Yu Huang

Explication two

EGN335

Due date: 10/30/15

Explication of Inhumane Illustration and its Impact on Professional

Writing

After studying some rhetorical concepts from our Introduction to Professional

Writing class, I am interested in the rhetorical concept of inhumane illustrations. The

rhetorical concept “inhumane illustrations” that we discussed is originally from Dragga and

Voss’s article, Cruel Pies: The Inhumanity of Technical Illustration. I personally think this

article is interesting and I want to explore more about inhumane illustrations. What does

this rhetorical concept, inhumane illustrations, mean? I personally think inhumane means

extremely cruel and brutal behavior and illustration generally means graphics or diagrams.
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In Cruel Pies, Dragga and Voss argue the definition of visual ethics by some examples

that represent injuries and fatalities inhumanely in depictions. For example, they

mentioned Charles Joseph Minard’s diagram of Napoleon’s aggression in Russia (266).

According to the diagram, Napoleon led 422,000 soldiers into Moscow for military

campaigns. After a period of time, they reached Moscow with only 100,000 soldiers,

retreated, and left Russia with only 10,000. These numbers obviously tell readers that

thousands of Napoleon’s men died in battle or on the way to battle; however, they do not

emphasize directly that 412,000 people died and the tragedy that that represents. Using

the illustration, simple math and cognitive reasoning could expose the number of deaths or

supplies used in Napoleon’s march, but it could not distinctly describe how that march

brought anguish and death for soldiers and their families. I think the graphic has inhumane

and indifferent elements toward the humans it describes; the illustration omits the reality

that underpins the statistics. If the author depicts Napoleon’s aggression into words, I could

imagine how soldiers suffered chilly weather and starvation before they arrived in Moscow

and left for home, how they felt mentally and physically after suffering battle and seeing

their fellows dying on the battle, and how these sacrificial soldiers suffered the shooting

and shelling. These realities were not mentioned much in the statistics. It seems like the
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graphic possesses the ethical issue because it simply tells audiences the numerical result

without emotion, ignoring human consequence.

Another example that shows inhumane illustration could be considered bar graphs

that coldly exhibit how people die in various industries (268). In the example, the deaths of

humans being killed or hurt on the job are appalling. From this graph, people are killed by

driving accidents, airplane crashes, limbs are cut by industrial machines, and skin is burnt

by lab accidents; but they are illustrated normally by graphic and number only, using few

depictions. However, I think the hidden meaning is the anguish of these workers and their

families’ agony of losing sons or daughters. Although the dangerous facts of these jobs are

often inherent, it does not mean we can accpet these happenings happily, and allow it to be

illustrated only by indifferent figures on graphic in terms of human consequence.

I do think an understanding of inhumane illustration is important to professional

writing because it helps raise the level of humane awareness in the visual display of

technical information and makes the illustration depiction more suitable for human

consequence. Dragga and Voss said:

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Technical communicators, schooled in rhetoric and trained in the humanities,

are in a unique position to help raise the level of ethics in the visual display of

technical information. We know how to adapt the technical information,

making technical language more readable, more useable and more suitable

for human beings. It is time to bring a similar conscience—a similar

humanity—to the creation of visual communication. (272)

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Dragga and Voss emphasized that humane illustration should be raised so that

technical language of illustration in visual display can be more suitable for human

consequence. If professional writers compose their illustrations without a humanistic

dimension, the readers will not feel the genuine effects on humans that underpin the

statistical graphics created. For example, an infographic from the White House, “There is a

‘Digital Divide’ in the United States”, posits that access to the Internet is essential for

communication and collaboration. In one specific graph about the correlation between

Internet access and education, the author suggests that families with a head of household

who did not attend college are more likely to not have in-home access to the Internet. The

infographic might not meet Dragga and Voss’s expectations for ethical and humanistic

visuals. First, there is an apparent lack of visuals that depict humans or make humans the

focal point of the infographics. Although visuals can humanize infographics, they are not

always the best course of action. However, the White House’s infographic could certainly

benefit from a written focus on humans and effects on humans in its graphs. For example,

the author could add more flesh-and-blood characters to their descriptions under each bar

and in the graph title. As it stands, there are primarily numbers and quantities of education,

but few humanistic characters.

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A separate infographic from “Digital Divide” shows over 98% of Americans have in-home

access to Internet services but that a quarter of people still do not have in-home access. In this

case, the author combined both infographic and written description to aptly highlight humanism

in both pictorial and written form. This is a good example of what Dragga and Voss suggest as a

humanistic infographic.

I’ve determined that an inhumane illustration can make readers ignore genuine

sensations toward human implications of statistical illustration. Also, I’ve discussed how an

inhumane illustration can influence professional writing. What can assist in increasing the

humanity of illustrations? Personally, I think that visual displays such as using

photographs, cartoons or drawing of pertinent human subjects could help arouse people’s

consciousness of sympathetic quality toward infographic. In addition, altering word

selection so that flesh-and-blood characters rather than numbers are emphasized.