Chapters 3 of Hackos and Redish is a description according to Kinneavy’s modes of discourse. It is descriptive because it:
“Report(s) on the reality as if it were not involved in a change.” (7) – The reality is in the form of still shot descriptions of actions to be done during the course of task analysis
In addition, the task analysis chapter allows one “to identify that thing that has been described” (7).It does so by defining what a specific act associated with task analysis is and how it relates to the overall process.
As no one mode is pure, the task analysis chapter incorporates narrative and classification as support for the actions it is describing. Narrative is seen throughout the chapter as italicized examples that work to both display the dynamic nature (moving from potential to actual) of the activities to take place and to move the chapter onto the next subject of description.
Classification is seen in descriptions of the class characteristics that enables “discourse about…individuating characteristics” aka description to be discussed (13).
Chapter 4 of Hackos and Redish works as a narrative in that it allows reality (the user’s environment(s)) to be considered as dynamic. It does so, by demonstrating how the user environment acts upon the process of product design. The narrative is supplemented by description of the different types of environments.
Garret’s “Meet the Elements” chapter works to describe what the elements in the user experience field are with regards to two differently defined sets/categories: that of software interfaces and that of information spaces.
The chapter first depicts a subset of characteristics by which each element can be identified (describing) and then relates it to a larger set of identifiers within either the software interface group or the hypertext info space group (classification).
In addition, it uses narrative to explain the process by which the groups were formed and how ultimately the elements act upon the user’s experience.
Carolyn Miller’s article is one based on the evaluation of specific types of approaches to technical writing. This is seen in its backward looking acts of “narrating” what has been done, assumed, and observed in the field of tech writing in order to show its faults so as to propose a new way of approaching tech writing that requires simultaneous engagement with and critical questioning of non-academic writing curriculum/practices.
In order to carry out her evaluation she uses narrative and description modes to define and problematize her topic area.
Plato's Phaedrus:
Is also based on evaluation though not as overtly as Millers in that quite a bit of it was, as Curtis stated in his post, "overrun with narrative". In addition, it was also quite preoccuppied with description and classification. What we have here is masterful dialectic that requires the wedding of the four modes in a way so as to entertain while instructing.
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A wedding in Phaedrus? I suppose that Platonic love finally is consummated.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good case for each reading. I'm not sure if the 4th chapter of Hakos Redish is dynamic enough to call narrative. The narrative pieces can be cut out and the argument would still hold.
Or were you thinking the dynamism is in the nature of the subject—the environment? When H&R propose environment as a central variable, are you saying it itself becomes narrative? Because it changes? Because it modifies the work flows?
That's interesting. Let's grant Kinneavy his premises. Then, if we take a view of the world from Empedocles or Heraclitus—that life is change, that everything is unstable—then narrative becomes the indispensable mode. Central to it is the turn, the reversal.
I never asked you, when we studied the Pre-Socratics, who sidled up closest to you. Either of these two? Or did you go more for Parmenides? Or the Socratic himself?
From your post, I might guess your sympathies head towards Plato. I think he cares much less for narrative than the certainty of classification. Do you tend this way too? Logos over Mythos?
I find myself becoming more and more enraptured with the Mythos. But, as you remind us at the top of your post, no one mode is pure. Mythos or Logos alone is not sufficient. But the mystery seems so hard to find these days.
Anthony,
ReplyDeleteI'm an equal opportunist in most respects and so when it comes to the Pre Socratics I can't (not don't) think in terms of favorites simply because they all have good arguments, no? As for logos/mythos - I think that narrative goes about fleshing out logos and logos goes about ordering narrative and so in the end
there is a need for me to view them as a "couple of necessity"
Hum, I just finished reading an article on the Phadreus by Benjamin Jowett (don't ask me why - it certainly has nothing to do with our two papers or my presentation due in the next 3 days), and he states that Socrates proposes they use the two speeches as illustrations of the art of rhetoric (this I remember) to help distinguish between the 1). debatable, and 2). the undisputed class of subjects. And in the debatable class there should be a definition for disputed matters, which did not exist in Lysias' speech because "there is no order or connection in his words any more than in a nursery rhyme." So, is not definition under classification, since it is a method of archiving? And can one classify without evaluating? Socrates wishes the speech to embody 2 principals: the synthesis or comprehension of parts into a whole, and the analysis, or the resolution (evaluation?) of the whole into parts. Dear me, I believe that is two modes of discourse of equal measure, and more than I, as a mere mortal, am prepared to do.
ReplyDeleteAs for your description of Hackos & Redish, it does seem to again combine several of Kinneavy's Modes of Discourse (which, he seems to feel leech into one another naturally.). For example, I see the narration, as you described, in the examples, and the classification in the characteristics ascribed in Ch. 4.
Miller's writing is definitely evaluation, and in fact she mentions Elizabeth Tebeaux's research, noting that "several curricular changes are clearly mandated" because of the discrepancies between instructional assumptions and industrial practices. Miller goes on to discuss such aspects as Anderson's fifty surveys, or those by Marcus Green and Timothy Nolan, and surveys are definitely forms of evaluation.
As you describe (pun), Garrett's article is a description (the surface plane, the skeleton plane the structure plane, etc.) and a way to expand our notion of user experience as "more than just five elements of user experience." He wants us to understand (and I agree, this becomes narration) how the web has changed over the years. For example, it has become more interactive, has taken on new capabilities, and developed a more complex feature set.
Thxs. Nicole!
FYI - A Cotswald documentary is playing in the background. Why can't we have a conference there?