Only 643 words! A new record, for certain.

Marginalia...are students discouraged from "thinking outside the box?"

Remember back when I accidentally read Wysocki, when I should have read Wysocki/Johnson-Eilola? Apparently my syllabus-reading skills took a turn for the worse earlier on this semester. In any case, I wrote this on Multiple Media then:

“"Each aspect...involves choice" (p. 132). To me, that fragmented quote encapsulates the entire text. As I went through the examples, I was struck by how traditional academic essay formats reflect the very tenets which "rational" meaning making teaches. Unchanging lines of simple, identical text void of color or diversity do not compel the reader to consider the context of the piece. Instead, the reader receives the unconscious message that context is irrelevant, and only the non-physical ideas, the concepts or theories addressed within matter. Even margins imply that the text's meaning is easily encapsulated, existing as a stand-alone entity and not worthy of critical analysis on the situatedness of the piece. The format of parallel lines, each page mirroring the others, makes the reader disregard materiality and temporality. We become lost in the lofty ideas, and forget to make connections, to consider the author's narrative paradigm and contextual intent-- we forget the author breathes, hurts, longs, laughs, and most importantly, wants.”

I hold these same ideas in mind now. Bernhardt does a nice job demonstrating the rhetorical effectiveness of visual layout within text. The physical arrangement of text can point towards certain sections, appeal to wide audiences, compact information, and purposefully guide the reader through a piece of writing. Bernhardt ends by encouraging students and teachers to study and experiment with visual text, and explore the potentials and capability for creativity and effective communication therein. I believe Bernhardt’s mission is valid, but equally important is the notion of exclusion—where is the visual purposefully ignored or subverted? Like my commentary on Wysocki, we can learn and see incredible implicit messages if we look at places where we usually overlook—blank margins, for example.

If punctuation is “illustrations without pictures” (p. 283),

...because I have always wanted to post this, but lacked
the proper textual environment.

then these small symbols are equally important in creating textual meaning, yet too often overlooked. For example, where are all the exclamations in academic writing? Isn’t anyone excited about all this knowledge? Or would such an “overt” display of excitement betray emotion, which would supposedly reveal fallibility or weakness? Also, if effective punctuation creates a “harmonious interrelation between punctuation and words” (p. 289) then what happens when we purposefully break this convention? Surely I am not the only person who often wants to write with repeated ellipses…because you see, nearly every thought I have and sentence I write is not so encapsulated and contained….but rather, one leads to the other...no one thought contained or disconnected from the next...yet many of my “in-between thoughts”…those between one and the other…are left unwritten.
 The very conventions we take as “normal,” ”universal,” or “obvious” were chosen and created with a purpose, even if that purpose was to subvert critical analyzation of the choosing. Wysocki notes how the acts we take to move through a text speak volume about the relationship of the textual elements therein, as well as the relationship between reader and text that the text asks or expects through its layout. It is important that we recognize the implicit value a period (rather than an exclamation mark!) implies, not so that we can go on rampages of punctuation-less writing (which is very confusing, simply read A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress by Timothy Dexter, an autobiography written without punctuation) but simply so that we can see the subconscious binds which constrain our language. Then, after seeing we can choose whether to keep or to disregard...whether to operate within the existing conventions or push outside of them...whether it is important to call to attention such conventions or let them be...a question which will inevitably shape the type of writings we create.