Category: WFP Blog Posts Fall 2017

As discussed in Ridolfo and DeVoss’s webtext “Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery”, one major consideration, and often problem, to be had when creating pieces for public consumption is maneuvering “a digital age characterized, for instance, by swift, easy, and deep web searching and by copying and pasting practices.”

 

In terms of our campaign, the vast majority of our campaign pieces are being created, published, and accessed online. All of this text can be copied and pasted with little effort, which means that this aspect of recomposition discussed in the webtext is highly relevant.

 

Particularly on Facebook, one of the common conventions of the genre of sharing a post on the platform is adding text above the shared link featuring a person’s opinion or perspective on the text or topic. These insights might include calls to action (“Why does no one talk about this? Spread this like wildfire”), complaints and critiques of a piece (“This writer’s examples are trash but this is still important”), a fitting anecdote or personalization to complement the original text (“Sarah, remember we were literally just talking about this yesterday?”), or some other kind of addition (#metoo). It is also very common to include a quotation from the original text as a way to highlight a particularly strong piece of the text, to give possible readers a sample so they can get a feel for whether they would like to read more, or to distill the point of the text into one easily digested chunk so that even those who do not read the whole text can take understand the general message of the text before moving on.

 

This kind of recombination has an unpredictable rhetorical velocity because it puts the power of recombination directly and autonomously in the hands of the reader. People generally choose to share texts, themselves, inserting their opinions into (not juxtaposing them with) the original text, and doing it of their own volition. This means that the timing of the spread of the pieces cannot be planned beyond their initial release.

 

This is true to a certain extent with any sort of public writing, but dormantly, in the way that someone may find a flyer on the ground for an event after it’s passed. In a situation like that, it would not be natural to make copies of the flyer and post them around. However, on social media, an old post can be jettisoned into relevance again with one well-placed shared post.

 

Sharing a post publicly moves the piece of writing into continually new social spheres, and an old article or other piece of writing online can be shared again long after its first publishing and regain new life as its velocity increases, having been pushed forward by a Facebook post or Tweet.

 

Articles and blogs often reference each other (much like this blog post is itself doing right now), weaving a large tapestry of opinions pieces and posts and arguments. From there, entire websites are dedicated to writing “articles” that are really just curated lists of quotes from other sources and screenshots of posts from Twitter and Facebook, attempting to present how what they usually refer to as “the internet” feels about a certain topic. These articles are then themselves shared online, taking its contents several iterations from its original context.

This removal from a specific context does not necessarily result in the obscuring, simplifying, or erasing of a text’s meaning, however. Campaign pieces can be optimized to prepare for this kind of recombination. If a writer plans for this possible eventuality, and writes in a way such that every sentence’s telos works on several levels – both toward the higher meaning of the final argument and independently as a meaningful statement on its own – then recombination can be a powerful, if unwieldy, tool for reaching a wide audience.

In this research, Jim Ridolfo and Danielle Nicole DeVoss introduce the term ‘rhetorical velocity’, something that they have coined as the process of reduplication of media (in virtually any form) in today’s fast-paced and technologically advanced world. This ‘anticipation’ for ‘remixes’ of original work is something, they say, that creators of media must keep in mind throughout the entire process and production of their work. This can be in a physical, distributional, or digital sense, but the argument here is that it is necessary for any document. This “composing for strategic recomposition” is a relatively new phenomenon, due to the increased number of issues surrounding digital distribution, and for this reason I personally have a difficult time wrapping my head around what sorts of factors an author would have to keep in mind while composing his or her piece.

Something that comes into mind when I think of this process is when posters around a school reference something in pop culture while making a different point all together. Current song lyrics or celebrity cameos are common on signs and advertisements on college campuses and this is a way for the producer of the media to gain interest or pique their audience’s curiosity.

Ridolfo and DeVoss specifically use the word ‘remix’ to describe part of this phenomenon, and they want to get the idea across that it isn’t just “anchored and only related to music.” I find it interesting how remix sometimes toes the line of plagiarism, but never becomes immoral (unless done incorrectly). Originality can be hard to come by these days, since it seems as though no one is doing, saying, thinking, or writing anything that hasn’t previously been done. Remix of media (other than music) is actually itself a new culture that is emerging in unexpected areas of life, giving ideas and parts of old media to authors who can create something altogether new, exciting, and original. Lawrence Lessig said “Remix is how we as humans live and everyone within our society engages in this act of creativity.”

