"Writing Space" by J. David Bolter Chapter 4, "The Breakout of the Visual"

The prezi physically was a black background with all of the text in white writing.  Within the text there was also examples that included a graph and a picture.  The main strength of this project was its organization.  The presenters organized the prezi very well and each presenter’s points flowed nicely with the other presenters.  Also, the examples used in the prezi were helpful and beneficial to the audience.  The examples included helped explain the points in the prezi.  Some weaknesses include that the prezi itself was sometimes hard to read and sometimes the prezi had some repetition.  Some of the text in the prezi was too small to read and the black background made the text sometimes ard to read.  Also, the presenters sometimes repeated each other, and sometimes their points seemed to be repetitive as well.  Overall, the presentation was effective and informative.

1.     How do books with no pictures have “visuals?”

2.     What exactly are electronic magazines?

3.     How is email not electronically advanced?  Can’t emails link videos and visuals?

4.     If graphs include text then how are they visuals?

5.     How is a “metaphor” in a book considered a visual description?

6.     Are we going back to the medieval times with how we write because we now often include visuals within our writing like that did in the medieval times.

This presentation made many points about how text can be considered visual.  Printed text in the Medieval Ages was very different than it is today.  Text at this time included many pictures and visuals around the actual text.  Although, Bolter says that print is remaking itself to be more like these medieval texts.  Newspapers, like USA Today, include a lot of pictures and visuals.  These pictures enhance the visual experience and give a more behind the scene look to what the reader is reading.  Another example of something that is purely visual and does not require many words are graphs.  Graphs have few words, but they visually make their point without needing a lot of writing and paragraphs.  Bolter explains that text can also make visuals through the use of metaphors and descriptions within text.  Text is also developing into visual work.  Books that are made into movies are a perfect example of this.  Also, the use of “Ekphrasis” transforms readers into viewers.  Electronically (we obviously have to reference the electronic age because we are reading Bolter!) books are being changed from purely textual electronic books to combined visual and textual electronic magazines.  The hypermedia is now replacing the hypertext.