Graphics and Professional Secrets

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Graphics and Professional Secrets
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Text or graphics?
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Bad Graphics
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Before After
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Callouts vs. Embedded Text
EMBEDDED
CALL OUT
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Screenshots
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Color Blindness
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Controlling Focus

• Pointers guide your eyes
• Eyes are pointers
• Eyes are attracted to discontinuities

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White Space

• White space is good
• Clutter is bad

Help! Theres too much text in this little
boxIts suffocatingFeeling claustrophobic
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• Does the illustration supplement the body text?
  Does the body text surrounding the illustration
  help to explain it? Does the body text use the
  same terminology as labels inside the
  illustration?

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• Does the illustration contain a caption? (Should
  be below the illustration). Does the caption
  accurately convey the purpose of the
  illustration?
• If the illustration has labels, are they
  consistent? (Fonts, callouts/embedded?)

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• Is the illustration working too hard to cram in
  information?
• Are the axes of the graph clearly labeled? Units?
• Did you consider the layout? Is there enough
  white space?

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Examples

• Do you have enough examples?
• Are your examples appropriate?
• Have you considered metaphorical examples?
• A conjunctive adverb lets you combine two
  sentences into one. For example
• Conjunctive adverbs are relatively rare however,
  they can be quite useful.

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Question Answer Format

• Does your Q A cover the topic adequately?
• Do your answers provide enough information?
• Q How do I adjust the spectrometer?
• A By adjusting it, duh.

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In Other Words

• Have you described important concepts in a
  variety of ways?
• A conjunctive adverb is an adverb that stands
  between two independent clauses.
• In other words, a conjunctive adverb is a word
  that allows two different sentences to be
  combined into one.

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Tone

• Are you sure youre not being too serious or
  flippant for the situation?
• Thank you for choosing our funeral home. Although
  its a sad time for you and your family, we still
  hope youll enjoy our deliciously decadent salad
  and desert bar! Mmm!

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Pace

• Do you slow down for important but difficult
  concepts?
• We will now cover differential equations. These
  are equations in which the derivatives of a
  function appear as variables. Now, lets move on
  the next topic.

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Footnotes and Endnotes

• Consider sidebars, footnotes, or other
  digressions to wake your reader up in longer
  documents.
• Avoid excessive footnoting.

Sidebars are a great way to break up a boring
page!
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Drafting Tips

• Dont start at the beginning.
• Write easiest sections first.
• Free write.
• Take a break.
• Re-read something youre proud of writing.
• Know your peak time.