When composing my own documents with the idea of future reduplication, I suppose it is important to include facts and statistics in an organized manner that will allow for later usage in another piece, as well as my own educated opinions and hypotheses. While making choices about what to include and what to emphasize, I would have to keep in mind that the audience that would see my own opinions and words might be different than the audience that I am writing for, since reduplication or remixes of my pieces could take place. I think that the information that I compose would have to stay fairly un-biased and comprehensible while still being presented in an appropriate and accessible way.

One passage from the text says, “Our official culture is striving to force the new media to do the work of the old,” and this is something that I have found difficult with my own project. My first campaign piece was a school newsletter written towards parents and the general community in any given Pennsylvania public school district. A paper newsletter is, unfortunately, an outdated form of communication. Newsletters are much more often found in e-mail form, or maybe on a social media site representing the organization. With this in mind, it came to me that a physical newsletter (made of paper) that is mailed to homes or handed out in public gatherings of the community members is written completely differently than another form of media. If I were to rewrite the newsletter with the idea that it could be reduplicated, I am unsure how I would go about and what changes I would make. The concept of ‘rhetorical velocity’ helps me to understand the ways that information changes when the media or genre changes, but this is a very new and foreign perspective for me. I want my information to be spread, but the specificity of my document might make that difficult. Perhaps the solution is to change the document altogether if I want reduplication of my writing to be possible.

Rhetorical velocity, in short, seems to be the way in which materials, pieces, documents can be potentially repurposed, after publishing, to serve either positively or negatively to the goal of the original desire of the published document, or to potentially use that information for another goal entirely. For my group’s campaign the three pieces we have completed so far include a Prezi, PowerPoint, and brochure. I will discuss the rhetorical velocity concerning the Prezi, which is my personal campaign piece. The Prezi is normally used as a platform for some sort of presentation or discussion. However, one of the unique things about a Prezi is that anyone can access it though the distinctive URL each Prezi possesses. This distinction of using a Prezi to give a presentation allows the rhetorical velocity to take shape, unlike a presentation using a PowerPoint, since the Prezi is out on the internet for anyone to see and repurpose if they so choose. On the other hand, a potential way of increasing the potential for rhetorical velocity of both fronts (the Prezi and PowerPoint) would be to give the presentation and then post the presentation online on some website where the information provided in the presentation would be put to good use. This video could easily be cut up, and serve a purpose in a variety of ways. Moving on to discuss the potential positive, negative, and neutral possibilities of this campaign piece being repurposed, I truly think given the fact out biggest goal of our campaign is to spread awareness of the CRISPR Ca9 and its possibilities, it would be very hard to see any outcome other than positive. With the Prezi and presentation being posted publically on the internet, any repurposing of information regarding the CRISPR Ca9 would serve our main campaign goal. In other words, for out specific campaign any document we complete should be made available in any possible format that people could potentially use it in any regard. In respect to how the passage I chose, the passage being “COMPOSING FOR RECOMPOSITION: RHETORICAL VELOCITY AND DELIVERY,” helped me think through the initial question, there are a few main points I would like to address. One of the biggest takeaways I had was from this specific line “’If I release the video in this format, could the video be used in this way, and would it be worth their time to do this? And would it be supportive of my objectives for them to do that?’” This allowed me to draw the parallel about recording and posting the presentation I will theoretically give using my Prezi. Additionally, the questions the passage asked very quickly allowed me to connect my objective, informing people about the CRISPR Ca9, with any repurposing of the information we provide could only lead to more people taking interest in this new technology. The other main part of the passage that really let me connect my own campaign to rhetorical velocity was the figure on Rhetorical Velocity as a Concert of Invention. The questions on the left provoked my mind towards my target audience, which essentially is everyone, and realizing that the production (question three) in combination with future possibilities made it very clear that the more assessable anything our campaign produces is, the greater possibly it could be used to inform without costing our group any time.

