Storing Information
Introduction
It is the essence of a text that it stores information. Information in a printed
text will be one, or a combination of, four types:
(1)
Words. These can be prose, or they can be labels such as heading or
descriptions on a diagram.
(2)
Symbols.
(3)
Numbers.
(4)
Pictures. This is a generic term for such things as diagrams, graphs,
photographs, drawings, and paintings.
This classification is useful by alerting a writer to the possibilities, but it comes
with a qualification. These categories are not absolutely distinct. For example,
a symbol and a number are, in one sense, just other ways of writing words.
Information can be arranged in any of several forms. Categories delineated
here are also not absolutely distinct, although they are still useful. Words are
primarily arranged as text, labels or titles, and headings. Symbols are used
within prose so that they are part of the text, or they can be used in
combination with each other, with numbers and with a few words, as happens
in mathematical calculations. Drawings and photographs are primarily pictorial.
Diagrams are a combination of pictures and words. Tables and charts are text
arranged in lists or columns.
As this discussion indicates, information can sometimes be a combination of
two or more of these types. A simple example is a photograph in a text with a
title and a brief explanation (for example, describing its purpose or origin). A
diagram will almost invariably be a combination of a drawing and labels. Even
a table or chart that lists items in verbal form is a combination of the words
and the simple diagram constituted by the table or chart.
Describing the content of a text in this form may seem to be stating the
obvious. It does, however, emphasise the various components of a text.
Analysing writing by this means is intended to makes writers aware of what a
text contains, and emphasises the options which they have when forming a
text. It may serve as a prompt or hint, for example to put information in a table
rather than in text. Finally, it may help readers by alerting them of what to look
for when reading a text.
Prose
In many disciplines, including law, prose is the main form in which information
is delivered. Here the central task is to structure information in six phases –
using words correctly, making sentences, joining sentences, making
 |
 |
 |