Connecting the Dots between Knowledge and Creativity

I believe that the Kohl et al. paper, History Now: MediaDevelopment and Textual Genesis of Wikipedia, addressed several fascinating concepts, but one of the biggest ideas appeared only briefly in the very last paragraph: “The basis of a culture of knowledge then, which is not only constituted with media, is fundamentally based on linguistic interaction, formed by the controversial process of text genesis. This way writing becomes a practice of knowledge construction” (178). This claim immediately caught my attention; after all, humans pride themselves on being “knowledgeable.” We want to be “in the know.” For example, our hatred of not knowing is blaringly implied in these everyday clichés:

·         Leave no stone unturned.

·         Live and learn.

·         You’ll never know unless you try.

·         A penny for your thoughts.

·         A little birdie told me.

Perhaps knowledge isn’t the focus of these sayings, but it certainly drives them along. This isn’t surprising—the words people say reflect the people, and people are driven by a thirst for knowledge. Why do you suppose we find religion and science in communities all across the globe? Because people want to know, and perhaps by knowing, they’ll find meaning.

But what exactly is knowledge? At first, I thought knowledge must refer to our internal “reservoir” of information and data. And yet, the more I thought about it, the more I began to feel that knowledge must be something more than just a collection of facts. According to a quoted work in a website I found:

Knowledge is derived from information but it is richer and more meaningful than information. It includes familiarity, awareness and understanding gained through experience or study, and results from making comparisons, identifying consequences, and making connections. Some experts include wisdom and insight in their definitions of knowledge. In organisational terms, knowledge is generally thought of as being “know how”, “applied information”, “information with judgement” or “the capacity for effective action” (Te Kete Ipurangi, emphasis added)  

Okay, this definition of knowledge seems to support the thesis that “writing becomes a specific means of knowledge construction” (Kohl et al. 177). One particular phrase in this description that I want to concentrate on is “making connections.” Kohl, Liebert, and Metten devoted their paper to the discussion of “connections” found in Wikis: the connection (to the point of dissolution) of the roles of author and recipient and the connection of multiple web pages through hyperlinks. In The Database andthe Essay: Understanding Composition as Articulation, Johndan Johnson-Eilola wrote that articulation theory can help us understand “writing as a process of arrangement and connection rather than simply one of isolated creative utterance” (202). One dictionary definition of articulation is “the state of being jointed,” or “hinged.” Basically, the articulation theory proposes that words make sense only in context of other words—the meaning of one word hinges on the meaning of another word. “[O]bjects “mean” not because they inherently, automatically mean something, but because of what other objects they’re connected to” (Johnson-Eilola 202). According to the principle of articulation, all writing can pretty much be described as a series of connections. And in order to write, one would have to have some sort of knowledge to make those connections. Even something many people wouldn’t consider “writing”—that is, paginating books—demonstrates articulation and thus, a requirement for knowledge because the pagination is linear, connected, and purposefully-placed.

 

Interestingly, Johnson-Eilola mentioned pagination in reference to a court case called Bender v. West Publishing: “On first glance, the Bender v. West Publishing ruling seems to uphold our common ideas about what counts as creativity. As the judges point out, we traditionally require an intentionality going beyond arbitrary pagination” (206). Hm. In one sense, yes, pagination is arbitrary because there is seemingly no connection between the written number and the quantitative value we have in mind. However, just as Johnson-Eilola himself pointed out earlier, the very words we write and speak are also arbitrary—that’s why some brainiac came up with the articulation theory to explain how language even works. We understand words because we’ve intentionally assigned a meaning to them. Likewise, we also shouldn’t consider pagination “arbitrary” or random because we’ve intentionally assigned a meaning and order to those numbers. Doug had written in the margin of Johnson-Eilola’s paper, “This case suggests arrangement is creative,” and I agree. I also want to point out that knowledge is what enables us to make the connection from arbitrary numbers or letters to communicative meaning.

Is it just me, or can you see a relationship between knowledge and creativity? Isn’t creativity all about making different connections and variations with known material? (And I’d rather not delve again into the nuances of the word, “creativity”; if you’d like, check out my earlier blog posts on the subject titled Defining Our Perceptions and My Very “Unoriginal” Post.) If knowledge is more than “information” and includes the ability to make connections, then surely creativity requires different forms of knowledge. Or, perhaps we could postulate that the formation of knowledge requires creative thinking to make those connections and “fill in the gaps.” At any rate, knowledge and creativity seem to be intricately linked. I therefore take great issue with the statement, “the more factual something is, the less creative it is” (Johnson-Eilola 206). Information doesn’t do us any good unless we can understand it, and to understand it, we must have knowledge (or way of knowing)! At the beginning of our lives as infants, information may very well form the basis of our knowledge, but as we grow older, I think we process information through our “knowledge-filters,” that mechanism that allows us to make connections and apply the information. So really, how can we measure the creativity of a “factual” text against a “fictional” text if both fact and fiction are based on the intertwining of knowledge and creativity?