The topic that really stuck out to me the most from this passage was the whole aspect of rhetorical velocity. While I was reading, I kept thinking of different ways that I can apply this knowledge to my campaign and how useful it would be to get more people to see the information I am trying to provide for them. Ridolfo and DeVoss were explaining the term rhetorical velocity as a way to get rhetoric circulated at a certain speed and direction. What I took from this was they were providing information on how to get your writing/ information out to the public as fast as possible by spreading it through as many different appropriate mediums in different directions to cover all sides of the field. In order to do this, they described a press release as an example. The people who composed the press release could broadcast it through television on news stations, news papers, websites, social media, etc. When they do this through all these different mediums, it allows the press release to reach a variety of types of people ranging from various age groups (older people tend to watch the news more and younger kids tend to browse social media more) to different financial background (some people can afford a newspaper and some can afford a phone to go on Facebook).

My idea for my groups campaign involved putting brochures in science buildings on Pitt’s campus to advertise for my groups information session on the CRISPR/Cas9 in order to circulate the information to different science students that may be interested in learning more about the topic. Also, this reading made me consider putting a post on Facebook or other various social media websites in order for people to have the ability to share my posts to make as many people aware of the session that would include a powerpoint on the gene editing tool as possible. Also, I was thinking for my second campaign piece I was going to make a flyer advertising the info session and put it all around campus. A good idea would be to put the flyers on every table in the library and cathedral like other clubs do to advertise their meetings and fundraisers. I would also put them on telephone polls as well in order to increase the rhetorical velocity to get my campaign out there for all those who are willing to listen.

Another topic Ridolfo and DeVoss talk about is “composing for strategic recomposition.” What I got from this was it was vital to create something that people would want to recreate and write about even further. I am not quite sure if this is correct, but I view it as if a news report went out about the election and it was so good, that other people wrote about what the original author wrote and expanded upon it giving their opinions and criticisms. A way that I can make my campaign similar to this is provide enough facts that people might want to include in a science project or even just write something like my campaign to convince others to care about the CRISPR. They may even find our groups presentation so fascinating that they post about it on their social media accounts.

Reading about the rhetorical velocity and the composing for strategic recomposition made me think a lot about my campaign and gave me some ideas on how to improve upon it.

In order to draw the reader’s attention, a text must have both good design and accessibility. A good design efficiently portrays the text’s purpose to the reader and, as a result, is able to accumulate more interest in the public eye. Since both good design and accessibility are extremely vital to a successful writing piece, they are frequently integrated into both print and digital texts. Within these texts, various stylistic details are applied in order to improve the design and, altogether, effectiveness of the piece. One of these principles is the use and depiction of relevant images to accompany text. When an image is not utilized in context, it draws away from the message that the author is attempting to convey. Likewise, an inappropriately sized or placed image can also capture the reader’s attention more than the text itself. With a good design, an image should complement the text in order to strengthen the purpose of the piece. Another principle that is frequently used is the inclusion of white space. Though it may seem simplistic, white space can, ultimately, be the difference between an effective or ineffective text. White space is often used to separate the sections within a paper which retains the attention of the reader. Without the inclusion of white space, the text can become very distracting and the reader will get lost within the information presented to them. This can result in the reader becoming frustrated and turning away from the piece completely. Color is also an important design factor included in most texts. If an appropriate scheme is chosen, it can nicely complement the text. Certain color schemes, however, can become distracting and detract attention away from the primary message. When used correctly, color can tie the piece together and result in a cohesive text that gets its message across to the audience.

Accessibility and good design will share commonalities no matter what medium in which the text is presented. In fact, having a better design results in the information being more accessible to the reader. Proper headers, for example, improve the design of the piece while also making it easier to navigate. Park’s “Redesign” highlights that headers which are the same size and type font of the rest of the text have proven to be ineffective. The reader should be able to utilize the headers in order to identify the start and end of each section to more easily access the information. With no clearly established sections, the reader can become lost in the text and be unable to extract the information they were seeking. Therefore, proper headers are a prime example of how a good design correlates with accessibility. White space is another example of a stylistic choice that improves both the design and accessibility of a piece. White space, similar to headers, creates divisions between sections and makes the text easier to read. Large blocks of text can become tedious to read and will, ultimately, lead to the reader losing interest. White space alleviates the chaos that can occur when too much is placed into one portion of the text. By separating texts and images, the reader can discern what the most important information in the text is and the message it is attempting to convey.

