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Chapter 5 invites you to start seeing rhetorically and asks you to reflect on the ways that descriptions are shaped by the observer's intentions, experiences, beliefs, and moods. Continuing with the metaphors "angle of vision," "interpretive lens" and "filter," the chapter develops the notion that observation is not a passive act but a complicated process in which various influences help shape perceptions. By the end of the chapter, you should understand the following: 1. The complex factors that shape what an observer sees include previous knowledge, cultural background, interests, and values. 2. Experts on any given subject notice details about the subject that novices overlook. 3. Beliefs and values shape our perceptions, often creating blind spots; observers regularly fail to notice data that conflict with their beliefs and values. 4. There is an ethical dimension to description; observers must accept responsibility for what they see and make others see. 5. Authors create angles of vision by choosing to employ one or more of several different textual strategies. 6. Showing and telling are two fundamentally different approaches to writing about a scene or event: Showing provides details that appeal to the senses, while telling interprets a scene without describing it.
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