Infographic

Another Tool for the Toolbox

The article titled The Power of Punctuation by Martin Solomon is yet another work that discusses the rhetorical effect of imagery. In one of our previous readings, Anne Wysocki examined the possible meanings behind different typefaces; similarly, Solomon also reviewed the possible messages presented by a design change in punctuation marks. His examples included:

·         A dramatic stop, conveyed by a larger, bolded period following a sentence of lighter typeface.

·         The importance of a quote, suggested by exaggerated quotation marks.

·         A strong direction telling the reader to reference something, implied by an enlarged asterisk.

Solomon quickly cautioned, however, that “Exaggerated punctuation should not be used with all messages. The indiscriminate display of punctuation for the sake of design turns these marks into devices unrelated to concept; punctuation used out of context can diminish the effect of a message” (285-286). I tried to find examples of this on the internet, and these were some of the results:

Take a look at the first photo. Perhaps Dennis believed that quotation marks would add emphasis to the word, or perhaps he meant to merely decorate the word. Either way, his “design” confused the message and left the reader wondering if “vehicle” is to be taken literally or metaphorically for something else. The second image also presents a confusing message. How is one expected to interpret “Oh! Boy syrup”? Does this syrup exclude girls from using it? Or is “boy” supposed to modify “syrup,” in which case you’re left speculating what sort of muddy concoction is in the jar? Upon closer inspection, “oh!” and “boy” are outlined in a different color, whereas “syrup” lacks a shadow. We would be safe to say that the label should properly read, “Oh boy! Syrup,” noting that “Oh boy!” is just the brand name for this particular syrup.  Perhaps the designer meant to balance the smaller-typeface “oh” with the weight of the word “boy” by adding an exclamation mark after the former. In both examples, the effect of the message was diminished because the punctuation (meant only for design) was used out of context, just as Solomon had warned.

Solomon also briefly mentioned the rhetorical effect of punctuation through spacing and positioning, and he used a telephone listing as a primary example. He was at the cusp of discussing punctuation in and of itself (without exaggeration in design) as a rhetorical tool, but he didn’t venture further. Therefore, I searched online for another article that delved into the subject a little bit deeper and found a great paper called Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool by John Dawkins. Dawkins proposed that certain types of punctuation marks create different amounts of “separation”—or emphasis—between and within independent clauses. The table below illustrates the “hierarchy” of punctuation according to Dawkins:

Table I

Hierarchy of Functional Punctuation Marks

MARK                        DEGREE OF SEPARATION

sentence final (.? !)     maximum

semicolon (;)               medium

colon (:)                      medium (anticipatory)

dash (—)                     medium (emphatic)

comma (,)                   minimum

zero (0)                       none (that is, connection)  (pg. 535)

Dawkins explained that writers could gain emphasis by “raising” the current punctuation of the sentence to the punctuation above it in the table; writers could also gain connectedness by “lowering” the punctuation of the sentence to the punctuation below it in the table (536). For example (and I’m using the example Dawkins provided), consider how the meaning of these sentences changes just based on differences in punctuation:

1.      John asked for a date when he got the nerve.

2.      John asked for a date, when he got the nerve.

3.      John asked for a date—when he got the nerve.

4.      John asked for a date. When he got the nerve. (pg. 538)

Solomon stated that because of the flexibility with which we use punctuation, “punctuation is often taken for granted” (282). I agree that we probably take punctuation for granted; however, I would argue that we don’t use punctuation flexibly enough. How many times do we write a sentence without considering how to redirect the emphasis by changing punctuation? How many times do we fail to experiment with punctuation so as to garner the most force for our statement? As Solomon and Dawkins demonstrated, punctuation can serve as a useful rhetorical tool—and we’re letting it sit in the toolbox collecting dust.  

