Source Map Critique Dos and Don'ts
Preparation:
- Do go through the heuristic on pages 18 and 19 of our first reading in Picturing Texts and answer the questions. This will give you raw material. Some of the questions will give you nothing; some will give you a lot.
- Do focus your analysis on a few of your most productive concepts. Is genre or proportion vital to how your map constructs its message? What about cultural or social context? Maybe the medium has dictated much of what has been communicated. Pick the concepts that you feel are really important to your source map and concentrate on those.
- Don't sit down and try to write your critique from start to finish without thinking about how the different features of your source map interrelate.
- Don't try to pile in every term just for the sake of doing so.
Introduction:
- Do make a clear statement about the map's purpose and intent.
- Do include an accurate source citation, either here or on a separate Works Cited page.
- Don't provide extraneous information about your process finding your source for this project. This is an analysis, not a personal narrative; tell the audience about the work, not yourself.
Analysis:
- Do focus your work upon the terms and concepts we have discussed in class, for example:
The map's use of proportion is vital to its purpose. By scaling the size of a country with regard to the percentage of obese individuals living there, the map creates a readily-accesible visual demonstration of the uneven global distribution of overweight individuals. The emotional impact of this information would be blunted by presentation through lists and tables; the direct visual comparison reveals that North America, and the United States in particular, dwarfs other areas in per-capita food consumption. The map thereby constructs an enthymematic argument; it relies upon the unstated premise that some humans should not starve while others gorge themselves.
or
This work manipulates the implicit claim to objectivity inherent in the topographical map genre by incorporating a strong undercurrent of cultural context. The hand-drawn caricatures, many of which manifest racial stereotypes that would be objectionable to a contemporary audience, give the map a thoroughly personal, subjective tone. The map eschews all pretense of impartiality, opting instead for a ground-level, real-life point of view that shows what areas of Los Angeles belong to the hispanic vatos, the black gangs, and the elite (and isolated) whites.
- Don't simply point out "mistakes" in the map that could be corrected.
Application to your work:
- Do identify what techniques you have learned from your source map, or what changes you are making to serve your different subject, audience, or purpose.
- Don't focus your discussion on the mistakes in your source map and how you intend to correct them. Remember that you are not "fixing" your source map; you are creating your own work. If you have the same subject, audience, and purpose as your source map, then you are just replicating it. That is not the purpose of this assignment.
Three example source map critiques are attached below. Keep in mind that these examples are not perfect, but they should give you a good idea of the expected structure of a source critique.