It’s easy to consider digital rhetoric and writing in terms of always-advancing computer technologies. This isn’t inaccurate, and keeping our fingers on the pulse regarding the rhetorical affordances of new software makes for innovative digital writing, research, and pedagogy. At the same time, however, it’s helpful to remember that digital rhetoric is more than what’s … Read more
Are you reading this blog post from computer screen or an screen reader? Did you need to adjust the font or text size, screen brightness, or filter the interface through a browser extension or rely on an app like Accessibility to access this information? In her entry on “Access” in Keywords for Disability Studies, Bess Williamson … Read more
Source image: The Most Misleading Charts of 2015 Fixed on Quartz To some students and readers, one of the rhetorical effects of data visualization is that the mere presence of a pie chart, graph, or timeline on a page confers “legitimacy” to an argument. At worse, this gesture attempts to obfuscate weak evidence. At best, … Read more
The DWRL’s new recording room saw its first action in the Overdubbing Audio Workshop held this past Friday. Will Burdette was at the helm, and he began by instructing participants on both audio recording equipment and strategies, with particular focus on recording in studio environments. He then provided those present the opportunity to record in … Read more
Visualization: Sierra Mendez. Text: Amy Tuttle. It’s hard to believe that at one time, map ownership was a privilege reserved for the wealthiest members of a society. But thanks to modern surveying techniques and satellite systems, highly precise maps are widely available on the internet. As a result of this ubiquity, maps have become absolutely … Read more
Last Friday, the DWRL hosted another workshop in preparation for the digitally accessible map we plan to create for our diverse student body. In conjunction with a discussion of collecting and analyzing data, Amy Tuttle provided an excellent lesson on Tableau, an online service that allows users to re-present data in creative ways, like this visualization of the relationship between the numbers of students enrolled and doctoral degrees earned by Reinhard Mueller, one of our staff members.
One of my favorite data visualizations concerns the Beatles. Created by Adam McCann from Dueling Data, the graphic, amongst other things, lets the user hover their computer cursor over illustrations of band members to see how many hit songs those members have written and when. I find the visualization memorable, no doubt, because I find … Read more
We are interrupting our usual broadcast of highly-fluent research narratives and pedagogical concerns to address an issue of practical import. Many curriculums now require a segment on visual literacy and infographic assessment (understandably, with the daily assault of information-rich images on web and other media sources), but this is quite a challenge for instructors who … Read more
Team Data Visualization is proud to present a set of lesson plans that are ready to use in your classroom (networked or not). Whether you’ve been thinking about introducing a data visualization lesson of some kind, or have no idea what that would even look like or how it would fit in a writing classroom … Read more
In today’s #TBT post, we showcase an episode of the DWRL’s rhet/tech podcast Zeugma. “Multimediating” considers the productive forms of risk and failure that come with introducing audio assignments into university writing courses. In the episode, Dr. Rita Raley, Associate Professor of English at the University of California-Santa Barbara, talks to our staff about tactical … Read more