While reading through this article, I found it to be extremely helpful, though I have learned a lot of this in a classroom over the years. It really help to clarify many points and to give the proper demonstrations that are needed. It touches points on all different types of graphs as well as the different types of ways to present a presentation by using the proper headings, the typography and more. It was a reliable article to go through.

Out of all the charts this is the one that holds excellence over them all. It helps to make each point along the way and to make it clear what is going on to the audience. It can be used to share how the flow of a project can work step by step.

https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/landing/flowchart-creator?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=flowchart_creator_bmm_unitedstates&gclid=CjwKEAiAyanCBRDkiO6M_rDroH0SJAAfZ4KLtWa-NDj2HNd7lME2ew7G5NQOAhjR46SIOPBInZNQShoCyTHw_wcB

Bar graphs are just like line graphs with their comparative relationships and show of data. it really is just a preference when it comes to which one you want to use and also what will work better to show your information.

Line graphs can be very helpful in presentations when you need them. They help to make your data concise and clear and shows the work that was put into the presentation. It can also help to clarify past information to match with current data that was found.

This is definitely something that I wish I had known when I was younger when it came to bringing in visual content for presentations. I was never sure what I needed to use for the visual content. Once I got into high school it became more clear what was needed to bring the extra detail to the presentation and that was to make sure that it helped the audience to understand what they were looking t and for it to give clarity.

This clearly shows why these headers are ineffective. It doesn't make it clear what the headers are in this example and there is no way to know how the information is being distributed to the audience.

Here is an example of how to use headers in essays: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/04/how-to-use-five-levels-of-heading-in-an-apa-style-paper.html

In an essay, headers are useful and like they said help the reader to navigate the essay so that they know what is coming up next in the article. For a group project of mine we had to write out a grant proposal to send out to foundations for a non-profit organization. it really helped to have the headers go along with it so that the foundation understood where the proposal was going.

Visual aids have great importance in a presentation. Without them it doesn't help for your audience to understand what is going on. Headers, and large fonts are important also and do not have so much information to distract them.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/typography The definition of typography is the style, arrangement, or appearance of typeset matter

Information graphics or info graphics are extremely helpful when you want to get information across to others in a fast and easy way. You can also create a presentation with them. A great website that I use is Piktochart.com It is very helpful and useful.

These questions are important with any information display because they force you into the audience perspective. This perspective is important for the troubleshooting phase.

Largely, I disagree with this sentiment. Granted, it's understandable if there are a few interactive pieces that are particularly important to keep protected. However, for the most part it would solve a majority of issues if your poster was put together by the time you reached the site. That way you only need to worry about immediate issues and solutions, if something goes wrong.

Creating a storyboard allows you to "play test" your design and allow troubleshooting before final product. If you can manipulate the pieces, then you can come up with several different design strategies.

These are good points for presentations, such as PowerPoint, as well. Consider large presentations with similar limits as posters.

This design tool is considered self-explanatory for the modern English student, but many websites and other information displays need to recognize information priority and make it clear for readers to understand at a glance.

Look at the organization of these slides for examples of contrast. There is a difference in color and boldness to highlight titles, while also a difference in indention to create a sublevel relationship of the text (meaning that readers know that the indented, lower level text is supplementary).

Repetition can be used to create groups by using fonts that correlate with organization (similar to creating headers, ect with the same font and size), colors, layouts, and orientation of columns and rows. There are many subtle ways to use repetition to create subconscious relationships and to create readability. Consider the obvious uses of repetition, as well (including buzzwords).

A quick guide as a reminder to the fundamentals discussed in an earlier annotation.

White space is imperative for visuals because they need the entire focus of the eye. If there is too much crowding, then the audience will be overwhelmed and may lose focus on your topic.

Captions are smaller than your standard text, so it is a great option to help readers get reference for your visual. It's often helpful to keep audiences on track

When considering a map, prioritize the space you must cover. If there is too much material to process, maps lose their relevance to the topic. Using subsections to effectively zoom in are intelligent ways of addressing location while focusing on the specific area(s) you're discussing.

Venn diagrams are great for non vocal presentations because they allow the reader to play with relationships and understand the variations of them. However, Venn Diagrams are not easily lent to vocal presentation because the audience will want the freedom to read the diagram as they prioritize specific relationships instead of following the speaker's path through the diagram.

Diagrams can be tricky to portray in terms that an inexperienced audience can quickly (and easily) understand. I think the example in this presentation is a perfect example of how diagrams are more of a specialized version of communication. This seems to be particularly true about dimensions that require contextual knowledge.

Deciding what the table says before creation is great inspiration for concise titles and priority centered organization.

As Dragga points out, this relationship representation is sacred to readers and it is unethical to manipulate graphical representations of relationships to persuade audiences.

