Quick Things (2-5 minutes)

Public domain and creative commons license, especially important for using images in your writing

Campaign for Circulation Proposal–push back due date? Answer questions?

For due date, let’s consider what we got going on through the end of April.

 

Introduction to Data Visualization (5-10 min)

Here’s the focus of our class so far:

1. Unit 1: Rhetorical aspects of data creation, collection, categorizing, etc. and its consequences especially as related to oppression
2. Unit 2: Communicating about analyses of data

In the second unit, we talked about, so far:

• Communicating Context
• Persuasion in terms of emphasizing/highlighting things (e.g., amplification, examples)
• Accessibility and Design

We have mostly focused on alphanumeric writing without an explicit focus on images (e.g., using examples, amplification in writing, quantitative comparisons in writing).

Now, we are going to spend some time explicitly on data visualization in today’s class, next week, and a few other classes here and there (e.g., 4/28 we will do a workshop on Tableau’s visualization software led by Letycja).

We will explore:

• How visualizations tell a story about your data (visualizations can be more efficient in telling non-linear stories!)
• How visualizations can communicate non-intuitive information
• And ethical issues with visualizing data–How do you compose visuals ethically? Ways to misrepresent your argument or data? (e.g., scales on axes, choices of comparisons, units of measurement)…you’ll find similar issues as we have dealt with in prose, but there are also new problems here, as well.

 

Tables (20-30 min)

Today, we are going to talk tables. Next class we will get into charts and figures as well as some non-traditional data visualization techniques.

On Blackboard>Course Documents>Resources Unable to be Posted on Website, there is an article from Research in the Teaching of English with the file titled as “RTE Article for Tables Examples.” Skim the sections to get a sense of what the article is about.

Be prepared to answer the following: What is the function of each table? What does one table do that the other tables do not do? How do they contribute to your reading experience?

Let’s fill out what each Table does on this Google Doc.

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Table 6

 

 

Questions to ask yourself if you make a table and integrate writing with the table:

• What is your table? Is it a database (i.e., something to “look up” information rather than makes or contributes to an argument–which is fine for a text where this makes sense as a function, like some government reports or factbooks)? Or does it bring together information surrounding one topic or sub-topic relevant to the flow of your paper?
• What is the order or organization? How does it mirror your writing?–alphabetical, high/low, theoretical/argumentative, order of questionnaire, etc.
• Are you referring to the table? How so? And when?
• What is your title? Does it name each of the major components of the relationships in your table (e.g., the variables, how you are comparing the variables, the key statistics)?
• Are there layers to the information you are reporting where you’ll need to use things like spanners, stubs, indentations? For instance, see: Graphing -Designing Tables (ncsu.edu)
• Do you need to note things at end of table to reduce confusion and increase likelihood that table can stand on own (e.g., notes about symbols for various statistics like statistically significant at a certain alpha level, expanding on definitions of column titles)?
• What design and accessibility concerns do you need to address? (e.g., would colors or shading help draw attention in helpful ways?)

A table, like prose and like other figures, is emphasizing something. Some pattern or something notable in relation to the overall story you are telling. What is included and why?

Making a Table

To make a table in Google Docs:

Add and edit tables – Computer – Docs Editors Help (google.com)

To make a table in Microsoft Word:

Insert a table – Word (microsoft.com)

 

Workshopping A Paper (30-45 minutes)

I wanted to take a look at one of your drafts. Lots of good stuff in your drafts! Hopefully you are using some feedback from me and your classmates to move your drafts forward.

The paper is on Blackboard>Resourcse Unable to be Posted on Website>Student Paper April 7.

I wanted to read a white paper from one student to talk about:

• Using Examples
• Using Visualizations Integrated Into Paper
• Communicating Context and Clarifying Data-Based Claims

As you read, I want you to do similar things as you did in peer review:

• things you found important and exciting in the argument from a “big picture” perspective
• sentences or phrases you found beautiful or particularly impactful
• places that you doubt or don’t understand as potential cuts or revisions as well as places to expand or revise as places that are working but could use a push in a more sophisticated direction
• Especially consider: anything especially notable to how they used examples, their visualization, and communicating contextual information

After reading, write down an answer to what you thought the “big picture” of the piece was: “This seems to be about ________ because ________” or “The focus here is about _________ and _________, right?”…stuff like that.

 

Next Time

-Think about how tables might be useful for DDA, if you want to use a table as a visualization or not.

-Think about things like examples, communicating context, and other things we talked about with the paper we workshopped today.

-Keep working on DDA draft (due April 14)

-Work on Campaign for Circulation Proposal