Self-reported problems of L1 and L2 college writers: what can writing instructors do?

Understanding self-reported problems of L1 and L2 writers regarding the writing process holds important pedagogical implications for instructors to address their students’ specific writing needs. L2 writers were usually reported to have more difficulty setting goals and generating material, and to produce less accurate and effective texts (Leki, 1992; Silva 1993, 1997). This paper compares the self-reported writing difficulties of two groups: L1 (N=19) and L2 (N=19) freshman composition students from an American university. To analyze the group differences, a questionnaire (using 5-point Likert scale) about the perceptions of writing difficulties and approaches to writing process was used. Findings from the descriptive statistical analysis suggest that despite self-reported common problems, such as keeping clarity by using appropriate syntax, the L1 and L2 students presented different views on the importance of visuals in a text. While L1s find visuals to be least important for the reader to understand the text, L2s find visuals to be most important. The results reveal that although instructors focus on teaching essay organization, both L1 and L2 students need more instruction on creating better sentence structures. Encouraging L2 students to use visuals (pictures and graphs) in their persuasive essays would prove beneficial for them to overcome writing problems in English

Chinese Students’ Writing in English: Using visuals and lists

In the UK, Chinese students now comprise the largest international student group; yet, little is known about their university-level writing. This study draws on a large corpus of undergraduate student writing from UK universities. It explores Chinese students’ written assignments in English, contrasting these with assignments from British students across a range of university disciplines. The paper points to the L1 Chinese students’ higher use of visuals, lists and formulae in their discipline specific writing when compared to the comparison group of L1 English students. 摘要. 目前，中国留学生已构成了英国最大的国际学生群体。然而，关于中国留学生在大学层次上的写作情况却鲜为人知。基于英国大学本科生的写作语料，本研究分析了中国留学生的书面作业，并与不同学科的英国大学生的作业进行比较。文章指出，就学科内写作而言，同英国以英语为母语的大学生相比，中国学生使用图型、列表和公式的频率更高

Avatar actors

In this text I wish to discuss, as well as illustrate through pictorial examples, how the Live Visuals of three dimensional online virtual worlds may be leading us into participatory and collaborative Play states during which we appear to become the creators as well as the actors of what may also be described as our own real-time cinematic output. One of the most compelling of these stages may be three dimensional, online virtual worlds in which avatars create and enact their own tales and conceptions, effectively bringing forth live, participatory cinema through Play

On the Role of Visuals in Multimodal Answers to Medical Questions

This paper describes two experiments carried out in order to investigate the role of visuals in multimodal answer presentations for a medical question answering system. First, a production experiment was carried out to determine which modalities people choose to answer different types of questions. In this experiment, participants had to create (multimodal) presentations of answers to general medical questions. The collected answer presentations were coded on the presence of visual media (i.e., photos, graphics, and animations) and their function. The results indicated that participants presented the information in a multimodal way. Moreover, significant differences were found in the presentation of different answer and question types. Next, an evaluation experiment was conducted to investigate how users evaluate different types of multimodal answer presentations. In this second experiment, participants had\ud to assess the informativity and attractiveness of answer presentations for different types of medical questions. These answer presentations, originating from the production experiment, were manipulated in their answer length (brief vs. extended) and their type of picture (illustrative vs. informative). After the participants had assessed the answer presentations, they received a post-\ud test in which they had to indicate how much they had recalled from the presented answer presentations. The results showed that answer presentations with an informative picture were evaluated as more informative and more attractive than answer presentations with an illustrative picture. The results for the post-test tentatively indicated that learning from answer presentations with an informative picture leads to a better learning performance than learning from purely textual answer presentations

The interaction of text and visual in specialized dictionary definitions

Although visuals have been co-deployed with text in specialized dictionaries as far back as the European Renaissance, the interaction of both representational modalities is relatively under-researched. As a consequence, available knowledge is relatively limited with respect to the kinds of visuals employed in specialized dictionaries, the kinds of definiendum that elicit specific types of visuals, the functions of visuals relative to text in definitions, and the association between particular visuals and visual-text functions. This study sheds light on these questions from the perspective of specialized dictionaries in two fields (Biology and Mechanical Engineering). Significantly, the study underscores how the ontology or nature of Biology and Mechanical Engineering appear to determine both the selections made of visual types and the dominant text-visual relationships. The study further makes a contribution to cleaning up the Augean clutter that is the terminology of visuals.Web of Scienc

Genera Esfera: Interacting with a trackball mapped onto a sphere to explore generative visual worlds

Genera Esfera is an interactive installation that allows the audience to interact and easily become a VJ (visual DJ) in a world of generative visuals. It is an animated and generative graphic environment with a music playlist, a visual spherical world related with and suggested by the music, which reacts and evolves. The installation has been presented at MIRA Live Visual Arts Festival 2015, in Barcelona. Genera Esfera was envisioned, developed and programmed on the basis of two initial ideas: first, to generate our spherical planets we need to work with spherical geometry and program 3D graphics; second, the interaction should be easy to understand, proposing a direct mapping between the visuals and the interface. Our main goal is that participants can focus on exploring the graphic worlds rather than concentrate on understanding the interface. For that purpose we use a trackball to map its position onto sphere rotations. In this paper, we present the interactive installation Genera Esfera, the design guidelines, the mathematics behind the generative visuals and its results.Postprint (published version

Veure i errors visuals

Tractaré en aquest article d'un problema que ha preocupat últimament als filòsofs: el veure. I dic el veure, ja que, tot i haver-se parlat, debatut i polemitzat sobre la percepció, aquesta ha quedat sempre reduïda en la majoria dels estudis a la percepció merament visual; entre altres coses, per ser Ja que compta amb major tradició epistemològica. Parlaré, doncs, del veure. I ho faré tot oposant-me a una teoria, el fenomenisme, que és ja antiga i que ha estat reiteradament criticada, encara que no sé si refutada. De fet, els filòsofs s'han preocupat més de rebatre aquesta positura que no pas d'hoferir-hi alguna alternativa. Potser perquè l'alternativa consistesca en seguir parlant de la visió tal i com ho fem a la nostra vida quotidiana. Tractaré, doncs, inspirat en Norwood Russell Hanson, d'oferir una alternativa a l'esmentada teoria, encara que només siga per a mostrar com es de va intentar-ho

Tests of Graphic Visuals and Cigarette Package Warning Combinations: Implications for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

The World Health Organization recently adopted the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a groundbreaking public health treaty that will require that warning information in the form of text, pictures, or a combination of these two forms cover at least 30% of the front and back of cigarette packages. In three studies using smokers from the United States and Canada, the authors examine the effects of specific graphic visuals in the context of current U.S. verbal warnings. The findings indicate that including both graphic visual warnings, such as those used in Canada, and warning statements currently used in the United States can decrease the perceived attractiveness of the package and create higher levels of negative affect, such as fear or anxiety. The results also show that the addition of the specific visual warnings examined to the U.S. statements increases smokers’ perceived intentions of quitting smoking compared with warning statements alone. The authors offer implications for public policy and public health and provide suggestions for further research

Accessibility of Vendor-Created Video Tutorials for People with Disabilities

Many video, screencast, webinar, or interactive tutorials are created and provided by vendors for use by libraries to instruct users in database searching. This study investigates whether these vendor-created database tutorials are accessible for people with disabilities to see whether librarians can use these tutorials instead of creating them in-house. Findings on accessibility were mixed. Positive accessibility features and common accessibility problems are described, with recommendations on how to maximize accessibility