Lynda Tutorials for Dreamweaver

Lynda Tutorials for powerpoint

Vast amounts of tutorials

Having visual material purely to have it, is a serious mistake. It lessens your ethos as speaker, and potentially distracts the audience. Visual material should have relevance to your audience about your topic, and should be addressed. If you don't plan on making your visual a valid piece of your information compilation, it does not belong in your representation of information.

This section is made up of an incredibly important realization about headers. There is a way for descriptive headers (A and B level headers) to exist without being exhaustively long or too general. With a proper summarizing header, you're allowing your audience to digest your information completely by telling them what the message is. This helps readers focus on your message and its relationship to the topic, rather than deciphering text walls for meaning.

We discussed this in class in relation to our Service Learning Deliverable Packets. In the business realm, your document(s) have high likelihood of being revisited with the intent of quickly accessing a certain piece of information. With this being the case, you owe the readers navigational tools to utilize your information the easiest way possible. Efficient formatting for your information and a map for navigating that information is a good idea for dense information.

Presentation conundrums are issues for companies as the expectation of communication on social media becomes more urgent. There are benefits to being personable and relate able, but there are also the costs of losing the ethos of an established professional entity.

This is a basic theme of web design elements such as contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. The relationship of information to presentation is an ever important consideration within modern communication, where the goal is to communicate in the most efficient and relevant ways to your audience.

Visual content can also add relevant context to principles or points. This can be helpful when persuasive because it can connect your presentation to something established within your audience.

Genre options for communication professionals are rapidly expanding, many of which, as Dragga points out, don't have clear mandates as these genres have.

Readability is a growing trend of concern for Technical Writers who publish digital material. This includes how font is represented, from how it looks on a background to how the typeface is read.

These two relationships between representation and information are vital to Technical Communication, resulting in several areas of research regarding what authors can do to communicate effectively, like Dragga's article.

See Also:Multimodal Literacy

A technical writer needs to consider how the deliverable would appear from various perspectives, and how the message it is meant to convey may be changed by a factor like distance.

There are some situations where this is not a big concern. Often it is not important and even inappropriate to add garish aesthetics to a deliverable.

Italics can also be used to highlight key terms or phrases within a body of text. For example in literature if a word in dialogue is meant to be spoken with emphasis, it will often be typed in italics.

This is the primary goal of any from of technical writing. A technical writers main concern is to ensure that the information they are providing is clear, concise, and accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

This reminds me of the Kuleshov effect in film making wherein two unrelated images are edited together in order to create a single idea. the placements of information and other media in a single space creates a similar effect. The audience unconsciously associates two pieces of information when they are delivered in tandem. While this is a great way to organize information within a single piece of content like an infographic it can also be used disingenuously to associate two pieces of information in a way that favors a bias,

The use of a certain kind table in a situation where it wouldn't normally be used in order to better illustrate your opinion could also be considered unethical even if the information you are presenting is accurate.

Pie charts are great for pretty much any situations where you are trying to present the composition of an entire, single entity.

When you compare this graph to the previous graph, you see that it is not as effective when displaying changes in information over time, Graphs like this are however better for offering information for a single period. Interchanging these to graphs would be a great way of manipulating information if you were attempting to persuade your audience.

Line graphs are also a great way to provide information about a single figure's growth and/or reduction over time. Stock prices, for example, are not usually compared within a single chart, however, a line graph is still the best way to display stock price's movement over time.

This could possibly be considered unethical, depending on the situation. If you are delivering information on the understanding that that information is expository, and foregrounding information that favors a bias, then you are not acting ethically.

(Font) may looks are included, the most popular being Times New Roman.

Headings are also called level heads

Use you white space:

-the portion of the page that is blank can be filled with headings, margins, one and paragraph spacing, lists, tabs/indents, and columns.

-Contrast: Using different styles/fonts to distinguish information/elements -Repetition: Driving home a point, for example starting and ending a presentation with the same line -Alignment: Items that are related should line up in order to create overall coherence. -Proximity: Related items should be visualized close to each other -Color Scheme:

White paper is a type of report that has a clear purpose, audience, and organization about it.

Audience analysis builds information about your readers and discusses communication plans for complex audiences. It allows you, through questioning, to determine readers needs, values, and attitude.

This presentation is used to outline things such as headings, access, typography, and state in professional documents.

Aside from the content of a poster, the actually quality of the poster, such as whether it has bends, folds, or scuffs, can aid-or inhibit- the credibility of the presenter. As this article noted above, format and layout are especially import in order to maintain an authors credibility. For example, a letter from a university professor should include the university title as well as a standard business letter format and an appropriate signature. Similarly, if a professor used a poster board to present research findings at a seminar, he or she would be deemed sloppy, unorganized, and less credible if his or her poster displayed significant wear and tear.

