HANDLING ATTENTION POINTS◆ 193disappointed. If they put effort into understanding a diagram that
turns out to shed no extra illumination, or perhaps is more con-
fusing and less clear than the text which accompanies it, then
readers may feel resentful. Such an attention point only detracts
from the overall impact of your argument.
So diagrams need to be very carefully designed and
implemented. As author you need to ask all the time what
readers need to know, what value-added the diagram (or a set of
diagrams) gives, and how comprehensible and accessible it will
be for them. In short you need to manage readers’ expectations
in a very active way. Some key rules include the following:
◆Always design diagrams using proper packages appropriate
for this task, of which the best known are Microsoft’s
Powerpointor Lotus’s Freelance Graphics. Simpler illustrations
may also be feasible to do in Word or Wordperfect.
Hand-drawn or pencil-and-paper diagrams are no longer
acceptable in PhD theses. Nor is it a good idea to use
non-specialist software (like programming languages or
general PC drawing packages) to try and produce
professional-looking finished designs. If you will need a
large number of diagrams, or you will be giving conference
or seminar presentations, it is worthwhile going on a proper
training course to learn your chosen presentations package
thoroughly. It can sometimes be far more time-consuming in
the end to try and take a shortcut by hacking-and-seeing or
relying on the packages’ on-line tutorials rather than
attending a few classes.
◆When designing diagrams always follow well-known
conventions for constructing organization charts,
algorithms, or flow diagrams. Conventions speed up your
communication with readers, because they can recognize
more quickly what is being shown and what you are trying
to do, without their having to rely on the accompanying
main text. They also impose a discipline on you, preventing
you from lurching off into graphical idiosyncrasies which
will be impenetrable to readers. For instance, flow charts
outline a sequence of operations or provide a picture of how
a set of cases breaks down into several subsets. In the social
sciences most authors use a simplified format which focuses