Comments on: Category 4

By: Edward Visel

Edward Visel — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 07:26:28 +0000

In the humanities, this is certainly not the norm yet, but most science (and econ, math, etc.) papers already have multiple authors. What exactly this means is a little murky at times, though, when authorship is granted merely for working in the same lab. Still, maybe this model can be modified fruitfully to more of what you suggest.

By: Bob Stein

Bob Stein — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:36:58 +0000

the problem with making it so that readers to choose segments shorter than paragraphs is that it gets very confusing when Reader A selects words 8-34 and Reader B selects words 19-27. we just don’t have good enough tools yet to enable that level of complexity. i trust this situation will change as we have more experience and tools evolve.

By: Lisa Montanarelli

Lisa Montanarelli — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 19:02:25 +0000

I agree with the need for more nuance. Part of the issue is that the dichotomy between author and reader has always been problematic: writing and reading are in many ways inextricably linked — you can’t have one without the other. Also, many “single author” books involve the work of many people. New technologies complicate the relation between reading and writing partly because the readers’ marginal comments and conversations become a permanent part of the manuscript. At what point do commentators become co-writers, or a networked community of writers/readers?

By: Lisa Montanarelli

Lisa Montanarelli — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 17:57:18 +0000

To my mind, the rise in collaborative writing is the most exciting aspect of the shift from printed page to networked screen. My most rewarding writing experiences have been collaborative — though I’ve mostly worked with one other writer on popular books and articles, rather than scholarly texts. I’m intrigued to see how social reading/writing technologies impact academic work and scholarly publishing.

By: Lisa Montanarelli

Lisa Montanarelli — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 15:30:14 +0000

A thought regarding Chris’s concern about fracturing readers’ attention –
As one who is endlessly distracted, I like the option of making the sidebar comment pane disappear.

By: Lisa Montanarelli

Lisa Montanarelli — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 15:16:01 +0000

Alongside the benefits Chris and Sol mention, the beside-the-page approach encourages careful reading and responsible commenting. As I write a comment, I can easily refer back to an exact phrase (without endless scrolling). I also feel a greater sense of responsibility to avoid blithe misinterpretations, since I know my comment will appear alongside the paragraph so future readers can compare the two.
The beside-the-page approach reminds me of the Comment and Markup functions in OpenOffice, MS Word and others, which allow multiple (offline) readers/authors/editors to comment in the margins on specific words as well as paragraphs and to delete or rewrite text. I realize that these word processing programs are quite different — they’re offline and don’t permit an ever-updating flow of conversation — but I wonder if it would be useful to give readers the option of commenting on smaller segments of text.

By: Jennifer Stevenson

Jennifer Stevenson — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:13:30 +0000

Now I begin to see how the context protects the content-owner’s IP rights. And as a content provider I feel less hostile toward the notion of a work that is open, as it were, to having material attached to it from any and all parties who may or may not have paid for it.
There is still a container of some kind, however–the community in which the content is being discussed. Such communities are generally closed in some way, even if only via membership (“log on to Facebook”).

By: Jennifer Stevenson

Jennifer Stevenson — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:07:57 +0000

This practice of commenting on a text (sometimes at the end, sometimes within the text) was common in the very-long medieval era: a manuscript would make the rounds among interested scholars and the scholars would either append their own comments to blank pages at the end of the manuscript or would simply recopy it, with their own remarks or emendations incorporated. Manuscripts not infrequently returned to the same readers over and over. Naturally this required a good deal of patience if one wanted to hold a conversation about the work.

By: Sol Gaitan

Sol Gaitan — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 22:20:47 +0000

Beside the page has proven a great tool for me. In a way, public reading acquires the intimacy of reading someone else’s comments on the margins of his/her book, but at the same time being a participant in the act.

By: Margaret Ikeda

Margaret Ikeda — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:43:57 +0000

I did this myself on the last page. Even starting with the intention of reading the text before the commentary, it’s surprisingly hard to resist the curiosity about what is happening in the margins. For a novel, it would definitely help to have the option to hide the comment numbers. OK, back to reading.