Sometimes, good design does not always result in a piece being more accessible. Though color schemes can contribute greatly to the appearance of text, they can sometimes be a hindrance to its accessibility as well. The use of some colors can be distracting and not complement the material being presented, decreasing the effectiveness of the text. Usually, however, the colors are the stylistic choice that ties the text together to create a cohesive writing piece. Color can be used to underscore the more important information while also enhancing the overall design.

Attaining a balance between good design and accessibility is no easy task. White space should be used throughout the text but not in excess. Images should be incorporated but cannot be the piece’s primary focus. Color schemes should enhance the design of the piece but not to the point where it is distracting to the reader. Since there is no concrete answer as to what is the best way to balance design and accessibility, it is up to the author to decide. They should be able to identify their audience and cater to what they believe would fulfill their needs. For some audiences there may need to be more of a focus on design and for others more on accessibility but, ultimately, it is up to what the author believes will be most successful.

Good design principles are essential in any and all public media.  Most clearly, it is pertinent that the writer puts the most emphasize on texts that captures the document as a whole.  Depending on the type of public writing that is being done, this could mean a company’s name, a date of an event, or the title of the paper is bolded, in larger font relative to the body, or surrounded by white space.  Another commonality between good print and digital media is structure and concision. The body of the text should have a good flow to it, whether it is for a paper or an ad, and should use shorter words and sentences to directly get the point across in the quickest time possible.

Accessible texts and good design go hand in hand.  In the previous paragraph, I talked about a few principles that well designed media have in common.  Ironically, good media design is the way that it is so readers have better accessibility to the most important information.  Once the design is settled, the actual text may be put in, but the design is based around the actual text and what is most important.  Headers are larger than the body so the reader can see if they want to bother reading the body, and the most important information is surrounded by white space so the reader’s eye is drawn to it.  Park said that in text-heavy documents, readability should be the writer’s primary concern.  Here, it is utterly essential that the strategic use of white space, bolded and enlarged headers, and shorter text, possibly a column approach, is used.  The act of eye-drawing and the use of white space can easily be achieved in print and digital media.

Colors are also vital in the good design of media.  In the Basic Color Theory article, Harmony is described as the dynamic equilibrium between the blandness of extreme unity and the chaos of extreme complexity.  Our brains reject the information read when the media is on either extreme of the color harmony scale.  The blandness of color can also relate to the blandness of design.  For example, a long, text-based document with one font and little whitespace may be so mundane to look at, our brains won’t retain any of the text.  On the other hand, a crazy document with a bunch of different sized texts and fonts may be too much for our brains to handle.  An organized color scheme can help alleviate either extreme.

In general, I’ve come to the conclusion that the balance between good design and accessibility is not a 50/50 split.  It is more of a 60/40, in good design’s favor.  Although what the writer chooses to make accessible is most likely the reason for writing the piece, it cannot become accessible without good design.  I think the best choice the writer has is to sort their information separately, then combine.  In order to cut down time from the redesign process, organizing their thoughts and creating a template for their piece should be done separately, then putt the text into the template while prioritizing what the reader needs to see.  Good design, when done right, works in favor of accessibility.

The key to successful writing is due largely to the overall design of the written piece. Anyone can agree that certain images or paragraphs or headings can either add to the success of the piece or it can be its downfall. In “Redesign” by Park, guidelines are given so that you can follow through your written piece and redesign it into a more effective one. It is stated that in some cases even discarding your preconceptions can be a liberating experience and will allow you to start on a fresh idea. Park goes on to say that if you believe the document is nearly a success then you can clean it up doing away with the “overly-formal headline font” or “a cluttered-looking corner” and pinpointing the problem elements, deleting them, restructuring them, or replacing them entirely.

In the case of a newsletter, Park gives an example from a museum newsletter that goes through a simple, yet effective redesign. In the original, the headline is quite tricky to read since it is scattered around an odd cartoon dinosaur and the overall text seems boring to read because of its long, straightforward paragraphs. In the redesign, the newsletter is drastically improved; the dinosaur is more realistic, the headline is bold and straight making it easier to read, the headlines are clearly seen in the left margin to catch the reader’s eyes. To me, this redesigned newsletter is successful because of its use of white space in the left margin as it opens the page up and provides an adequate place for the museum’s logo. White space is as important in writing as the words themselves. If you had a book or magazine or pamphlet with nothing but words filling up every inch of the paper, nobody would read it. With the appropriate use of white space, the reader’s eyes are guided through from headline to headline and paragraph to paragraph without losing track of where they are. An effective use of white space can make or break writing.

