Understanding Visuals in the Life Sciences

Han Yu is Professor of Science Communication at the Department of English at Kansas State University, and a Fellow of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. Her research focuses on popular science communication and visual rhetoric. She is the author of The Curious Human Knee (2023); Mind Thief: The Story of Alzheimer's (2021); Communicating Genetics: Visualizations and Representations (2017); and The Other Kind of Funnies: Comics in Technical Communication (2015).

• Foreword; Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Photograph; 3. Micrograph; 4. Illustration; 5. Graph; 6. Interactive Visuals; 7. Infographics; Conclusion; Summary of common misunderstandings; References; Figure credits; Index.

'Yu's 'close reading' of life science visualizations goes beyond 'understanding' by shining a critical lens on common forms: graphs, photographs, animations, video games, etc. She goes further than applying Tufte's rules for Beautiful Evidence by dissecting authors' intentions to purposely conceal, divert, deceive, misconstrue, and misrepresent, and she embraces practices of open science, transparency, and aesthetics that will help readers experience 'the triumph of interpretation' and empower readers to construct the meaning of heterogeneous, complex data. Her vision is an important counterpoint to the mindless proliferation of chart junk produced by misuse of common software and moves us to embrace communication practices that not only make for better science, but also serve to enhance our appreciation for the importance of maintaining a healthy skepticism of potentially spurious claims.' John R. Jungck, Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and DENIN Delaware Environmental Institute, USA