The Forgetfulcy Postion Entry

The most interesting thing I read in class this week was in Joyce L. Carter's "Argument in Hypertext: Writing Strategies and the Problem of Order in a Nonsequential World." It was about the recency effect, which refers to the phenomenon where the last thing a reader encounters is the most memorable. She wrote that "the writer might exploit the recency effect, anticipating that any node may become a conclusion for users who decide to call it quits at that spot. Stylistically, each node must sound like a conclusion." She then gave an example of a writer who "repeated key claims in every node... so that no matter which path readers took, they would see the claims repeated in various forms." That reinforced the idea that each aspect of my digital poster needs to convey the point I am trying to make, in case the reader decides to stop reading.

Image credit: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/serial-position-effect

Image is of a hand-drawn graph labeled Serial Position Effect showing the amount you remember and position in sequence with Primacy first, Forgetfulcy second, and Recency third. There is a U shape with the dip in Forgetfulcy.

When I was younger, and I was getting lectured, I would zone out, but always keep one ear open to the last sentence said so that I could repeat it back to whoever was addressing me. That way, it seemed as though I was paying attention the entire time. I was inadvertently using the recency effect as a tool to avoid an uncomfortable situation. While listening to a lecture isn't digital or visual rhetoric, it still employs the rhetorical strategies of pathos, ethos, and logos to try to persuade me of the point being made. I hope that my reader will not view my digital poster as a moment of discomfort and will instead try to gather all the available information in the text.

I didn't particularly like any of the layouts available or the stock images on blogger.com. When I experimented with different layouts, they all looked worse than the one I chose. I chose the "Essential" background in light because none of the other backgrounds seemed suitable for the subject of this class. Each blog post for the class should be at least 500 words, and a white background makes it easier to read and locate information on the page. I just thought there are approximately 30 people in class, and each blog contains at least 2500 words, so I thought that a white background would make my 2500 go more smoothly than most. I think the white background represents ease of use to me, and I hope it does to the reader as well. It's clean and helps me focus on the words more easily. I have incorporated images, a video, a movie poster, and a graphic into my previous posts, as well as this one. But, overall, the visual rhetoric is lacking in my blog posts. I feel that this week's lesson on Digital and Visual Rhetoric will have a greater impact on my digital poster than on this blog.

I named this entry "The Forgetfulcy Position Entry" because it is the third of five blog posts, smack dab in the middle of the zone of forgetfulcy most likely to be forgotten, as it's neither the first thing read nor the last.