Print texts and digital texts share a few commonalities between them when it comes to “good” design principles. Both kinds of texts utilize white space and various colors for their specific kind of design they’re going for. In my opinion, digital texts use better design principles because I am more of a visual person so when I am able to see the colors, graphs, pictures, links, headlines, etc. displayed for me in an effective way I will understand the meaning better. When it comes to commonalities between accessible texts and “good” design, the use of white space as stated previously is a shared trait. White space can act as a buffer between sections of a passage or even break up large paragraphs into smaller, easier to read ones. This can improve the readability of the document and increases the accessibility. In the white space, the author’s use of headings can greatly improve the design and accessibility by catching the reader’s eye and introducing readers to new topics.

One of the most powerful tools used in design is color. When color is used in perfect harmony, it can be a pleasing effect to the document and allow the reader to visually experience the words they read. The correct use of color could make the reader see certain images, feel specific emotions, or just make the document look nicer allowing for a more accessible read. The balance of white space and color comes at the expense of the author’s doing and can be a powerful method in writing. For those with poor vision or attention span, colors may be the key to grab that attention for the reader so that they continue on and focus in on the meaning of the document.

While it’s easy to jump towards the idea that there is a big difference when it comes to print based documents and web based documents, they are far more alike than different. In general, when it comes to designing a document, there are a few major ideas that the writer should adhere to. Park mentions a few including an intuitive reading process, emphasis on the most important areas, consistency, and focus. For both digital and print texts, the design of the paper can play just as large of a role as the material within it. This seems like a backwards policy, but it’s very similar to the idea of politics. If a president running for office was always well put together, and spoke in a way that that captured and held the listeners attention, one would be much more willing to look past some flaws in the candidate’s ideals than if the candidate did the opposite. The same goes for digital and printed texts. When I open a website or a book looking for information, if the design is boring or hard to read I will often try another site or, in the case of a printed text, I would just google it. While they may differ on specific things because of their general functionality, digital and printed texts need to be aware of the same general design guidelines.

The idea of accessibility, while it may be very similar to proper design, has a few aspects that make it a standalone issue that every writer needs to address. For most writing, these concepts go hand in hand. A properly designed text, for example, should be easily accessible for all readers. This is because one of the major ideas within design is an “intuitive” reading process. Therefore, accessibility should be a consequence of design. It should not, however, be the other way around. If a writer writes the paper to be solely accessible, they can easily make major design flaws that hinder the documents effectiveness. For example, if a company put out an ad for their indoor trampoline park, but only focused on the organization of the material, the ad would become boring. While it would be easy for the parents to find the information they need, it would be lacking when it comes to grabbing their attention. If the company were to focus on design first and made it fun and exciting, they could then adjust it later to also be easily accessible.

When it comes to overall design and accessibility, the idea of color playing a large part in the texts success seems a little weird. When it comes down to it, however, the choice in color can have an immense effect on how the piece is received. One of the major challenges with this that isn’t found with other aspects of design is that color can change heavily depending on its source. For example, when color is used on a digit document, a certain color combination may work perfectly on the screen its being created on but, once it is opened on a different screen, it may clash heavily. Because of this, a writer needs to be careful with their use of color throughout the document to ensure that it is accessible to anyone regardless of the platform its being viewed on.

When it comes to creating the final document, there are numerous things the writer needs to be cognizant of in order to produce a graphically successful piece. Each piece needs to work together to ensure a good reception for the document because if anything is off, even if a color scheme is slightly clashing, it could ruin the document in the readers mind.

Good design of text and incorporation of images is essential in public writing, because it can strongly influence the reader’s perception of the message. A lot of thought must be given to the format of the piece to ensure that it is effective by being accessible to all people including those with disabilities. Often in both digital and print forms of communication good design and accessibility go hand in hand. The presence of white space, clearly defined headings, and a well-structured system of columns based on the for of text allow for easy understanding of the material being presented for everyone. The same general guidelines of organization of public forms of writing should be followed for both print and digital media, but digital media often is more complex due to incorporation of links and video messages to support the text and images.

