A social science text has topography. Idea, concepts, and data are structured in a narrative form and the writer faces three challenges: 1) how to deal with the complexity of knowledge in a linear form of writing, 2) how to transform experience and the wealth of data you needed to know to write, into focused and lean writing that the reader needs to read, and finally 3) how, while providing a synthetic representation of reality, to establish memorable credibility of the data and narrative. These challenges can be addressed and overcome by the use of devices we can identify most clearly in art.