Facts Upon Delivery: What Is Rhetorical About Visualized Models?

Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jan 2021 OA PDF

Facts Upon Delivery: What Is Rhetorical About Visualized Models?

Chris A. Lindgren

Abstract

What expectations should professionals and the public place on visuals to communicate the uncertainties of complex phenomena? This article demonstrates how charts during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic articulated visual arguments yet also required extended communicative support upon their delivery. The author examines one well-circulated chart comparing COVID-19 case trends per country and highlights its rhetoric by contrasting its design decisions with those of other charts and reports created as the pandemic initially unfolded. To help nonexpert audiences, the author suggests that professional communicators and designers incorporate more contextual information about the data and notable design choices.

Journal: Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published: 2021-01-01
DOI: 10.1177/1050651920958499
Open Access: OA PDF Bronze
Topics: multimodality multilingual writers

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

Hartzog (2025)

‘Flatten the curve’: rhetorical data visualizations of a global pandemic

Technical Communication Quarterly
Sorapure (2023)

User Perceptions of Actionability in Data Dashboards

Journal of Business and Technical Communication

Cites in this index (1)

Wolfe (2015)

Teaching Students to Focus on the Data in Data Visualization

Journal of Business and Technical Communication

Also cites 1 work outside this index ↓

10.1002/9781118164532

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CrossRef global citation count: 10 View in citation network →