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Subject:It's the game you can play at home! From:"Sharon Burton" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:58:55 -0700
As I'm sure you know, in Southern California we don't have a lot of
electricity. We can run out when it gets hot, like now, for example. You can
watch us use electricity and watch us run out on the internet. Go to http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html
Why is this interesting to tech writing? Look at the graphic. It's a lovely
example of depicting technical information in a visual manner. In one small
picture, you can grasp the problem and the progress of the problem in real
time. In my classes, I use this website as an example of visual literacy, as
well as how fun it is to watch us run over the cliff. When things start
falling apart, they go quickly.
You can imagine showing this in words and it not being as effective. And, if
you scroll down the page, you can see the same info in a tabular format.
It's much harder to grasp the situation in a table than it is in the
graphic.
Sometimes a picture really does show you much more than the words do.
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Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
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