On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Gerardo @neorigami.com <[email protected]> wrote:
> In diagrams, how do you place the turn-over arrow? Where must the head > point and where the tail? and: > I also REALLY hope you'll help me with my question about the direction of > the turn-over arrow. I want to be completely sure because two people have > given me very different answers =S I would be surprised if much had changed since Robert did his diagramming survey, and his article here: http://langorigami.com/diagramming/diagramming.php (search in the document for "turn the paper over" to find the specific section.) suggests a simple arrow (valley-fold style head) with a loop in the middle. It's not specified, but implied (I think) that the head of the arrow points to the next step. Seems logical to me, you're representing a "from-this-to-that" type of step, and it makes sense to have the arrow tail ("from") closer to the starting point, and the arrowhead closer to the end result ("to"). I can't recall ever seeing a "turn over" arrow with the head pointing at the starting step - but it's not like I've seen every diagram on the planet, so they could exist. But such a use would definitely confuse me, making me think the diagrammer meant some sort of twist had to happen to *part* of the piece, say. I think that while we all may feel that origami diagrams are intuitive, it's important to remember they *are* a kind of limited language, and we all had to learn to read them at some point - they're not actually intuitive at all, just an agreed-upon convention. (There's a difference between "intuitive" and "easy to learn," after all.) So it's great that we attempt to keep a consistent _lingua franca_ in diagramming, and not do anything that would confuse an existing "speaker" of our tongue, but I think it's OK to have a bit of an "accent". (And you always need some sort of guide for the beginner, even if it's just one page explaining the notation. A chart without a key is useless except to the initiated, and we want to encourage new folks, too, don't we? A guide also gives someone tips on the local "accent", too.) Anne
