Digital Commons Network^™

Investigating The Relationship Between Data Displays, Rhetoric, And Reader Response In Technical Writing, Hanna Louise Landgrebe

MSU Graduate Theses

This study is meant to deepen the discussion Dragga and Voss began in "Cruel Pies” by exploring the connection between data displays and their ability to evoke or suppress emotional reactions in readers. It begins with a literature review of relevant discussions in ethics and technical writing, and then describes how readers responded to a series of news excerpts—some of which were paired with data displays or photographs—both by answering Likert scale questions and by thinking aloud and responding to written, open-ended questions. Though the quantitative data collected from the Likert scales is not robust enough to make any generalizations, …