Dear Professors Sless, Friedman and Rust,
> on 9/3/03 2:20 PM, Susan M. Hagan at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>> If I include visual information within the body of the text, which I do,
>> I may run the risk of not always being taken seriously.
Professor Sless writes:
> I think part of the problem you raise is an historical/technical one.
> There is, however, a much more profound issue and that
> is to do with deeply held views about the relationship between thinking,
> words, speech, writing, and images. To discuss that would take us off on
> a very interesting tangent.
Yes, I agree. I think Linda Flower and John Hayes (1984) addressed this
issue a bit when they wrote about "multiple representations of knowledge."
If the conventional wisdom says we only know what we can explain in words,
they made the opposite case. Even though they were looking at some of the
reasons writing can be so difficult, they began their argument by pointing
out that words are not the only way we know.
I would be interested in knowing about any other work related to this
concern. I've looked at Mayer (2002), Schnotz et al (2002), and Levin
(1987) who address the issue of images as aids to text, but I don't know of
other sources on multiple representations.
Thank you for this information on Hoffman.
Professor Friedman writes in responding to Professor Rust:
> This issue forms the core of an interesting article by chemist and
> Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffman (2002) titled "Writing (and Drawing)
> Chemistry."
> Hoffman's (2002: 30) discussion of how to report chemistry research
> notes "that it is impossible to write chemistry without drawing
> molecules."
Professor Sless writes:
>
> There are, however a number of people in the information design field who
> have done some quite remarkable work in bringing text and images together
> in a discursive mode. Robert Horn's work is particularly notable and has
> received quite a lot of public attention. Have a look at
> http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/
Thank you for this. Yet another thing I didn't know about.
>
> Cumulatively, this work helps towards legitimising the integration of text
> and images in 'discursive practices' (to use the jargon).
Yes, and when you add to that, the limitations of text (Jackendoff, 1995)
and the limitations of the image (Gombrich, 1982), it's surprising that so
many cling so tightly to old conventions. I should not be surprised though.
I was probably the worst offender when it came to a love and preference for
the visual.
(I also do apologize for my recent love of jargon. It's more of a love/hate
relationship.)
Thank you again for the link to Horn's work and to Hoffman's writing.
Susan
..............
Susan M. Hagan
Ph.D. Candidate Rhetoric
Student: Masters of Communication Planning and Design
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213
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