I had never heard of the difference between sans serif fonts and serif fonts, but I find it interesting that sans serif fonts like Arial are more effective for headings, but not for body texts. Upon researching the difference further, I found that according to the blog Writing Spaces, sans serif fonts are often considered more "modern and clean," so their crisp style is often utilized on websites and other online texts. However, traditional "bookish" serif font is still easier to read when it comes to large bodies of texts like journal articles. To read more from Writing Spaces, click here: http://writingspaces.org/wwsg/serif-and-sans-serif-fonts

Although this goal is related to graphic design, I believe that all technical communicators should strive to create harmonious content through following the four basic principles of graphic design. For example, my resume, which we workshopped in class, is not a graphic document, but I have aimed to follow the same principles. For example, on my resume attached below, I have made an effort to keep related information in close proximity to each other. I have also aligned subpoints with indentations to indicate that they fall under the above text. Third, I have utilized repetition by presenting details with identical bullet points. Lastly, I have used contrast by bolding my headings, which makes it easier to recognize the different sections.

https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=Updated+Resume.docx

In "Rethinking Plagiarism for Technical Communication" the author discussed the difficulties that technical writing students have in understanding the nuanced interpretations of plagiarism within technical communication. I noted that the Creative Commons, which is also discussed in Writer/Designer: A Guide to Multimodal Projects, is an excellent source for finding visual resources through their collection of resources in which many, depending on their license, can be freely used without permission and without adhering to the fair use guidelines.

Throughout the service learning project, I have learned the importance of choosing visuals that aid the rhetorical situation. At Our House, Sabine expressed concern regarding trauma and PTSD that many of the residence face. That being said, we are keeping those concerns in mind as we create our signage, especially in choosing the images that we use . For example, one of the signs that I have been working on regards emergency safety. In order to stay aware of the trauma history of the shelter, I should not include any images of wounds, as many of the women may have experienced domestic violence.

Flowcharts are an excellent way to present information that includes a process or steps to be made, however some flow charts may be overly complicated, which distorts the presented information due to lack of readability. Here, I have included an example of a messy, complicated flowchart: https://s3.amazonaws.com/vetter/photos/102/continuous%20improvement%20strategies%20-%20complicated%20data%20flow.gif The flowchart is so overwhelming that I cannot see what information is being presented.

Oftentimes, technical communicators may be responsible for presenting data or findings of a researcher, or analyzing data. In this circumstance, it may be difficult to remain concise while clearly explaining results. When this happens, technical communicators should consider utilizing SPSS, which stands for "Statistical Package for the Social Sciences." SPSS is a software that I have used for statistical analysis in both Political Science and Sociology courses. With SPSS, users can take hundreds of statistical findings from research, imput an independent and dependent variable (x and y axis) into SPPS, and create an easy to read line graph. Here, I have provided an example of a line graph that displays the relationship between ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and grades. http://www.restore.ac.uk/srme/www/fac/soc/wie/research-new/srme/modules/mod4/13/spss_logistic_regression_graph_-_interaction_line.jpg Line graphs like this one are especially useful because it saves the audience from reading several paragraphs of complicated information.

Because visual content serves different functions, their utilization depends on the rhetorical situation. For example, in a peer-reviewed journal article for the Harvard Law Review, the primary visual aid that could be used, but still deemed appropriate for the content would be charts and graphs. In terms of design and layout, a peer reviewed article should also include a minimalist design that adheres to APA format, in order to ensure that design elements do not take away from the content and that the article itself follows the status quo of journal article format.

I believe that this is an extremely important factor of layout and format in technical communication that often goes unnoticed. I think that this is partially due to the way that students are taught to write academic essays. For example, when writing an argumentative essay with three main ideas, we are typically taught to present our two strongest ideas at the beginning and end of the body paragraphs, while squeezing less effective points in the middle. On the contrary, in technical communication it is most effective to place strongest points at the top or center of the document, as readers may become less engaged as they read towards the end of the document.

Attached is an information graphic or "infographic" on infographics. I find this one particularly effective because it utilizes several types of graphs and diagrams to display content. Although typical chart styles are used, the "key info" located in the bottom corner. I like this diagram because it utilizes an image of a key. In combining both a diagram and an image, the information sticks out to viewers.

http://www.brentcsutoras.com/2012/01/26/infographic-infographics/

I think the visual communication concept presented on page two is important and has been present even in a historical context. Visual components such as photographs, illustrations, and charts have been used in media as a means of communication for quite a while. One example that comes to mind is any political cartoon. I am not sure how long they have been used, but here is an example of a socio-political cartoon from 1802, James Gillray's The cow-pock - or - the wonderful effects of the new inoculation: This cartoon was printed in Britain during the time that Edward Jenner was developing his variola (smallpox) vaccine from components of cowpox pustules as a means to prevent further smallpox infections in the population. The cartoon highlights the controversy that surrounded the vaccine at the time.

