Rhetorical Invention in Design

Written Communication Jul 2000

CYNTHIA R. HALLER

Abstract

Though scholars have begun to explore how texts mediate design, little is known about rhetorical invention in design. To investigate how heuristics used for rhetorical invention and design might be related, the author analyzed how one disciplinary design heuristic, the information system cliché, influenced the production of both a computer system and a specification text for the system. The cliché was used to generate design proposals, which designers evaluated using at least three criteria: projected context of use, correspondence between the proposals and their textual inscriptions, and system coherence. Results indicate that disciplinary heuristics and rhetorical topics overlap in design; however, the rhetorical character of disciplinary heuristics is obscured in textual representations of the design. Both types of heuristic serve as interpretive instruments and are used dialogically to develop the parts of a design or text within the context of the whole.

Journal: Written Communication
Published: 2000-07-01
DOI: 10.1177/0741088300017003002
Open Access: Closed
Topics: multimodality

Citation Context

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CrossRef global citation count: 4 View in citation network →