Metaphor,+Creativity,+and+Technical+Writing

=Welch, Kristen Dayle. "Poetry, Visual Design, and the How-To Manual: Creativity in the Teaching of Technical Writing"= //English Journal// 99.4 37-42, No.4 (2010): 37-42. Print.

**Abstract**
As a man of mystery, little is known about Titus Lucretius except that he was a 1st-century B.C.E. philosopher-poet who wrote an epic poem called "Of the Nature of Things" to explain the universe and people's place within it in strictly material terms. In the poem, Lucretius intertwines myths with scientific hypotheses to propose an Epicurean view of his world--an Epicurean view that is, by the way, much less hedonistic than people commonly know it to be. As an intriguing and little-known example of a crossroads between creativity and nonfiction writing, Lucretius's poem can be used to engage students in discussions about the contexts of how-to manuals they are called on to design in a middle school or high school classroom. This article shows that by using Lucretius's poetry as an example of rhetoric and visual language at play, students learned something about the way language embodies meanings that are controlled by culture, and they learned that visual design is a means of creating credibility and of enabling usability. They learned about the difficulty of translating a text and the difficulty of reducing key ideas to a few, simple terms. But most importantly, they learned that nonfiction writing assignments could be both creative and enjoyable.

Argument
Welch discusses having her high students create a how-to manual for reading and understanding the 1st century philosopher poet Lucretius work, “Of the Nature of Things.” The author realizes all of her students will not go in the technical writing profession, however she claims to use this exercise because the strategy of writing how-to manuals can be utilized in various academic fields. In the assignment she asks her students to focus on the visual language Lucretius uses in his poem, in order to translate his poem into common language and make it user friendly. As a draft of the final product the students create boxes and lines to represent the visual graphics and text respectively. Welch elaborates on strategies of visual design in textual documents. As outlined by Charles Kostelnick and David D. Roberts, the strategies include: arrangement, emphasis, clarity, conciseness, tone and ethos. From ethos Welch also provides her students with markers to measure their credibility they have established with the audience. The markers include: “honesty, clarity, accuracy, accessibility, comprehensiveness, conciseness, professional appearance and correctness” (41).

Key Passages
Welch includes strategies for creating visual design and visual language within instructions and urges the importance of tone:

"Instructions written on how to give the Heimlich maneuver aren't expected to be funny or to come with each line of text done in a different color of the rainbow. However, instructions written for third graders on how to jump rope might be" (39).

Welch explains the purpose for the assignment given to her students:

"I have focused on asking students to "translate" materials into everyday language because that is what technical writers do for a living" (37).

**Selected Works Cited**
Bernhardt, Stephen A., and Carolyn S. Vickrey. “Supporting Faculty Development in Computers and Technical Communication.” Computers and Technical Communication: Pedagogical and Programmatic Perspectives.Ed. StuartA. Selber. Greenwich: Ablex, 1997. 331–52. Print.

Coney, Mary B. “Technical Communication Theory: An Overview.” Foundations for Teaching Technical Communication: Theory, Practice, and Program Design. Ed. Katherine Staples and Cezar M. Ornatowski. Greenwich: Ablex, 1997. 1–15. Print.

“The Gestalt Principles.” Web. 1 May 2009. .

Kostelnick, Charles, and Michael Hassett. Shaping Information: The Rhetoric of Visual Conventions. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2003. Print.

Kostelnick, Charles, and David D. Roberts. Designing Visual Language: Strategies for Professional Communicators. Boston: Allyn, 1998. Print. Lucretius, Titus. “Of the Nature of Things.” Project Gutenberg. Trans. William Ellery Leonard. 31 July 2008. Web. 1 May 2009. .

Markel, Mike. Technical Communication. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2009. Print.

Simpson, David. “Lucretius.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2002. Web. 1 May 2009. .