Entry #7 Respond to Butterick's Practical Typography

By Zoe

I agree with the author that typography is important for our text. And I appreciate that the author uses the example of “butterfly ballot” to tell us the importance of the typography since election is a very important thing in America. When I read “what is typography”, a question arises. Besides the difference between photographers and typographers that photographers play with photos while typographers play with text, are there any other differences between these two types of work?

       Readers are really important for writers and it is they who make the job of writers more meaningful. In order to draw readers’ attention, we should pay attention to typography. I like the compare and contrast between job interview and the typography. Very impressive.

       I think this book is really helpful and interesting. While I was reading, I didn’t feel bored and it interested me all the time. The typography in this book is also attractive. The book itself shows the idea of typography.

Entry 6 respond to Edward Stanton's video lecture and the infographic

By Zoe

Respond to TEDTalk and the infographic

I think the video lecture and infographic are both dynamic, but video lecture is more dynamic than the infographic. The video lecture moves on all the time. If you don’t understand something in the video lecture and you stop it to look up, it may interrupt your understanding. The lecturer’s speed, intonation, emotions and so on also affect your understanding. In addition, you will not know what the lecturer will talk about next. However, in the infographic, you can grasp the main ideas easily and at the first glance, you may understand the content. You can look at the infographic for 5 minutes to totally understand it while you should spend at least 20 minutes in the video lecture to ensure what content he’s talking about. Therefore, I think the infographic is easier for me to comprehend. The infographic is the representation of the video lecture. We don’t leave out important points.

As for the enjoyable experience, I agree that the video lecture gives me lots of fun. If it is easy to understand and I have much time to watch it, I will choose to enjoy the video since the jokes there makes me relaxed and learn some other things.

Changing the medium of data somewhat changes the purpose of showing the data. Since the purpose is different from one medium to another, the audience must be slightly different. For example, the data represented as the infographic is aimed to make it easy to understand for people who are busy but eager to the data. The audience for a video lecture is people who have time to sit down and enjoy the lecture.

In our lives, many things can be quantified, even us human beings. For example, we can analyze our mood through collecting, visualizing data of ourselves. Thus, our mood is quantified. In the video lecture, things can be quantified. Edward collects data, uses it and even creates the data while the data pushes, encourages him as well.

Entry 5-my analysis of infographic

Zoe

http://www.myenglishteacher.eu/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/plagtracker-dark-and-light-side-infographic.jpg

Dead End of Plagiarism-----A story of two lives

1) Outline the infographic essay

Introduction: It is a story of two lives performed by two different types of people at different life times.

Body: a. One man wrote an A+ term paper for graduation while another copied one.

b. The person who wrote his paper had a really good life while the person copied one was discovered that he copied his term paper and his political career was over.

          c. One had everything while another lost everything he had.

Conclusion: Think twice before plagiarizing. Sometimes it costs your life.

2) Provide the Rhetorical Situation of this essay

Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to warn/persuade college students not to plagiarize; the consequence will be severe. Also it is telling a story about two lives.

Audience: The audience is mainly college students.

Stance: The author holds a serious, strong attitude against plagiarizing; Criticize people who cheat.

Genre: This belongs to short story genre.

Media/design: Online educational story. Text and pictures. The design is clear and easy to understand.

3) While you are only outlining the essay--not writing it word-for-word--you can still get a feeling for what this essay would look like. How is the infographic different from the traditional essay you outlined?

The infographic is simple but vivid with few sentences and many pictures while traditional essay is full of words, which makes you tired sometimes. This infographic tells a story by comparing and contrast two characters with pictures which give audience a clear outline what’s going on. However, traditional essay uses words to tell you the story. Infographic and traditional essays have different expression ways. For example, infographic may use facial expression to show the person’s feeling while traditional essay just says that the person is upset.

4) Strengths and weaknesses of the infographic: what does the infographic do better than the essay? What does the essay do better than the infographic?

