The Rhetoric of Presentation

     This week's readings got me thinking a lot about presentation and how it has a significant affect on how the content of the actual writing is perceived by different audiences.  Someone could compose a profound piece of literature in even partially illegible handwriting and a reader would consider it rubbish.  The same goes with job applications where a candidate is perfectly qualified, but they don't get the opportunity of an interview because they turned in a crumpled, food-stained resume.  Presentation is key, and those of us who have ever attended MSU know that students lose credit for turning in unedited or poorly formatted work. One of the easiest ways to lose credit on a research paper, at least in my experience, is to type in Impact or Calligraphy fonts.  Now, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I have turned in papers in other fonts because the came out bigger on screen and I would have to do that much less writing.  In the end, it is always better to just type with the standard Times New Roman.  In her article on Multiple Media Texts, Wysocki talked about how early Greek and Roman texts were not even similar to those we call standard these days (130). That makes me question why Times New Roman became the standard.  Because it is the easiest to read while still allowing writers to adequately describe their subjects in print?  Times New Roman couldn't have been created around standard requirements of papers assigned within the walls of academia.  Why did this become the standard?
     The other interesting discussion I stumbled upon came during my reading of Bernhardt's article on Seeing the Text.  During the section where he uses the example of the Wetlands proposal, the author brings up the idea members of different discourse communities see topics through their own lens.  An author needs to be aware people will not understand the same subject in the same way.  This is where imagery and the use of icons and formatting come into play.  The Wetlands Proposal is an accumulation of information, all very general but still important (69-70).  The promoters of this legislation know a very minute amount of people would sift through all the paperwork to figure out what this initiative is all about.  Hell, even legislators rely on abstracted information.  Presenting the information in bullet form with shortened sentences and an emphasis on punctuation helps the audience understand the importance of the issue without having to sift through stacks of pages.  Such a display would more likely allow the success of this promotion because the information presented is valid to more than just those directly affected.  This brought up Kress' idea of mixed genres and how they too are presented (44).  The Wetlands Proposal fused moral societal issues with studies to support how in fact an issue existed.  Applying the visual aspect really drew the point home.  This information can be read by more than humanist or scientific personalities.  The information ties multiple factions of society together with common issues.  This would not be possible without the appropriate presentation.
     Surfing the web, I found an interesting study on the affect font has on our ability to process words.  Who knew all those options on Microsoft Word have such an influence!  The article is a decent example of a mixed genre.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1423197.pdf?acceptTC=true&acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true