"A Modest Proposal"

The “umbrella” question overshadowing my critical photo-essay project is “How do readers encounter and handle texts?” As a way to formulate a thesis for this question, I plan to research how reader’s eyes are guided throughout the text, what effect imagery and icons have on the reading process, and how might reading techniques such as “skimming” affect a reader’s comprehension of a text. I’m also considering looking into how the presentation of certain genres influences a reader’s interpretation of a text. We’ve encountered many of these topics in class already, but I believe supplementary research will yield even greater insight into these areas. Although each subject could itself provide enough material for an extensive research paper, I hope to glean the core concepts offered by each and combine them into a cohesive project that would address several aspects of reader behavior.

I’m mainly interested in this research question for the applications it could present to me as a reader and writer. The question of how readers see and respond to texts ultimately leads to the discussion of how much choice and control readers have over a text. As a reader, I’m concerned with how much of the writer’s message I’m actually absorbing and understanding versus how much I’m actually inventing. As a writer, I’m interested in how my writing style or presentation may affect the fidelity of my message or increase the opportunity for reader interpretation. However, I’m also fascinated by how giving the reader a sense of “choice” could be a powerful tool of rhetoric. The most successful rhetoric appears not to be “my” idea, but “your” idea, right? If the idea was “yours,” this implies you had choice in the matter. So by utilizing the patterns of reader behavior, couldn’t a writer “manipulate” a text to give a reader a sense of choice and control, while in fact, it is the writer who controls most of the discourse? I have no idea if this is actually possible, and I hope my research project would reveal the plausibility or implausibility of this idea.

I anticipate that much of my research will be based on class readings, additional works by Kress and Wysocki, and whatever other scholarly articles I may come across online that pertain to the project. I’m also debating whether I should interview some graphic design professors (I think J. Conger and S. Newman hold these positions at MSU) in order to discuss the rhetorical influence of design. Yet another aspect of my research may take place in my mode of presentation. Because underlying my project is my interest in reader choice as a rhetorical tool, I’m playing with the idea of presenting my project as sort of a “simulation” (not sure if this is the correct word, vocabulary fails me). For example, consider educational computer games for little kids. The kids have the choice where to “travel” to in the game, and so they encounter different aspects of the game at different times. However, at each section or “stage” of the game, there’s some sort of pre-programmed lesson or “trial” presented to the gamer. Therefore, if I could figure out how to set up my project in similar fashion, I and my readers could see if the conclusions drawn by my research are true or false. In other words, my presentation should reflect the concepts addressed by the research. Does this make sense? (And if this type of presentation is possible, my computer-nerd cousin will certainly enlighten me). If I can’t create this simulation thing, I hope to still strive for somewhat of the same effect by creating a webpage that is basically a monstrous infographic.

Just as Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal suggests outrageous ideas, so too might my “modest proposal” seem outrageous. I’m wondering if this project is too ambitious and too much to tackle on, or if it meets the Goldilocks standard of “just right.” I’m very excited by the prospects of this project, so I’m kind of hoping that if my proposal really does submit too much, the alternative wouldn’t be too watered-down. Do you have any suggestions?

Abacadabra

 

The funny aspect about this trick is that there’s really no “trick”—it’s just based on mathematics. Even the person perpetuating the card trick may not understand the “how” behind it all. Yet to an uninformed (and naïve) observer, the trick gives the illusion that “magic” actually is involved. True to my little quirkiness, I thought this card trick was similar to the topics addressed in Stephen Bernhardt’s Seeing the Text, Anne Wysocki’s The Multiple Media of Texts:How Onscreen and Paper Texts Incorporated Words, Images, and Other Media, and Gunther Kress’ Multimodality, Multimedia,and Genre.

All three writers mention, in varying degrees, the rhetorical function of a text’s appearance. In fact, one of the assumptions underlying Wysocki’s argument was that “the visual elements and arrangements of a text perform persuasive work” (124). I know that we’ve discussed different aspects of rhetoric all throughout this semester, but when I think of rhetoric, the words finesse and persuasion still dominantly come to my mind. If we view rhetoric in a very vulgar light, we might even say it is a form of “trickery.” But on the other hand, can we really say that visual rhetoric is a “trick”? I guess it depends on your opinion of whether a trick (as in a magic trick) is mostly done in full sight of the observer or during the “preparation” stages before the “performance.” In other words, does a trick hinge more on (manipulated) audience perception or the craft of the magician? How you answer these questions might influence you how view the concept of visual rhetoric. For example, do you think visual rhetoric is mostly based on details such as type font/size, images, white space, page layout, and the like? If your answer is “yes,” this correlates to the perception gimmick that is “in full sight of the observer.” Or do you think there is something else to visual rhetoric, something that might correspond to the unseen, “preparation” part of a magic trick? In regards to this “unseen” aspect of visual rhetoric, I would like to posit that the effectiveness of visual rhetoric is due in part to the constraints of the rhetorical discourse.

