Department of Medicine Publications
Seeing and Listening: A Visual and Social Analysis of Optometric Record-Keeping Practices
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-2007
Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Volume
21
Issue
4
First Page
343
Last Page
375
URL with Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1050651907303991
Abstract
This article investigates the contribution visual rhetoric and rhetorical genre studies (RGS) can make to health care education and communication genres. Through a visual rhetorical analysis of a patient record used in an optometry teaching clinic, this article illustrates that a genre's visual representations provide significant insights into the social action of that genre. These insights are deepened by an insider analysis of the patient record that highlights how content analyses of visual designs need to be elaborated by contextual considerations. A combined visual rhetoric and RGS analysis shows that clinical novices learn to interpret the record's visual cues to safely traverse the complex requirements of this apprenticeship genre. The article demonstrates that visual rhetoric research can meaningfully contribute to the understanding of genres by presenting an enriched contextual analysis achieved by consulting with context insiders.
Notes
Nominated for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) award for Best Article Reporting Qualitative or Quantitative Research in Technical or Scientific Communication.
Dr. Lorelei Lingard is currently a faculty member at The University of Western Ontario.