Hannah's Blog

As the Winter 2109 semester comes to an end, it has became very evident how the writings here and there have subtly changed. Through the introduction of maps to the finalized paradigm shift in which it includes it all, it has been interesting to see to development of the topics along with the writing.

In the beginning, the formal but simple writing shows the simple connection made from the maps to real life then in infographics that connect to everyone’s current day life. The modules taught through this course have shown how to have a more complex view of the information being put in front of the viewer. Not only having more complex ideas, but also being critical of where the works came from, are they reliable, and what kind of view was this item made from, meaning what was the time like at that point.

This semester my attitude towards writing has drastically changed.  I realized that in order to find the most effective and persuasive writing, one must reveal the where abouts and validity of the source of the information. Not only that but towards writing I have realized the importance of proper planning and all the work that is given into so many different sources. But writing is very important to the mind because I think it forces me to go outside of the box and see what kind of connections I can make that I otherwise would have never gave a second thought about. This really pertains to my life through the maps section. I often hike and take my quad out and many times refer back to the maps posted. It is now stuck in my head though because some of the maps are simply hand drawn and Imust remember that I can not always relay o the source in which handed these out because it could lead to a different point or take down some unsual path that I shouldn’t be on.

Throughout the modules though my definition of “text” has most definitely changed. Before it would have been defined as the simple words put on paper. Now text is any information given out in any kind of way, like a map, line, or number. Text is the value of any reliable information that can be put to use in multiple different ways. Text is not just the standard word, but everything also around the words.

This course has shown me that I must be more conceptual to what I am given and always dig deeper into whatever form of text is laid out in front of me. The end of the semester has concluded with the fact that I should continue some documentation of my work here every now and then and continue to see how my work will continue to change and see all the different maps, lines, and/or numbers that can be re-evaluated!

https://civic.mit.edu/2015/12/01/feminist-data-visualization/

Above is the link for D’Ignazio’s “Feminist Data Visualization” article!

In this article, D’Ignazio talks about how each person views data and how most data is through the perspective of man, belittling women and minorities. She goes on to explain how these problems need to faced first hand and that there needs to become new ways to deal with the uncertainties and reference everyone throughout the economy. Completely, I agree with what she has said, but mostly because giving information through any platform really always has some kind of information that gets put to the side and deemed irrelevant compared to the other information. Referring back to earlier in the semester when we were talking about maps, it is all in the creators hands about what the information portrays and is a reflection of themselves.

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What is seen here is a Infographic that demonstrates the information that previously posted in an article by Jeremy Allen (https://www.mlive.com/news/annarbor/2015/12/did_you_know_what_happens_to_u.html). What was the point of this is this question? Well for one thing the information is out in a more, simple easy to catch the details format. Then not only is it simpler to find the facts, but it is also more appealing to the eyeball and grabbers more viewers attention than any plain-Jane article typically does.

This goal of giving information in another way was achieved by analyzing an article, picking and pulling out the important information, and rearranging it through pictures and short blurbs to give it the same meaning, but just redefined.

As mentioned before, the effectiveness of this infographic is for quick and simple reading and getting straight to the point. The only thing that often gets left out from the reading is the small, specific details that only add on to the originality of the Disposal Predisposition.

Especially in today’s times, everyone wants to see something that’s going to leave an impact on their mind. There is so much knowledge out in the world that now everything just seems like another thing. With Infographics, bright colors that pop and intriguing pictures and blurbs seem so different than the typically worded articles; they are more fun, more interesting.

• Types
  • Maps
  • Lines
• Maps importance
  • Personal Views
  • Power of Creation
• Hidden meanings
  • Behind symbols
  • How/Who created the map/lines

The bulleted list is the list I made from memory of the reflection of what I have learned so far in class. This is supposed to represent taxonomy, the classification branch. The word art is the list of words I drew from multiple works that I submitted so far this semester that were of importance. This is an example of folksonomy, the categorizing of all, not just professionals.

My taxonomy was organized by main categories, then subcategories. I pulled from my thoughts of what information stuck with me the most after completing my assignments. The word art was very different from the taxonomy due to the fact that it was derived from specific bits of information, and not just relying on memory and what stuck with a person. Tis little experiment was made to show how different things stick with people and how often many people remember the bits that they want to, while folksonomy is allowing a while different view of how information is being brought about and remembered.

Through the internet people are able to have all the information they need right at their fingertips. Alongside of this there is social networking where everyone is hash tagging as much as possible, not realizing though that they too are categorizing these images and posts, which now fall into a broad category of what everyone else in the world feels falls into that category.

Depending on the type of person, one method might be preferred over another. Personally, in this day and age, folksonomy seems to be the growing method because all information is being shared through all of these networks and people are going to categorize them how they best feel, not how someone tells them it is going to be. I find it to be important that the whole population should be included in categorizing things so that everyone has the ability to access all information and not be tied down due to taxonomy and the more proper ways of doing things.

Overall, the word art seems to paint the better picture of what was trying to be shown. Comparing the two resulted in me being aware of the fact that borders and Harley and lines and everything is connected and not just in a simple format that can be so easily outlined; that there is a deeper meaning to it all than the simple text plays out.

