Glossary

Affordance: Something a design enable you to do.

Genre: A kind or type of something.

Conventions: The characteristics that define a genre.

Constraint: Something a design restricts us to do.

Summary: Pulling out ideas in the text and using your own words.

Paraphrase: A very short summary putting your ideas to what the text means. Goal is to get close to the meaning as possible.

Lexicon: A list of terms from a text, subject, and/or discussion.

Claim: A statement put forth as true that needs evidence to be convincing. Commonplace.

Thesis: The main claim of an argument.

Abstract: The overview.

Rhetoric: The art of crafting a message to affect change in a particular audience. The art of persuasion. Being able to see the available means of persuasion in an given situation.

Primary Research: Gathering the data yourself.

Secondary Research: Reporting and using data others have gathered.

Multi-modality: Bringing together different modes of communication. This includes: Linguistic, Oral, Visual, Gestural, & Spatial.

Content: What you say or what is being said.

Style: How you say or how it’s being said.

Digital Literacy: Our ability to work with the particular affordances of different medias.

Metadata: A set of data that describes and gives information about other data.

Explicit Claim: Stated outright

Implicit Claim: Suggested. Hinted

Exigency: A reason for being. “So What” test.