Strengths: The infographic is simple and vivid and it gives us a clear outline of what’s going on. It can save your time at the same time, it makes you enjoy reading. With pictures explaining the main points, people of low education can also understand.

Weaknesses: The traditional essay is more serious than infographic. Since infographic is about the main points, it may leave out some important secondary information. Many people enjoy reading the traditional essays because they are integrated. Traditional essays leave imagination for people to think deeply.

 5) How does this qualify as an essay and not a series of pictures?

The author is explaining something while he/she also tells us why it’s important. The infographic has a theme to connect every picture and makes the pictures meaningful. It is combined by a series of pictures, but when these pictures all show the same theme/purpose consistently and analyze; it is regarded as an essay rather than a series of pictures.

Entry 4---respond to "Searchin'" by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson

In my eyes, DJGuestlove changing from Web 2.0 to Web 1.0 doesn’t influence the content for us to read. What it matters is that the format of Web 2.0 is more attractive towards readers. And people who post the essay may find it difficult to see others’ feedback if they don’t provide it proactively. Thus, whether we miss some aspects or not from Web 2.0 to Web 1.0 for DJGuestlove depends on the purpose of the providers (just provide the information or want some feedback at the same time).

Since DJGuestlove is shown in infograph, it is interesting as well for us to read it even it belongs to Web 1.0. Infograph has magic power to attract people’s attention because 90% of information enters our brain visually. Since the image is obvious and interesting to make us willing to read, when we read it, we may have sense of satisfaction. This is what we gain I think. Imagine when you are going to read a long article and what your feeling is at first or in process. In my eyes, it cannot be denied that since the image is so obvious, most times we lose our imagination. When we read a traditional essay, we can imagine the scene and details to help us understand. This is what we lose.

If you want to create an infograph, I think the first thing is to read the article and understand it deeply. Only in this way can you understand what the important part of the article is and then you can show it to readers. However, we all know that an infograph cannot show every detail in the article, so details may be the things to be left out.

When I look at DJGuestlove, the first thing I notice is the man on the infograph. I observe his facial expression and action etc. for a while and then I understand this article is about music. See, how infograph can be helpful!

By Zoe

Entry 3----Response to Roper DataMinerRomance

        I want to respond “Roper DataMinerRomance” from two aspects, content and form.

When it comes to its content, I think it’s useful. Finding love isn’t easy online but there are ways for us to do it. We should edit our hobbies, photos and features according to our audience. But editing these things isn’t easy since we all want to be outstanding. It is natural that everyone wants attention, but how? Following steps here gives what we want by illustrating what our audience wants. WIRED focuses on details and groups people in detail like gay and straight male.

As for the form, I like the way WIRED shows. They use both words and pictures to make it vivid and easy to understand. This form draws people’s attention; however, in punk’s time, this form may be regarded as “low culture” somewhat. Because fusty people may think if you want to explain something, just use words in the whole article. Using words along with pictures is an informal way and it’s against the tradition. In my eyes, sometimes we should be against the tradition to create prosperity because tradition is not always good.

By Zoe

Entry 2----------how Punk and Web 2.0 are related

How Punk and Web 2.0 are related

According to this article, the punk rock developed very fast. "In the 1960s and '70s, what was underground one moment could well become mainstream the next." This is exactly how the Web 2.0 developed. Since Web 2.0 has many possibilities, we cannot predict what will happen next accurately. Something impossible may be translated into reality next minute. Thus, they both focus on speed. No matter of Punk rock or Web 2.0, no one can control. People can contribute to them and develop them, but punk and Web 2.0 don’t belong to individuals. They are both social actually and they interact with people. I found the word “experimental” has been mentioned several times, so experiment is important to punk. Only experiment can tell us what’s next. This can be applied to Web 2.0 as well. We all know that Web 2.0 experienced many experiments during its process of development. Without experiments, it cannot develop so fast and well.

I don’t understand why Mr. Martin’s analysis of the intersection between avant-garde ideas and popular music treats punk as one example of “the refusal of technique”.

By Zoe