Presenting the Thesis-diagram: A Study in Diagrammatic Dynamics and Making Sense

Abstract

My thesis problematises both the processes involved in understanding information, and the ways in which informational structures are used to construct knowledge. In addressing this duel theme, I set up a dichotomy between information structured according to a linear, one-dimensional, interpretively-driven organising principle on the one hand, and a multi-perspectival, non-explicit, correlatively-driven organising principle on the other: here discussed in terms of writing and diagrams. By formulating my analysis in these terms I endeavour to explore the mechanics of informational structures through a comparison of how writing and diagram both make knowledge, and make knowledge possible. Through an examination of how the textual and diagrammatic encounter differs, I aim to tease out the embedded dynamics that come into play in their respective construal of meaning. This exploration is presented in the form of a thesis-diagram, which is modelled on and inspired by the dominant format of the encyclopaedia genre since the seminal Enlightenment text Encyclopaedia. The thesis-diagram is a writing-diagram hybrid offered as an alternative frame to the conventional essay/report format, intended to be both academically accountable and diagrammatically accessible.