Here we see a map that appears to just be some buildings and parking areas referencing the SVSU campus. What most people don’t see as they just scan through this map is that there is actually a lot of detail that is not mentioned. This map was created explicitly for the commuters at SVSU. Here they can easily find which building is what and how to get there. In the key, it references all the necessary places that an average student will need to be aware of. There are all of the buildings in which classes will be held, places to eat, the library, and the recreation center so activities.

Based on this map, one would think that the buildings in which classes are held are solely just for classes, and that those are the only places they will ever go. The power of the mapmaker here is to make the viewer feel that way and the viewer doesn’t perceive the notion that there are infinite things that really go on besides just classes. On the last post, it was discussed how the map was simple and didn’t show any kind of obstacles that could get in the way of the trail riders, as does this map. It lacks the knowledge of the rest of the SVSU community like the sports fields and resident stuff, but gains importance through the simplicity of finding what is needed and not having extra information.

The audience for this map is the commuter who just needs to be able to park his or her vehicle and make it to the right buildings. It shows precisely where each building that classes are held in is and where he or she will be able to park his or her vehicle with no consequences. This map hopes to accomplish the simple aspect of SVSU in which not only would commuters be able to find their classes but also outsiders who don’t attend SVSU and would be able to locate the buildings where they could find whatever it be they are looking for.

By making the buildings in which classes are held in, which is the number one importance here, yellow, the viewer is able to distinguish exactly the buildings needed and not the ones that aren’t. Parking space is left gray like the cement so that it can easily be seen next to the bright yellow, but also very stand offish from the vulgar red color that means do not park there because it is reserved. Also, student housing is emphasized just so the viewer is aware of those buildings in that area but isn’t really of importance to them.

The point of this post is to remind people that just becasuse a map looks important and like it may have all the necessary tools needed, it is all truly based on the audience and the mapmaker. This map shows the importance of school and attending classes, whereas someone else’s map may emphasize all of student life and focus less on the schooling part of SVSU,

This is Hannah Tomlinson and this course is about learning a new way to view the objects in texts that aren’t just words, rather the maps and how they connect the words with an image more than we know. My major is exercise science and a lot of what a student sees through here isn’t just words explaining what is happening rather, charts and graphs explaining what is happening. This topic is especially interesting since one of my personal favorite hobbies is to ride quads. This being said my family and I like to take many trips to places, requiring the use of maps when we venture out far. The connection here is the distortion of maps and distortion of how people interpret things. By blogging my findings on these things, I hope to be able to consistently acknowledge the fact that not everything we see is exact and that there is always another perspective.

In AdlerKasner & Wardle’s text, Dylan B. Dryer states that words get their meanings from other words. He goes on to say that just because one person views a word to definitively mean an exact thing, another person could view it completely different. What does that mean? An example of the would be a pacifier. Most Americans believes this to be the thing that an infant keeps in his/her mouth, but on the other hand, someone across the world can hear that word and assume that they are merely referring to someone very angry. He also goes on to explain that just because one person says that that object is specifically that does not mean that another person somewhere else isn’t referring to it as something completely different. An example of this would be saying love. In English we simply use the word love, for instance saying, “I love you.” A person who speaks French is not going to say I love you as well, but instead are going to say “Je t’aime.” Those two different lines have the same meaning but instead are referred to by different ways whereas the pacifier is the same line with two different meanings. This relates to a map by the fact in which that maps can also be viewed in different ways, and just because there are two different variations, doesn’t mean that either is wrong.

The three rhetoric appeals are ethos, pathos, and logos that are best known. These apply to this situation because they are the perception of the audience reading a map. Ethos is responsibility of the creator meaning that when a map is being created, the person behind the works is supposed to portray everything accurately, even though as humans we understand that it can be rather hard, especially when mapping out the globe. The ethics of the author lay out which they are going to deem more important rather it be actual size demonstrated or correct outlining’s.  In the map shown above, The author has a choice to make, either to accurately describe each place to be exactly where is it, or to perpetrate that Oscoda is parallel to Empire when in all reality, they are not. Another instance is that most of the places in between Schenck’s and 4 Mile have very close distances in between, so they should take roughly the same amount of time, but that also is a slight discrepancy. Pathos is the emotional side or the audience. Most people view this map and probably feel that it looks like a nice simple ride based on the small tidbit of it, but the map doesn’t portray the hills and everything else throughout the trails. Logos is the object itself. This map portrays the towns that one is going to pass through and where they are going there will be slight detours. That being said though this map makes it look like it is the way that a person is going to have to travel in order to pass through each of the towns, when realistically there is multiple different ways to go.

The relevance of this map shows the simplicity but none of the complications. That is relatively important here because this map is taken from The Michigan Trail Riders Association, which is a travel for riding horseback! This trail is also used for hikers going shore-to-shore of the state of Michigan. This was made merely for the use of riders to see the abouts of the trail, not realizing that some will heavily rely on what it portrays. It was made to show people the urban and rural spots about where people would take a stop to reload and refuel before continuing on.

In a clip from West Wing, it speaks of how most people are used to seeing things in a certain way so when they were introduced to another type of map, the women and man couldn’t fathom the fact that there was something different from what they knew. Same goes with the text, people who are used to being around babies all the time are set in their ways of a pacifier being something babies suck on, while other hear the word pacifier and still think of those negative. An article called “How map projections warp your understanding of geometry” shows four different types of maps with the same image that looked completely different in each map. The moral of the story is that how just because one person perceives something in their own way does not mean that there isn’t another way to look at something.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton