3 and 1: Kostelnick & Roberts, Tufte II

1. The rhetorical situation is comprised of three elements:
- Audience: those who are going to use the document
- Purpose: what the document should accomplish
- Context: the circumstances in which the readers will use the document

2. In relation to rhetorical impact, design elements can be categorized into six strategies:
arrangement, emphasis, clarity, conciseness, tone, and ethos.
-Arrangement and emphasis: pertain primarily to the visual structure and organization of the document.
-Clarity and conciseness: pertain primarily to the functional matters of style, of making the design readable and efficient.
-Tone and ethos: relate primarily to readers' subjective responses to the visual language, its voice, and credibility.

3. From the Tufte reading, I learned that "the credibility of a report is enhanced by a careful assessment of all relevant evidence, not just the evidence overtly consistent with explanations advanced by the report." Also, chartmakers are like magicians: they reveal what they choose to reveal.

Question:
How responsible is the technical writer in tragic events such as the Challenger launch when the source of provided information is vague? Specifically, the scientists were so busy using technical jargon that the media or no one could understand them (which I realize was their strategy to avoid obvious guilt). How then, is the technical writer to understand how everything works without being an engineer his/herself?