chinese man with a smirk on his face is playfully holding a baseball bat in a laundry shop. Next to him, a clothing iron weighs down a piece of paper that reads Wanted: Chinamen to Play Base-ball. $20.00 per week. The caption relays fear of appropriation of a beloved American tradition with an undertone of racist stereotyping: No more Washee! Playee Base-balee!

Sellee out Game, alee same Melican man! If letting the Chinese play baseball is selling out the American sport, then letting the Chinese work and live in this country is selling out the American dream. The threat to the economy is not only an influx of cheap labor, but also an invasion of the perceived Chinese immigrants' values intertwined with irreverence for American values. The caption also plays to the intolerant fear of foreigners.

The Chinese cannot just participate in American society; they have to invade it. Fig. 3 . Another Field of American Industry Invaded by the Chinese, Harper's Weekly , cartoon, 1883, p. 27. Endnotes Title announces a broad theme; subtitle states the specific focus. Return to text States the thesis. Return to text Caption includes a figure number and source information.

Return to text AN INFOGRAPHIC This infographic was created by Giorgia Lupi and a team at Pentagram Design, a firm that does graphics, packaging, exhibitions, advertising, websites, and more. It's one of several works from the Happy Data Project, infographics containing small but mighty numbers that present hopeful views of the world.

The project began in 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many other Black people; go to happy-data.co to see more examples. Bright heading pops visually. Bar graph shows the data; laptop makes it look like it's at home. Building in the background, pot of tea further emphasize the idea of working at home. A POSTER This poster is a call for auditions for Talisman, a student a capella group dedicated to sharing cross-cultural stories through song.

Founded in 1990 at Stanford with the goal of bringing underrepresented music to campus, the group has now expanded its repertoire to include cross-cultural music from around the world. Go to stanfordtalisman.com to hear them sing. Large red font draws attention to 2 keywords: Talisman and Auditions. Smaller dark blue font gives information about when to audition and where to sign up. The yellow sun in the background is the Talisman logo. PART 7 MEDIA / A PORTFOLIO Chapter 28 Oral WORDS CAN INSPIRE.

AND WORDS CAN DESTROY. CHOOSE YOURS WELL. -PETER ECONOMY YOU CAN'T REALLY NAME A MOVEMENT THAT DIDN'T START WITH THE SPOKEN WORD. -NANCY DUARTE Before the rise of print texts, the spoken word was king, and queen: orators worked long and hard to make their words unforgettable and their voices audible, even to very large crowds-and with no amplification.

Then came the rise of writing, and of print texts, which, ironically, seemed to drown out speech: we began to say we wanted to see it in writing before accepting a message; written documentation became paramount in legal proceedings; and writing was more authoritative than just talk. Today, however, the spoken word is again of major importance in delivering information: from town halls devoted to speeches and conversation, to public lectures, to the rise of rap and spoken word poetry, to TED Talks, to the resurgence of radio, to televised newscasts, to countless podcasts-live human voices speak to us around the clock.

Writing and speaking are both major ways to communicate, to deliver messages, and they are similar in some ways: both use language, both convey information, both address audiences. But there are significant differences too. In general, written texts are more precise, stable, and permanent than spoken texts; they are also often more formal. In addition, readers can exert some control over written texts, rereading, for instance, or going at a slower or faster pace.

Spoken texts are considerably more dynamic, allowing for more immediacy and more interaction; they are often able to engage audiences more personally and quickly. Moreover, speakers can make use of many kinds of nonverbal communication: tone and volume, pacing and inflection, gestures, movement, and more. But unless the spoken text is digitized, listeners can't go back and check on something they hear in a speech, or slow it down.

As speakers, then, we need to pay very careful attention to our audiences, and be on the lookout for cues that will tell us whether the audience is following along (or not). In other words, we need to learn to read an audience, to be aware of puzzled looks, nods, smiles, and eye contact. You will surely have opportunities to give oral presentations and work with other spoken texts during your college years.

Whether it's a presentation in a class, a report to a group you belong to, or an oral history, you will want to make your words count. And while it's impossible to provide guidelines for every kind of spoken text you may need to produce, here are some tips that can help. Think about your AUDIENCE . What will they expect to hear from you? What will they need to know to follow your thoughts? How can you engage their interest? What's the CONTEXT ? If it's a presentation, you'll need to draft a script or notes.