If I remember correctly, we’ve defined the constraints of a rhetorical discourse as persons, events, or objects that have the power to limit the decision/action needed to modify the rhetorical exigence. In light of this, couldn’t a reader’s expectations be a type of constraint? As writers, we oftentimes write to the expectations of our intended audience. “These multiple considerations of audience and purpose functionally constrain the text, influencing its shape and structure” (Bernhardt 71). Wysocki also stated, “Precisely because you come to an academic page bringing expectations about how that page should look means that the page has had to be visually designed to fit your expectations” (124). For example, a scientific paper may be more rhetorically effective if it appears to be a scientific, peer-reviewed paper rather than a high school research project. Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter what a text appears like if its content is reliable, but realistically, we all “judge a book by its cover”!

Therefore, if the appearance of a text can work rhetorically in the text’s favor, then the concept of genre becomes all the more important to consider. Kress wrote, “[T]he category of genre is essential in all attempts to understand text, whatever its modal composition. The point is to develop a theory and terms adequate to that” (39).  In one respect, understanding and categorizing different genres can be useful; as demonstrated in Wysocki, Bernhadt, and Kress’ analyses of visual aspects of text, different displays could carry entirely different meanings. A true “master” of magic knows the “ins and outs” of the trade, unlike someone like me, who may utilize mathematical card tricks without actually taking the time to understand what makes them work. Similarly, someone who composes a text with full awareness as to its visual implications would probably make a better rhetorician than someone who is ignorant of the rhetorical, visual tools at their disposal. However, the issue with so closely defining different genres is that, as Kress pointed out, we don’t know what to do with those “generic mixes.” Kress proposed,

A newer way of thinking may be that within a general awareness of the range of genres…speakers and writers newly make the generic forms out of available resources. This is a much more “generative” notion of genre: not one where you learn the shapes of existing kinds of text alone, in order to replicate them, but where you learn the generative rules of the constitution of generic form within the power structures of a society…In such a theory all acts of representation are innovative, and creativity is the normal process of representation for all. (53-54)

Maybe we are so consumed with the little details that we forget to step back and view the entire picture, so to speak, about the notion of genres. Returning to the subject of magic tricks, this summer my siblings and I watched the movie, “Now You See Me.” One of the main themes was, “The closer you look, the less you’ll really see.” So what do you see? “The physical fact of the text, with its spatial appearance on the page, requires visual apprehension: a text can be seen, must be seen…” (Bernhadt 66).  

Writing with Audio/Video

Creating my A/V short project really opened my eyes to the opportunities writers have through digital rhetorics. I discovered that the passing of time was easier to convey in film rather than in mono-modal composition. For example, if I'm writing a short story or some account of history, I must be explicitly clear that I'm jumping days, hours, or centuries from one given point to the next. This not only takes up more of my time, but also text dedicated to explaining this transition. In contrast, I think video eliminates an extra "explanatory" step because the viewers can see (figuratively speaking) the passage of time. The character Rachel in my video matures from a young girl to a young adult in a matter of seconds. I think this transition is clear to the viewer because not only do the two girls look alike, but it fits the natural progression of the storyline.

With mono-modal composition, the writer can bring several themes and topics to the attention of the audience, but the audience can only perceive this through the written text on the page. With multi-modal composition, the focus can shift between text, visual, and audio. In my piece, all three components played lead roles at certain points in the video. I also realized by watching my classmates' videos that video allows the writer to bring focus to something in ways that mono-modal composition can't. For example, I really enjoyed Kayt's video with her close-up, artistic shots of the hands playing the piano, guitar strings, rain falling on the leaf, etc.

Lastly, my experience with this project really demonstrated the unique aspect of having to learn and compose at the same time. It was this learning aspect that I think challenged to explore the limits of my creativity; in mono-modal composition, I've become so used to the technology that sometimes my ambivalence is reflected in the creativity and "originality" of the piece.

You know what assuming does...

