About White Space It is well established that the visual structure of a document contributes to the viewer’s understanding and “design serves a rhetorical purpose” when “designers can control the usage of specific functions and critically engage in arguments” (Brumberger 14, Almeida 186). Today, white space is one graphic-design element that is a means of […]
Wiki Tag: rhetoric
Visual Rhetoric
About Visual Rhetoric Visual rhetoric is a way to examine the content of a page beyond its textual meaning. A document conveys meaning through text and language, but the arrangement of text on the page, along with visual elements like images and graphics, also impact its meaning and effectiveness. Visual rhetoric explores the relationships between […]
Weboric
About Weboric Every technology brings a new set of social, cultural, and political norms. Along with these new norms come communication changes, which spark the evolution of rhetoric over time. Although rhetoric has changed with each new communication tool, it took a giant leap for “web-kind” with the inception of the Internet. The Internet was, […]
Visual Literacy
About Visual Literacy Because texts derive meaning from several sources, several methods are necessary to understand a text’s overall meaning. Part of the meaning lies in its visual construct. The arrangement of elements on a page encourages readers to gather meaning in particular patterns. While texts often consist of several elements (e.g., text, graphics, images, […]
Rhetorical Theories
About Rhetorical Theories The study of Rhetoric can inform many aspects of Technical Communication. There are many different rhetorical theories, some of which are described here: Corporate E-Rhetoric Informal Electronic Rhetoric Legal Rhetoric Postmodern Rhetorics Visual Rhetoric Weboric
Postmodern Rhetoric
About Postmodern Rhetoric According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy, for something to classify as postmodern, it must possess “a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of […]
Legal Rhetoric
About Legal Rhetoric Legal rhetoric is a field that traditionally makes use of rhetoric to shape arguments, persuade individuals, and conduct its business. Trial rhetoric, in particular, can be usefully informed by the tradition of classical rhetoric that stresses the importance of ethos, pathos, and logos. The information provided might be helpful for someone writing […]
History of Rhetoric
The history of Rhetoric traces back to the classical Greeks and earlier. To provide taxonomy for this extensive period this section is divided into periods that are generally accepted by Rhetoric and Philosophy scholars, including the following: The Classical Period The Medieval Period The Renaissance Period The Enlightenment Period Nineteenth Century Rhetoric Modern and Postmodern […]
Gestalt Theory
About Gestalt Theory Gestalt is a psychological theory of perception developed by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka, based on the way the human mind creates complete structures out of incomplete elements. Gestalt, meaning “a unified or meaningful whole,” states that we perceive whole events rather than a series of individual ones. For example, […]
Gestalt Theory
The Gestalt theory is an approach that attempts to create a comprehensive understanding of how humans perceive images. The theory suggests “that we don’t just see edges, colors, brightnesses, and shapes — we see fruit, or a tree, or a dog. In other words, we experience what we see as a whole” (Kimball and Hawkins, […]