If you're hosting a podcast or conducting an interview for an oral history, you'll need to draft some questions. Work especially hard on your OPENING , and about how you can get your audience interested in what you're about to say. NARRATIVE is a tried and true way to engage listeners and to get your points across memorably, and you can use a story to frame an entire presentation or to support a point you are making. But be careful that any story you tell has a point. In speaking, less is often more.

As one public-speaking coach says, trying to put too much in is the biggest mistake inexperienced speakers make. Keep it simple; keep it clear. Rely on relatively brief sentences whenever you can. Keep your overall structure simple and clear as well, with explicit TRANSITIONS to guide listeners from point to point. Pausing to sum up major points can also help keep them focused on your message. Use vivid language, ACTIVE VOICE , and concrete nouns.

But keep in mind what Mark Twain once said: Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do. If you're preparing a presentation, draft a script that is marked up for pauses and emphasis; a partial script that contains major points and keywords; or note cards. Think as well about how you can use gestures for emphasis. Your CONCLUSION is your chance to leave your audience thinking about what you've said. Think hard about what they will consider most memorable.

Are there any VISUALS that might help get your message across-graphs or charts? Maps? Photographs or other images? If you use any visuals, make sure that every single one illustrates a point you are making. Remember the old saying that practice makes perfect. Practice until you are completely comfortable with your message-and with how you'll be delivering it! In the pages that follow, you'll find examples of three kinds of spoken texts: presentations, podcasts, and oral histories.

In each case, there's no substitute for knowing your topic and knowing it well-so that you are comfortable enough to speak directly to an audience about it and to answer questions with ease and accuracy. Oral presentations Many oral presentations follow one common structure: beginning by describing what is and then suggesting what could (or should) be. Then in the middle of the speech, the presenter moves back and forth between discussing that status quo and what it could or should be.

And the conclusion evokes what could be and calls for some kind of action. In fact, this is a classic storytelling technique, setting up a conflict that needs to be resolved. And presenting your main point as a story works well in a spoken presentation because stories are easy to follow-and to remember. As you'll see, this is the way Trey Connelly structured his presentation about modes of instruction in video games, reprinted here on pages 482-87 .

Podcasts Podcasts are spoken-word audio files that can be listened to on a digital device. Some focus on the news, others tell stories, still others feature people discussing or explaining a certain topic. You may be familiar with some of the most popular podcasts- Radiolab , The Daily , Stuff You Should Know -or some of the political ones- Pod Save America , Everything's Going to Be Alright .

And some colleges now produce podcasts, from Longwood University's Day after Graduation to the Stanford engineering school's The Future of Everything . So podcasts are a good way to stay informed about what's going on in the world-and to learn about things you know nothing about. And if you have a smartphone and a computer and a quiet place to record, it's something you can do.

We won't say it's simple, and it's beyond the scope of this little book to teach you how, but we can offer a little advice about some basic features of a podcast. They usually have a host, who introduces the topic and interviews guests or leads discussion. Some podcasts are scripted in advance, but some are organized more like a Q &A, with questions prepared in advance that guests answer. Any questions should be open-ended, eliciting more than a yes or no.

Most podcasts strike an informal, conversational TONE . Most of all, the best podcasts are both informative and entertaining. The best podcasters know their subject thoroughly and are at ease talking about it. And the better the guests, the better the podcast. In short, doing a podcast calls on you to come up with a topic that matters, to RESEARCH your topic and find knowledgeable, engaging guests-and to think hard about how you can make the discussion one that will interest and engage others.

On pages 488-91 you'll find a transcript of Jack Long's podcast featuring two first-generation college students, along with a link to the podcast itself. Oral histories Oral histories are recorded interviews with people who have firsthand knowledge of significant events or places. Historians, anthropologists, and others collect oral histories as a way of recording the memories of many different people-and of learning about an event from many different perspectives.

One oral history project you may be familiar with is StoryCorps , whose mission is to record, preserve, and share the stories of Americans from all backgrounds and beliefs. In interviewing someone for an oral history, then, your goal is to get them to tell their stories. Ask open-ended questions, ones that call for more than a yes or no; ask why, how, where, when. Don't interrupt: your goal is to capture your subject's memories and stories in their own words. Let them speak!