Mark Wolf focused his essay, Subjunctive Documentary: Computer Imaging and Simulation, on the subjunctive nature of documentation specifically in computer simulation. In grammar, the subjunctive tense refers to the conditional, such as could be, would be, and might have been. A subjunctive document then would contain elements of these conditionals. Computer simulations are based on certain data which dictate the outcome of the simulation. According to Wolf,

The computer allows not only physical indices like visual resemblance but conceptual indices (like gravity or the laws of physics) to govern simulated events…In many cases, actual experiments and events are represented as measurements and relationships; these are abstracted into a set of laws governing the phenomena, and these laws become the basis for creating the potential events of the simulation. (423)

In other words, computer simulations run on assumptions. Of course, some assumptions are more scientifically sound than others, but this doesn’t diminish the fact that if the data underlying a computer simulation is faulty, then the resulting image is also false. I know this is common sense, but consider how much trust people put into computer simulations. Wolf mentioned that because of computer simulations, pilots can earn their license without ever leaving the ground, surgeons can operate on people without having practiced on cadavers, and automobile designers can test-drive cars without ever actually running a physical test (was I the only one disturbed by all of this?). Computer simulations are even considered as evidence and proof in a courtroom setting (Wolf 424-427). Wolf wrote, “[P]eople’s unquestioning faith in both the documentary quality of the presentations and the scientific and mathematical means of producing them make it necessary for judges to remind jurors of the unreal and speculator nature of such simulations” (427, emphasis added).

Punyashloke Mishra also alluded to assumptions in his paper, The Role of Abstraction in Scientific Illustration: Implications for Pedagogy: “Thus the conventions of representation are thus more than artistic devices, they take their authority from previous experience and the state of the scientific field to competently build on a body of assumptions about the represented structures” (150). In the view of sociologists of science, this statement actually lends credence to diagrams. “Within the context of a given scientific discourse, a photograph is an imperfect representation, while a diagram represents it more faithfully” (Mishra 150). Notice that in order to interpret the diagram, which is built on assumptions, one must also be acquainted with the context in which the image is displayed. According to psychologists of art, “[S]ome pictorial conventions need more learning than others and some illustrations pose difficulties because they make greater use of conventions than others” (Mishra 144). When people aren’t familiar with the theories underlying the image, they form misconceptions. For example, “Many people believe that Earth is closer to the Sun in the summer and that is why it is hotter. And, likewise, they think Earth is farthest from the Sun in the winter…However, in the Northern Hemisphere, we are having winter when Earth is closest to the Sun and summer when it is farthest away!” (NASA Space Place). The real reason for the seasons has to do with the tilt of Earth’s axis. Mishra noted that perhaps this common misconception is due to the illustration of earth’s orbit around the sun found in many textbooks. Sociologists of science readily admit that “one cannot remove the context (speaking of the context in very general terms) from the image. The context is part of the illustration itself” (Mishra 152).

I came across a website dedicated to Richard L. Gregory that added more insight to the topic of image and perception. One particular section I liked stated that, “Philosophy and science have traditionally separated intelligence from perception, vision being seen as a passive window on the world and intelligence as active problem-solving. It is a quite recent idea that perception, especially vision, requires intelligent problem-solving based on knowledge” (Knowledge in perception and illusion). The article then differentiates knowledge from intelligence. We usually think that knowledgeable people are intelligent, and vice versa, but the two aren’t necessarily interdependent. Intelligence is an active processing of information, whereas knowledge is more passive in the sense that it can be described as “stored-up answers” (Knowledge in perception and illusion). So in reference to a scientific diagram, the more knowledge a person has of the context of the image, the less intelligence they require to interpret it. (Ha, I found this hilariously ironic). Anyway, scientific diagrams/images require—and they assume—people to have knowledge about the context surrounding the image in order to perceive it correctly.

I jump now from Mishra’s article and the emphasis on context to an excerpt from Wolf’s paper on computer simulations:

The data used in simulations are often much more selective and abstract than the images and sound of conventional film documentary, which take in background scenery and sound, recording the subject’s milieu along with the subject. Thus a lack of context may occur in some simulations, limiting the means of cross-checking data and limiting the data to only what was thought to be important at the time—or, worse, what could be afforded. (431, emphasis added)

Hm. If context is important in understanding an image, and some computer simulations may lack context, then….

Basically, here is what I’ve learned: Computer simulations and scientific illustrations are not only based on assumptions, but they are designed by people who assume viewers are cognizant of the context in which the image is present. Viewers assume that the simulations or illustration depict reality, and as a result, they may form misconceptions. I guess we must be careful not to assume too much in what we see, lest we make an a** out of you and me.

A/V Short Video