Seeing the Text (Bernhardt)

visually informative vs. non-visually informative text

We can assume that visually informative texts achieve rhetorical organization, just as do texts which are relatively non-informative visually. Both types must provide direction to the reader as to how the text is to be read: what transaction is intended, what the major divisions are, what is considered important, and what relations exist amongst the various subpoints. But the manner in which visually informative texts achieve rhetorical control differs in important ways from that in the non-visually informative text, at all levels of organization: in the whole discourse, in the paragraph, and in the sentence. (67)

Also important in the design of the fact sheet was the distribution of printed information on the page. To attend to the layout of the text requires considering the text as a visual gestalt, focusing attention on the total visual impact of the text on a prospective reader.

• Pragnanz: Perhaps the most relevant law is that of equilibrium, or pragnanz, which suggests that items in a visual field strive for balance or equilibrium with other items in the field.
• Continuation: A second law of gestalt, that of good continuation, or good figure, suggests that visual perception works to pull figures out of the background, to give them definition against the undistinguished field in which they are located.
• Closure: When good continuation or good figure is not provided by the visual stimulus, the perceiver has a tendency to fill in the missing gaps, to provide the missing definition, as evidenced by the ability of readersto process even highly degraded copy, in which much of the information provided by the shape of letters is missing.
• Similarity: suggests that units which resemble each other in shape, size, color, or direction will be seen together as a homogenous grouping. (71-72)

"visual syntax":  a harmonious, balanced, attractive text which conveys information to the reader about textual organization through visible means. (72-73)

In an integrated, non-visually informative text, the desideratum is a seamless text. In the visible text, the goal is to call the read- er's attention visually to semantically grouped information, focusing the reader's attention on discrete sections. (73)

With a visible text, it may not be fruitful to talk about paragraphs in terms of topic sentences and support, or opening and closing sentences, or sentences of transition. In fact, it may not be useful to speak of paragraphs at all, but of sections or chunks. In the visible text, the headings take over the task of generalizing or identifying the topic. Levels of subordination are indicated by variation in typeface, type size, or placement of headings, rather than through subordinators or cohesive ties which indicate semantically dependent relations. (73)