Sunday, November 26, 2006

Write good? AKMA on writing with pictures ::

AKMA's post Very Good and Write rightly focuses on focus, but (to my mind at least) carries good advice too far.

First the good advice, which I'm summarise as cave canem! Beware of the (shaggy) dogs. Everyone must agree that "just putting something out there doesn’t imply that it will contribute to getting a message across". Focus on the message to be communicated is indeed vital. When crafting words, I know I should follow his advice "don’t confuse and distract your readers with pointless, vague, superfluities" more than I do. (I am addicted to digression.) Indeed these wise words from a preacher (from the start of the following footnote) might beneficially be engraved on every screen:

We should, however, assess such indulgences with a pretty rigorous criterion of whether they contribute to communicating the greater message. (I’m looking at you, preachers who include irrelevant shaggy dog stories in your sermons.)

Yet, AKMA is not primarily writing about writing, or about speaking, rather the focus of his post is the use, in writing, of images. With this focus, I find myself less agreeable to the direction of AKMA's advice:

If what you write, or if the images you use for graphical communication, do not contribute to expressing clearly and precisely the message you’re hoping to convey — then don’t confuse and distract your readers with pointless, vague, superfluities.

What he says is true, but a partial truth. And partial truth is more dangerous, or in this case more stifling than arrant fiction. Certainly, images should not be added willy nilly, nor be pointless or superfluous. And yet the tenor of the advice is to resist strenuously the visual equivalent of a digression, to focus on images whose communication coordinates closely with the words'. How much depth and richness is lost when this advice is followed!

An image which "connects" to the text, yet connects obliquely, can so often encourage the reader (and all readers need such additional courage) to create new and added meaning of their own. While narrow and tightly controlled focus seeks to constrain readers to paths prepared in advance by the authoritative author!

So, for example, in my notes on the Genesis class' session on "Abraham's children (16 & 21)" I included in the sidebar images and text of Ishmael (see below) found from a Google search on the name. What exactly a reader makes of the implied connection between these modern Ishmaels and their ancient namesake I do not know, cannot know, but I suspect that their reading is richer for the side trip.

This Ishmael was (I believe) Technical Assistant in the Journalism Dept at Technikon Pretoria
http://www.techpta.ac.za/

I suspect there is a personality difference here, Barbara (and some of my colleagues) like (I suspect AKMA) prefer more ordered and orderly communication. They may be infuriated by my Ishmaelite style, but others (like me) delight in such invitations to imaginative play.

Labels: writing

¶ 2:24 AM

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Two answers: first, it sounds as though the more diffuse, provocative response is what you actually want. As such, if your readers ponder beyond some specific message-reception, that fits your hope in incorporating the images. I don't have a problem wtih that. (My objection involves what Edward Tufte calls “chartjunk,” the supposedly decorative elements that serve no informative purpose.) The arch-offenders are digital presentations that include images simply because they can, without regard to whether the images advance the presenter’s communicative purpose. So, “imaginative play,” huzzah!

Second, I felt a wave of apprehension when I spotted your examples. Cultural situations very, and I have no idea what reaction those images might engender in NZ, but I’m startled that you chose to illustrate the story of disfavored Ishmael with two images, the more prominent of which specifies that the subject is accused of child molestation and has a name that suggests Muslim identity, and the second of which is slightly optically distorted. In my own setting, I’d expect readers immediately to deplore my racial/ethnic insensitivity. There’s strong reason to expect that my readers would (for instance) interpret the juxtaposition of image and text as implying that Ishmael was [unfavorably] black, criminally harsh to young Isaac, with cartoonishly exaggerated features. I don’t expect that’s what you intended, but at least some of my colleagues and students would latch onto that aspect of the illustrated text in a heartbeat, and (in keeping with my original counsel) I’m inclined to try to head off that sort of [mis]interpretation.

By AKMA, at November 26, 2006 4:18 AM

By the way, I digress furiously, when I allow myself so to do. And proudly, for that matter.

But when I want not to digress, I take pains to avoid it.

By AKMA, at November 26, 2006 4:19 AM

AKMA, I did not at all mean to suggest that you are not a skilled and entertaining digressor. Rather to confess my own temptation to digress too often.

Like you I resent "chartjunk" and other forms of irrelevant visual distraction. I did though intend to illustrate that visual material can add depth that is not immediately "relevant" or whose relevance is not fore-ordained by an omniscient auteur.

However, it seems that due to cultural difference all I succeeded was in reinforcing your original point. A nice irony, and a text that neatly self deconstructs ;-) In my defence, and briefly I fondly imagined that my readers would notice the South African Black "Ishmael" who succeeded and created a useful life where one might have expected failure. (Though I suppose here in 2006 the "war on terror" is better known than the terrors of apartheid, wrongly or rightly.) So, thanks for the warning! Perhaps I should have used a different example. (I'll address the question of Arabic sounding names in a separate post perhaps...)

Although (as usual) we almost agree, I think there is a significant difference between writing (and included visual material) which majors on focus and on what the author intends and writing which seeks rather to open avenues for the reader to explore. Although I dislike "chartjunk" I would prefer to commit such a crime than to stiffle my readers' possible imaginative extension of their reading.

By Tim, at November 28, 2006 8:58 PM