Tea time musings #1: What is a good document?

Fellow readers,

Time for our first cup of tea!

Today, I’ll be evaluating my Assignment 1 presentation slides, drawing comparisons between my group presentation and individual presentation.

Layout

Generally, the group presentation slide is driven by verbal texts, incorporating visual texts only when necessary, as portrayed in Figure 1. According to Walsh (2006), images offer unique aspects that words alone cannot satisfy at “…affective, aesthetic and imaginative levels”. Thus, by including images, the audience will feel emotions and form interpretations of their own which in turn personalizes the message. Therefore, visuals were added to the individual presentation to illustrate the main points, as displayed through Figure 2. Shriver (1997) classifies this relationship between words and images as supplementary in which one mode is more dominant, channeling the main content, while the other mode merely strengthens the dominant mode.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Though images can further the understanding of the dominant mode, it can also murder the true meaning of the dominant mode itself. Saltz (cited in Saville 2008) cautions that, “Sometimes words don’t apply to the image, or the other way round. They shoot each other in the foot instead of enhancing each other.” Hence, reference must be made to relate one mode to the other. Concerning the group presentation slide shown in Figure 3, no reference was made to relate the image to the text. To combat this, the individual presentation slide was altered, referencing the image as an example to the related points as depicted in Figure 4.

Figure 3

Figure 4

Additionally, typographic alignment enhances aesthetic elements. The texts in the group presentation slide were justified, leaving wide spaces between words known as “loose lines” or “rivers” as indicated with red arrows in Figure 5. Singer (2002) abhors this, suggesting that texts should be ragged to the side instead to make reading easier. Consequently, the texts in the individual presentation slide were ragged to the left margin as illustrated in Figure 6.

Figure 5

Figure 6

Technical writing

Rothman (2005) upholds that technical writing serves a specific purpose, any attempt to alter this style of writing risks losing vital information. With regards to the group presentation, technical terms were “watered-down” into lay terms, as highlighted in Figure 7, forgoing the true essence of the information. Thus, the individual presentation incorporated technical terms to retain its true meaning as bolded in Figure 8.

Figure 7

Figure 8

Above all, in a good document design, form has its function, as postulated by Wheildon (2005), “design is not, or should not be, mere decoration and abstraction, but part of the business of communication.”

References

Rothman, S 2005, What makes good scientific and technical writing?, Associated Content, viewed 24 April 2009, <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9447/error>.

Saville, L 2008, 100 habits of successful publication designers: insider secrets for working smart and staying creative, Rockport Publishers, Beverly, Massachusetts.

Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

Singer, D 2002, Ten steps to good document design, University of Alabama, viewed 24 April 2009, <http://www.uah.edu/colleges/liberal/english/shared/doc_des_singer.htm>.

Walsh, M 2006, “‘Textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, p.24-37.

Wheildon, C 2005, Type and layout: are you communicating or just making pretty shapes, 5th edn, The Worsley Press, Victoria.