Reading Response #9

Summary:

     In "Seeing the Text" by Stephen Bernhardt, text as far as in the visual form is discussed. Bernhardt talks about parts of a text such as margins, spacing, white spaces, font, headings, etc. and how they affect a reader and how they see/read a text. He explains the importance of knowing who the audience is and making sure to write in a way that appeals to them.
     This reading compares specifically to McCloud's article because of McCloud's argument toward the importance of symbols and images to make an effective argument. Bernhardt is making a very similar argument, only in a more textual sense.



Pre-reading:

     Look at text heavy advertisement. Analyze how the text is working in conjunction with the image. Where are you most drawn? Does the image emphasize the text, or does the text emphasize the image? Write out your thoughts.

     In a text heavy advertisement, the text emphasizes the image. Your eyes are drawn to the text, and then the image. The point of the text is to advertise the image and make a statement.



Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

4. I believe that I am supposed to write an essay that follows a specific format because throughout school, that is what I have been taught. Whether it be a research paper or some other kind of writing assignment, teachers have each wanted specific formats and ways to organize each writing. It was very repetitive, and also nonnegotiable. No one could really argue against formatting, because we each had to do what we were told as far as the format of what we wrote.


Applying and Exploring Ideas:

1. In high school, there were occasional presentations. In these presentations, we could present our writing and our findings through images and other visual representations. We could make large headings and format things the way we wanted, in order to capture the audience. These were definitely different than the typical essay and research paper formats. In the future, I can consider headings, spacing, and other visual aspects to make my writing more appealing to an audience.



After You Read:

     Scott McCloud would have represented Bernhardt's argument by using his own icons or images as symbols and a way of conversation with readers. McCloud understands the effectiveness of images in order to present an argument, and would be able to better represent Bernhardt's argument through the use of such imagery.



Meta Moment:

     I think that is extremely important to think about the visual aspects of a text when writing research papers. Whatever format that the paper must be in--such as MLA, for example--the writer must consider the criteria for the format and exactly how the paper must be set up. The spacing, font type, font size, headings, etc. are all very important parts of a research paper. Slight errors in formatting can be a big problem to someone who is reading/grading a research paper. I think that the first paper in this course calls for a lot of thinking about the presentation. Not only because it needs to be correctly formatted, but also because each of our constructs must be deeply considered as far as how each side sees it. We must think of perspectives and see what others see according to the topic. We are exploring every side to the argument, which requires us to interpret more visually, and to make sure we present our constructs in our paper in an effective manner.



My thoughts:

     When I read the framing of the reading, I thought the reading would be very interesting and talk about communication and reading through images, etc. However, it mostly seemed to talk about margins and the way sentences and paragraphs were organized on a page. When I noticed this, I quickly lost interest in the reading. Also, I understood Bernhardt's reason for talking about The Great Lakes Notebook in detail, but at the same time, I feel like there was a lot of unnecessary information about it and he discussed it too much.