And if you transcribe the recording, be sure to show it to the person interviewed to be sure you've captured what they said accurately. You will find a partial transcript of an oral history of Levi Strauss &Co. on pages 492-93 , featuring its president reminiscing about the early days of the company and about one employee who became a hero to his fellow workers. Glossary AUDIENCE, 25-26 Those to whom a text is directed-the people who read, listen to, or view the text.

Audience is a key part of any RHETORICAL SITUATION . CONTEXT, 17, 27-28, 59 Part of any RHETORICAL SITUATION , conditions affecting the text such as what else has been said about a topic; social, economic, and other factors; and any constants such as due date and length. OPENING, 146, 410-12 The way a text begins, which plays an important role in drawing an AUDIENCE in.

Some ways of beginning an essay: with a dramatic or deceptively simple statement, with something others have said about your topic, with a provocative question or a startling CLAIM , or with an ANECDOTE . NARRATIVE, 186-202 A GENRE that tells a story for the PURPOSE of making a point. Key Features: a clearly defined event - a clearly described setting - vivid, descriptive details - a consistent POINT OF VIEW - a clear point.

Also a strategy for presenting information as a story, for telling what happened. When used in an essay, narration is used to support a point-not merely to tell an interesting story for its own sake. Narration can serve as the organizing principle for a paragraph or an entire text. See also LITERACY NARRATIVE TRANSITIONS, 424 Words or phrases that help to connect sentences and paragraphs and to guide readers through a text.

Transitions can signal COMPARISONS ( also, similarly, likewise, in the same way ); CONTRASTS ( but, instead, although, however, nonetheless ); examples ( for instance, in fact, such as ); place or position ( above, beyond, near, elsewhere ); sequence ( finally, next, again, also ); SUMMARIES or CONCLUSIONS ( on the whole, as we have seen, in brief ); time ( at first, meanwhile, so far, later ); and more. ACTIVE VOICE When a verb is in the active voice, the subject performs the action: Gus tripped Bodie.

See also PASSIVE VOICE CONCLUSION, 92, 211, 417-18 The way a text ends, a chance to leave an AUDIENCE thinking about what's been said. Some ways of concluding an essay: REITERATING your point, discussing the implications of your ARGUMENT , proposing some kind of action, inviting response. VISUAL ANALYSIS, 63-65, 139 A GENRE of writing that examines an image, video, or some other visual text and how it communicates its message to an AUDIENCE .

Key Features: a description of the visual - some contextual information - attention to any words - close ANALYSIS of the message - insight into what the visual says TONE, 27, 96 The way a writer's or speaker's STANCE is reflected in the text. RESEARCH, 83, 103, 159-60 A process of INQUIRY -of gathering information from reliable sources to learn about something, find an answer to a question that interests you, understand or support an ARGUMENT , and more.

See also FIELD RESEARCH AN ORAL PRESENTATION Sign and Design: Modes of Instruction in Digital Games Trey Connelly gave this oral presentation for his sophomore writing class, one that focused on the theme of How We Got Schooled: The Rhetoric of Literacy and Education. Now a junior majoring in computer science, Connelly still enjoys the study of gaming. He will graduate from Stanford University in 2021.

In the following pages, you will see the script that Connelly worked from in making this presentation, along with eight of the 158 slides he prepared to accompany it. Hi, I'm Trey Connelly, and I'm here to talk about games. Games are fun! We all know that. But what's not fun is not knowing how to play. Everyday language (gonna be) sets informal tone. Scrabble, baseball, karate, all of these activities can be very fun.

But if you don't know how to play-if you don't know the rules-then you're just gonna be confused and frustrated, and not have a good time. Now normally, though, this isn't much of a problem, because these are all social activities, so there's bound to be someone around who can show you the ropes. Describes what is-the current state of gaming. Except when we get to video games.

Video games are unique in that they're primarily solo activities, so the job of teaching the player falls not on another person but rather on the game itself. Combine that with the fact that games, systems, and controls have gotten more, and more, and more, complicated over time, and you'll see that the job of the game designer is not an easy one. Introduces his research project.