I believe that visual components of communication are becoming more frequently used in today's society due to economical reasons: using visuals saves words and time. Today, a lot of people communicate via pictures. The pictures can convey emotions, satire (much like political cartoons), or ideas.

The cow-pock - or - the wonderful effects of the new inoculation. Gillray, James. (1802, June 12). Retrieved November 13, 2016, from http://library.artstor.org.ezproxy.gsu.edu/library/iv2.html?parent=true

University discipline would also affect this. Rules depend on what discipline your in, like how we use different style manuals depending on what major coursework we are completing.

Not only should your information be accurate, it should be sourced and cited as needed.

Typography is one of the important elements to consider when creating a poster. Another element to consider is alignment, because if you are presenting a research poster, you are more than likely to include a visual element and it is important to consider the best location to put the visual element. The key points or features included in the poster should be clear and concise. You should be economical in your word choice and use only words or phrases that will convey your point precisely as possible.

Another thing to consider with contrast and colors is accessibility. A percentage of men and women have red-green color blindness, which can make it difficult to discern colors within a document.

To read more about color blindness and the specific percentage of individuals affected, please visit the National Eye Institute (NEI) website: https://nei.nih.gov/health/color_blindness/facts_about

An important thing about introducing and explaining visuals: the text that introduces and explains the table should not be redundant. If a table includes data, your text should not merely repeat the data; the text should help the reader understand the tables' information or give value to the meaning of the data that is within the table. When I took chemistry at GSU, we had to create a lab report that included many data tables. For the textual component, we were encouraged to have a "discussion" of what the data meant, as in describe what the results meant in regard to the experiment, what the individual data points mean, what the differences between data points may mean, etc. Just summarizing data points for your reader doesn't really help them understand the purpose of the table. Like page 20 of this article says, the table (or any visual content) you use "should serve a specific purpose."

Purdue Online Writing Lab. (2016). INDOT Document Design and Presentation.

Or a map that illustrates dermatomes, or a region of the body in which a specific spinal nerve senses pain, pressure, and other external sensations. These types of maps certainly challenge the general geographical ideas that we learn as K-12 students.

An example is Physician and medical illustrator Frank H. Netter's dermatome map:

Taken from http://www.backpain-guide.com/Chapter_Fig_folders/Ch06_Path_Folder/4Radiculopathy.html

Diagrams are important in textbooks, especially those of the art and science disciplines. Diagrams usually have labels that give the parts meaning or define them in someway.

Are the words table and figure interchangeable? Is a figure different than a table?

It is important to make sure that tables are easily understood. Although it may be ideal for tables to be understandable on their own, sentences that elaborate the data found in the table are helpful, and as technical writers we should make sure that tables correlate with the information/research points within the paper or presentation we are working on.

Placement of tables is another thing to consider when creating a document. The table should probably be on the same page as the text that describes it. A lengthy table can be distracting and difficult for the reader to visualize as a whole. I think the table from the Dragga article we had to read was formatted poorly. It ran across multiple pages, and overlapped into text that wasn't explicitly talking about contents within the table; however, the table in question did not convey data, it illustrated the questions that survey respondents were given to complete.See figure 1 on pages 256-57 in Dragga's "Is This Ethical?" article.

Sam Dragga (1996). “‘Is This Ethical?’ A Survey of Opinion on Principles and Practices of Document Design.” Technical Communication 43.3: pp. 255-65.

As content creators, are we limited to using only these shapes to create a flowchart?

The percentages adding up to 100% is probably the most important thing to consider when creating a pie chart. Another element to consider is the colors you use for the slices of the pie. Also, if there are too many percentages within the pie chart, it might be difficult for your reader to interpret and another visual element might be better to use.

Headings usually use a distinctive typeface that sets it apart from other parts of the document, which makes it easier to navigate, like page 7 says. It is a good idea to cross reference the table of contents with headings to make sure that everything in the document matches up correctly.

This looks like a lab report that someone in a science like physics or chemistry might turn in. I say this because there is space for a numerical equation. The structure looks pretty "tight" so I would say that the document delivers technical information or research data to the audience. The information would be delivered formally and probably use formal and technical language that is discipline specific.

Page 4 utilizes typography elements within its descriptions. The font color is different shades, black and gray, and the most important elements are in bold typeface to catch the reader's attention the most and signal directives, like "click mouse to advance slide." To extrapolate this typography element idea, the act of highlighting passages and doing our annotation project can also be considered a typographical element, since the yellow highlight catches the reader's eye.