Hocks, M. E. (2003). Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments. College Composition and Communication, 54(4), 629–656. doi:10.2307/3594188
Hocks' research question is, what visual rhetorical devices are in play behind digital writing that mixes passive and active participation in consumption and creation, and how do these function in different contexts? She defines three terms to conceptualize the visual rhetoric discussed in her evidence: Audience Stance, Transparency, and Hybridity. Audience Stance is how a document creates a feeling of camaraderie with the reader and encourages them to interact. Transparency is how a document sticks to preconceived notions of print layout, web layout, etc. that the user is already familiar with. Hybridity is how the visual and verbal are mixed. She then uses these terms to assess an essay posted on the Kairos journal website, a paper for an ethnographic study put online, and a William Shakespeare website created by students who aimed to make a resource helping other students. She concludes that, through making web content and having it assessed by users, students learn best how visual rhetoric functions (as well as what works and what doesn't). This is a point for the 'learn by doing' school of thought. For my own research, Hocks' three terms are definitely now in my database, and will definitely help me assess the usability in the layout of the syllabi I've collected. I think this piece could help the class in a similar way- it's a vocabulary expander. A lot of these concepts can be sort of "felt" just by looking at a document, so having the correct terminology when it comes to actually discussing it becomes very handy very quickly.
Sullivan, P. (2001). Practicing Safe Visual Rhetoric on the World Wide Web. Computers and Composition, 18(2), 103–21.
The question this piece attempts to tackle is, 'what appeal does "safe" visual design have to students and teachers?' A lot of the sections' beginnings chronicle Sullivan's personal experience, both as a professor, and as a colleague to those who write professionally for a living. She'll give a small story, follow it by explaining how a trend towards "safety" played a role in the design happening in the story, and after that, explain what rhetorically drives the trend while generously padding with the names of the researchers whose data confirms her observations and the data they published their work. Sullivan concludes that there is no accurate yardstick for what is "safe" or "good" design. Every situation is contextual and dependent on taste on the web, and quite often, most design principles that aren't explicitly based in rhetoric don't concern themselves with rhetoric. She advises that design and rhetoric come together more often, and believes that fruitful theories for how to write "Safely" on the well will emerge from there. A lot of my sources are digitally rendered, and so I was hoping this would be a little more relevant, but unless I pull multimedia syllabi (not unlike Shelley Roderigo's Google Doc "Schedule") into my thesis, I'm not sure I can use too much from this one. That said, I certainly hope someone from the class can used the contents of this article for their project!
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