So my research project was about Sign and Design: Modes of Instruction in Digital Games, and what that can tell us about instruction in other contexts. Simple, uncluttered slide announces the topic. For this presentation, we'll be stepping into the role of the game designer in order to answer one question: How do you teach players how to play your game? Use of questions helps keep audience's attention. Now you might think, why not just tell them how to play? What else would you do?

Well let's see how this works out with a case study, of Final Fantasy X , one of the most popular game franchises of all time. So it's gotta be good, right? And by the time you get to the tenth in the series, most fans are gonna buy it no matter what. But it introduces a few new mechanics, like this thing called a sphere grid. Explains how just telling how to play currently works.

So let's see how the game teaches players how to use the sphere grid system: First, you select Sphere Grid from the main menu. The cursor appears at the selected character's current position. Use the d-pad to move the cursor. So far so good. Information on the upgrades is displayed at the top of the screen . . . defense upgrades . . . learn an ability . . . nodes . . . press X . . . <yawn, click through slides > Slide shows how one game explains how it works.

Use of short direct sentences to show failure of explicit instruction. How are you all doing? Oh! Hey, we're done. Did you get all that? Because the game isn't gonna tell you that information ever again. Not great. So the problem with explicit instructions is that when someone who wants to play a game instead encounters a wall of text, they're not likely to pay attention.

And even if they do, the chances they'd actually retain all that information by the time they get into the game part where it matters are essentially zero. <pause > And this has been verified by cognitive science.

Learning theorist James Gee of Arizona State explains that Human beings are quite poor at using verbal information when given lots of it out of context and before they can see how it applies in actual situations. If this sounds like too much verbal information out of context for you, let me restate that: When it comes to games, words are bad. Or better yet, <slide > Slide underscores his main point with 3 words that will grab his audience's attention.

All that is to say, it seems like just telling players how to play is not the way to go. So what if we just . . . don't tell them how to play? I mean, think about it. There's tons of things we do all the time without being explicitly told how to do so. Think of a toaster, for example. Sure, it comes with an instruction manual, but has anyone ever read it? We can just figure it out. Describes one alternative of what could be. So maybe that's what we should do with games too.

One game that does this is Dwarf Fortress . It's a bit of a cult classic, but you may know it was the inspiration behind Minecraft . Here's a little taste of my first hour trying to figure out how to play Dwarf Fortress : Points out that this alternative is no better than explicit instruction. Um. Huh. Am I in a field? Is that blue thing a river? What do all these symbols mean? What should I do here? Maybe I'll just press these buttons? Oh no, am I in a cave? Is it night? I have no idea. Yeah.

In fact, Dwarf Fortress is so hard to understand that people have written entire books on how to get started , which brings us right back where we started with that same verbal information out of context that Professor Gee warned us against. So going back to our main question, it seems like we can't just tell players how to play, but we can't not tell them either. But there's actually a third option. Think back to toasters. Yes, we can easily figure out how to use it-and that's no accident. It's by design.

Here's what a toaster really looks like. If this was your toaster, you might need an instruction manual to figure out what to do with it. But the toaster we see hides all the stuff that we don't need to see in order to understand, and leaves us with this sleek model with two visual elements: slots at the top that are just the size and shape of a slice of bread, and a lever on the side that almost screams push me down. Toaster analogy shows the importance of intentional design to instruction.

This use of intentional design to convey information without words is what game designers Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark call a communicative visual vocabulary. And it can be incredibly effective. In games as in toasters, Anthropy and Clark argue that we shouldn't tell the player explicitly how to play using words they won't read or remember, but nor should we abandon them to their own devices in a way that makes things incredibly hard to figure out.

Instead, they say, the best way to teach a player is to tell them how to play, but do so implicitly , using visual vocabulary and intentional design that makes it easy for them to figure out what to do. Use of vivid description language evokes the experience of the game. To see what I'm talking about here, let's look at one more game: The Witness , my personal favorite. Here's the opening segment of the game.

The player starts off in a long, dark hallway that's got a brightly lit door at the other end that clearly indicates that they should move forward to get to it. Once there, there's a door with an orange panel. And actually . . . it kind of looks familiar. If we just . . . and then . . . yeah! It looks a little like a toaster! It's got the same knob and track.

So let's see if this visual vocabulary matches what actually happens in the game: the player comes up to the door, grabs the knob, slides it across the track, lets go-and pop, the door opens! Returns to what explicit verbal instruction would look like.