Whether the reader is intentionally focusing on the layout of a piece of writing or not, it strongly influences their experience of the message. This was well communicated by Parker in “Redesign”, where he compares different forms of written communication before and after the layout is changed to a more effective one. Unnecessary clutter and poor blending of images with text makes a piece harder to navigate and can lead them to becoming disinterested in the reading or turn them away from reading it in a first place. The public is unlikely to stop and read a flyer, or reluctantly agree to taking a customer satisfaction survey, or become interested  in an advertisement if it is unpleasant to look at and does not “promote readability.”

Color is also another major feature of media that leaves a big impression on the audience regardless of whether they are trying to pay attention to it or not. Color has a very interesting way of provoking certain emotions and stimulating ways of thinking. The only issue with color is that not everyone is able to perceive it equally. People with colorblindness or low vision will not be able to experience documents that utilize color the same way a general audience can. Therefore, this must be taken into consideration when color is incorporated in media. It should definitely always be considered, but the document must not be fully dependent on it so that it can still be accessible for people who are incapable of perceiving the color the way it is intended.

In modern communication good design and accessibility often need to be worked out in the design of mobile sites. Almost all heavily used sites now have a mobile site or an app that has significantly different features than those of a normal website intended to be viewed on a desktop. This is extremely relevant in the design of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter where updates are made every few weeks in order to improve experience of use of the sites on mobile devices. Every time one comes out generally the public will complain for a day or two then immediately begin to adapt to the new change, because often they do end up making the site more accessible for a phone.

Although in some cases  accessibility can be an inconvenience for certain designs, a design cannot really be considered effective if you are eliminating a whole segment of the potential population of readers by not making the format accessible for them. Accessibility is all about reassuring that anyone in the public can be able to understand a message being communicated to them regardless of whether they are a part of the intended audience.

 

The general principles of good text seem to be common to both print and digital text.  These general principles can be generalized to the following five points:

1.     Finding a way to emphasize important parts of the text.  This can be done via headers and font types and sizes

2.     Using concise and clear wording.  Both print and digital texts emphasize avoiding redundancies in wording, and getting to the point of the message with the least amount of words possible.  This was especially evident in the alternative text mentioned in the web design page.

3.     Showing a theme of unity throughout the text.  A uniform style and tone throughout the text helps the reader absorb the entire message.  This was shown in Park’s text through the dinosaur design on the newsletter.  The graphic included was a childish dinosaur image, but the text layout was something similar to a serious research article.  It was explained how this could confuse the reader, making the reader flip between thinking they were reading a serious article or a fun one.

4.     The use of white space was also emphasized in both articles.  It can either detract or enhance the reader’s experience, as white space is used to break up the text.  It is important to include an appropriate amount of white space so as to avoid cluttering the space and distract the reader.

It is also important to note how design differs between print and digital texts.  Digital texts are not limited in space or material.  Color, hyperlinks, and videos can all be incorporated into the design without limiting factors like cost and space.  Print texts are limited in this respect, and so must be even more concise. 

Accessible text principles can be applied to both print and digital media.  Print and digital media, although in different mediums, both serve to convey their message as effectively as possible.  The article on accessible text was written with the basis of being applied to a website, but that is not to say these same principles aren’t meant to apply to print. 

 

White space is a key concept mentioned in the article, but it is also entirely relevant to print media as well.  Overwhelming a reader with a jam-packed and cluttered print text will detract from the purpose of it, regardless of what that purpose is.   

 

Color can be incorporated into accessible design, but must be done so tastefully.  Contrasting colors are a good way to place emphasis on certain areas of a piece.  Color schemes can include using complementary or analogous colors.  Incorporating color into a piece can add an exciting and attention grabbing component, and if incorporated appropriately will add to the pieces overall success.  It is important to also realize that too much of any one thing can become a bad thing.  Incorporating too much color can result in an experience that is ’ so chaotic that the viewer can’t stand to look at it”, so finding an appropriate middle ground is key.

 

Overall, the balance between accessibility and good design is one important to achieve.  Good design helps engage the reader, but accessibility helps the reader to get the most out of the given piece.  Finding a balance between the two will help ensure the reader engages in the entire piece, while also absorbing the entire message the writer hoped to deliver.