Kathryn M. Northcut

Dark side or insight? Yik Yak and culture on campus

This paper provides results from a pilot study of Yik Yak at one STEM-oriented research university in the Midwest. This paper reports on two aspects of the anonymous messaging app, Yik Yak: location-dependence and purposes for writing. Suggestions for improved research protocols are included.

Resisting the Lure of Technology-Driven Design: Pedagogical Approaches to Visual Communication

Technical communicators are expected to work extensively with visual texts in workplaces. Fortunately, most academic curricula include courses in which the skills necessary for such tasks are introduced and sometimes developed in depth. We identify a tension between a focus on technological skill vs. a focus on principles and theory, arguing that we subvert the potential benefits of an education if we succumb to the allure of software. We recommend several classroom practices that help educate students toward greater visual literacy, based not only on recommendations from the research but also from our experience as teachers of visual communication.

Insights from Illustrators: The Rhetorical Invention of Paleontology Representations

This study focuses on the intersection of visual rhetoric with rhetoric of science by examining the rhetorical context in which natural science illustrators operate as they represent paleontology. Field methods were employed to study the rhetorical context in which paleontology becomes represented through art; this article reports the findings from the field study and contextualizes the study in rhetorical theories of invention and a discussion of social versus scientific facts. The research highlights some differences between what experts know and what public audiences perceive, offering insight into why those differences exist.

Images as Facilitators of Public Participation in Science

Abstract Images in popular science invite public participation in science. Contrary to some theorists’ and scholars’ contentions that images are dangerous, misleading, and otherwise inferior to verbal communication, pictures can be shown to productively engage the public in conversations about science. Images may elide the complexity of scientific arguments (Blair, 2004; 1996; Fleming, 1996) thereby widening the gap between specialists’ and public understanding of science. Although a disconnect may always exist between specialists ’and public conceptions of scientific arguments, public participation may hinge on the quality and distribution of the images.

Proposal writing from three perspectives: Technical Communication, Engineering, and science

Proposal writing is a venture common to non-profit organizations, academic researchers across disciplines, scientists and engineers in academic and professional contexts, and educators. This paper addresses proposal-writing challenges of researchers in three very different academic fields: Technical Communication, Engineering, and Biology. An inherently interdisciplinary undertaking, proposal writing entails challenges of two kinds: general (common to most writers) and field-specific, or limited to people from one discipline or environment. Both types of challenges are addressed here.

Book Reviews: Reshaping Technical Communication: New Directions and Challenges for the 21st Century, Communicating Science: The Scientific Article from the 17th Century to the Present, Writing Center Research: Extending the Conversation

Academics in technical communication and industry professionals can experi ence difficulty working together because of competing values, goals, and per spectives. The anthology, Reshaping Technical Communication: New Directions and Challenges for the 21st Century, explores these challenges in academic/ industry collaboration and the future of technical communication. As part of this exploration, Barbara Mirel and Rachel Spilka, editors of this text, identify two key questions:

Barriers to publishing visual rhetoric research

This paper describes the challenges of reproducing artwork as part of the analytical, evaluative, and critical work of scholars of visual rhetoric.

Availability and uses of sensitive visual information: Protecting Diceros bicornis in South Africa

Compelling visual information is valuable as both education and entertainment, and is therefore profitable. The current study, a work in progress, investigates the impact of webcams trained on watering holes in Africa. These video streams have attracted tens of thousands of users interested in viewing African megafauna. Unfortunately, viewing rhinos via the Internet enables poachers to receive precise information about rhino locations. This study investigates the interactions among stakeholders in black rhino preservation, especially with respect to live streaming video and the role of the technical communicators who operate the cameras.

Perceptions of credibility in scientific images

This study sought to discern how people determine credibility of images in science. We predicted that certain visual cues would correspond to relatively higher credibility ratings of images; therefore, realistic images with more detail and more contextual cues would receive correspondingly higher ratings. We administered a three-part, 19-question survey to 83 University of Missouri-Rolla General Psychology students in Spring, 2006. While few of the measured variables could be correlated to credibility ratings, the surprising results of the study warrant discussion and follow-up investigations.

Assessment of visual artifacts in the information economy

Assessment of technical visual representations poses challenges for professionals in both academic and non-academic settings. Recent research demonstrates the challenge faced by technical communicators who assume responsibility for visual communication with little or no formal training in design or related fields [1]. Because many people now responsible for oversight, editing, and production of visual communication are primarily verbal communicators, we tend to either ignore matters of design or superimpose linguistic evaluation strategies onto images. The alternative model suggested here pulls from the rich scholarship based on Gestalt, narrative, and semiotic theories to shape an assessment heuristic that encourages visual assessment based on some foundational tenets of visual literacy.