April 12, 2022 Lesson Plan

Using Images–Visual Rhetoric (5-10 minutes)

To think about visual rhetoric is to think about how your choices in images, document formatting, color, etc. can have a wide range of influences on your audience.

You might include things in writing (or even without writing) like:

  • Tables
  • Charts
  • Illustrations/Figures
  • Maps
  • Photos
  • Infographics/Data Visualizations beyond Tables/Charts
  • Icons (e.g., a logo, a red octagon to symbolize stopping)
  • Elements of document design (color, font size, font type, lines/borders, spacing)
  • Video
  • What else?

To depict:

  • Objects (diagram of mechanics of a machine, natural photograph of a tree, etc.)
  • Numbers (statistics of company performance, etc.)
  • Concepts (flow chart, concept map, hierarchical chart for org, model of theory like CMAP model of communication in BWE)
  • Words (font, color, borders/lines, other elements of document design)

Tips:

  • Be purposeful: just like words, carefully consider audience needs and goal of document before choosing and composing a visual component. Redundancy is totally okay, but NOT if it is making your document too long.
  • Cite any reference to a visual you did not create. If not in public domain or under CC license, you should recreate if drawn from public data instead of copy/pasting.
  • If working digitally, consider possible formatting issues. Something pulled from a website or from a PNG or JPEG may not look the same in a Google Doc, Word file, or PDF file. Consider adjustments as needed.
  • More resources for finding and using images can be found on this resource page I made about a number of resources on images, audio, etc.
  • To create or edit images, get comfortable being uncomfortable in programs like Excel, Photoshop, InDesign, PowerPoint, Publisher, etc. Lots of tutorials online: YouTube, and free resources elsewhere that can help you learn as you go.
  • Be creative! People generally respond well to writing that has some images interspersed in a careful way. Always ask if there are ways to convert the more complicated parts of your writing into imagery somehow, or, to support parts of your writing with imagery that livens up your writing.
  • Don’t forget about accessibility! Always a good practice to use image descriptions, consider issues with color blindness, etc.

 

Charts/Graphs/Figures (20-30 min)

Charts = Graphs

Charts = Things with an “x” and “y” axis (and pie charts, and things like pie charts like maps with numeric information on top of it)

Figures  = Charts sometimes called Figures. Also includes Images or Illustrations of some kind (e.g., a model of a process, flow chart, photograph)

 

The Common Charts

These below links are useful for explaining more about the type of chart and how to make them in Excel. I also have ways to make them through a Google Colab notebook in Python, but we won’t have time to try that out today. It is addressed briefly in Learning Module 8. If people are interested, I can try to fit it in later in April or in early May.

Here, too, is a good tutorial on making charts in general in Excel: Create Charts in Excel – Easy Excel Tutorial (excel-easy.com)

 

Okay, let’s get started on what will be a review for most, but an important review so we think about the purpose of including these kinds of charts in our writing:

Pie Chart – to show proportions of categorical variables

Bar Chart – to show amounts of categorical variables

    • Simple
    • Grouped
    • Stacked
    • Segmented

Histogram – to show distributions of a numeric variable (See: Creating a Histogram – ENG 4950: Data and Writing Toward Social Change, Spring 2021 (cuny.edu))

Box-and-Whisker Plot – to show distributions of a numeric variable by using quartiles

Scatter Plots – to show relationships between two numeric variables

Line Chart – to show relationships between numerical data, usually over time

 

Chart Scenarios

You want to look at a distribution of one variable, what might you do for…

  • Proportions of a budget for your job or for the government
  • Distribution of SAT test scores

You want to look at a relationship between variables, what might you do for…

  • Rainy days per year, 2009-2018
  • Rainy days per year for each season (winter, spring, summer, fall)
  • Unemployment by month
  • Association between income of parents and income of children

On this Google Doc, write which chart you think would work best for each of these scenarios.

 

Adding Things to Charts (10 minutes)

If you create a chart in Excel or anywhere else, you will get default. But is that enough? What changes can you make? And why?

Here are some things to think about:

  • Annotations (e.g., notes that give more information about the chart)
  • Reference Points (e.g., highlighting a data-point to interpret chart information against…using color, a circle, etc. to point to a specific part of the chart that is important to compare against)
  • Lines (e.g., connecting different pieces of the chart together to highlight something or pointing to something…can be used in combination with an annotation)
  • Regions (e.g., shading or color to highlight a specific part of a chart…for instance, in a line chart about the economy over time, you could highlight a region of year that depict a recession)
  • Data Labels (this can help make reading charts easier as it gives the number right above, say, the bars in a bar chart or the section of a pie chart or the data-points on a line chart)
  • Legends (this can explain what each color or line or bar, etc. represents in a box on the chart)
  • Title (super, super important to help explain what is in the chart! All charts should be intelligible on their own, even if not fully contextualized in ways writing can help do…a good title explains the variables and what the chart measures in a direct fashion)
  • Axis Titles and Labels (a label for each axis helps explain what is plotted on those axes)
  • Color (can help distinguish between bars, lines, etc. to make things more readable–as we will discuss when talking about design and accessibility, though, the types of colors you use can make things harder to read at times).

This page explains how to make many of the above adjustments in Excel: Excel charts: add title, customize chart axis, legend and data labels (ablebits.com)

If you are not sure how to do something you really want to do, you can always reach out and I can help you.

Let’s look again at that chart about the gender wage gap. See image at this link (scroll down, first chart on the page).

Do the following in the text channel for today:

  • name elements from the above list of things to add to charts and talk a bit about what you think is effective or ineffective. Explain why.
  • name elements from the above list of things to add to charts that are not there but you think could be added to improve the chart. Explain why.

 

Let’s Draw (10-20 minutes)

Take out some paper. Take out pen, pencil, and/or something colorful (markers, colored pencils, crayons).

Think about your data. Think about your secondary sources that use data that could be visualized. What is the kind of thing you want to show your readers, either here in the Data-Driven Argument or later on in a campaign text for your Campaign for Circulation project.

What do you want to show? How might a chart help show that? How can you show that?

Let’s start with drawing. There is a lot of freedom in drawing as you don’t have to worry about what is technically possible with software. Let’s start here and use it for some more work we will do on Thursday.

For the remaining few minutes, sketch out a possible chart you might make for your second draft DDA or as part of a public campaign prototype for your CfC project.

Then, I want a few brave volunteers to take a picture and share on Discord or share your screen and hold up your drawing to show the rest of us.

 

Next Time (2-5 minutes)

-Bring in your drawing from today to class on Thursday!!

-Keep working on your Data-Driven Argument second draft + cover letter to turn in by end of day April 14

-Keep thinking about possibilities for your Campaign for Circulation