Graded Work
Class Participation (25%): This course's success depends on students' eager, committed pre-class preparation, their intense, patient, thoughtful in-class discussion, as well as their self-directed, passionately curious laboratory research in and between classes. The instructor cannot independently "make" this material interesting, coherent, easy, or fun. It's doubtful these materials ever were "coherent," but we will study how humans tried to make them seem so. This is NOT easy work, but then difficult work yields precious rewards. "Fun"--well, if you subscribe to my motto, "no fun without danger," then there is so much danger to be had in the delicate materials we are working with that a sensitive person might be prone to constant hilarity, were it not likely to interfere with having a steady hand and rapt attention for the objects before us.
When your energy fades, as it must at some point in the semester, think of the books and manuscripts and digital texts whose well-being we serve as we study them. The old and new texts we are working with are too vulnerable, too fragile, too important for any of us to demand that they entertain us. The digital texts may be the most fragile of all over the next century. But the old books and MSS are the keys to the kingdom of archival research. In return for our reverent engagement with them, they will help prepare us to enter the realm of private or scholarly libraries around the world where experience with old documents is the only possible qualification for entry.
Unless students bring interests to the course, or discover them quickly in the add/drop period, it would be better if they just dropped the course and found something more to their liking, no harm done. I would be happy to meet with students individually to help develop or focus well-intentioned attempts to become interested that are frustrated by lack of experience with the materials. Just call or email me to make an appointment.
Written documents (75%, total): You may choose to write in any
medium, including parchment, paper, HTML, MS-Word or RTF digital documents, but
all assignments must be available to me in a digital surrogate emailed to my
inbox unless you have a compelling reason why a hard-copy of some sort is
required. There are such reasons--I'm not just throwing that in to seem
fair. But I also would like to limit my need to drive to campus to pick up
artifacts for evaluation while allowing students the maximum flexibility and
time to prepare their writing. In all cases, I have suggested relatively
short maximum
lengths for the resulting documents. Experience has taught me
that, usually, page length does not correlate meaningfully with quality
of thought and efficiency of communication. The main test of
quality is whether the document accomplishes what it sets out to do for
a known readership. (E.g., if you say you are going to explain
why a given type of Website works as it does, make sure you have enough
examples to adequately represent the type, spend enough time on each
major attribute of the type to fully explain it, and help students of
the Web understand why this knowledge is important.) If you
really need a page count, try to keep them at around eight (8) to
fifteen (15) printed pages,
not counting documentation and illustrations (e.g., figures, charts, tables,
images, etc.). Use MLA format.
(See the course style sheet for a summary
of MLA format rules and examples of Works Cited entries.)
- Midterm Paper (20%): a paper comparing some aspect of digital text with some aspect of printed text. A focused, well-organized paper might concentrate on one of these topics: readers' experience of a specific kind of print vs. digital text in terms of layout, typography, illustration, etc.; the text's expense to the readers and/or society, either in the short term or calculated as "carbon footprint" etc.; ownership and access of some kind of print or digital text. Examples of the type of analysis (but not length!) you might employ in such a paper can be found in assigned readings by: Nicholson Baker and Marlene Manoff on what we expect from print vs. digital collections and conservation [perhaps consider Rothenberg?]; Jay David Bolter and Sven Birkerts on readers' experiences of differently mediated texts; Michael Massing on digital journalism vs. any form of print journalism with which you are familiar enough to claim some expertise; Paul Duguid and John Seely Brown on the "social life" of one kind of print document vs. a similar kind of digital document; Eisenstein on printed editions' standardization of error, design, and behavior, print authors' as "singular, solitary sel[ves]" who are reasonable and create meaning, or print editions evocation of places . . . all vs. some comparable digital text phenomenon (standardization [or disruption?] of forms, author effects, or awareness of spatial or temporal location). N.B.: I have tried to offer many ways to approach this relatively short (10-12 page) paper, but only one ought to be enough for a well-organized, focused paper. Please consider brainstorming topics and approaches with me before you write.
- Cadaver book descriptive bibliography (15%) is due in my inbox by the Tuesday following the last day of classes, or before. Click here for general instructions.
- Written version of Independent Research Project Report (40%) due by 12:00 Noon on the Friday of Exam Week, either as MS-Word or web page or other format--please negotiate to insure that I can access and read it!).
- Note that we have a "final experience" meeting, required by state law, during exam week That will allow you to present your IRP's preliminary results and to ask for the class's collaborative assistance in improving your project. The presentations will be part of "Class Participation" but they will not be individually graded. Rather think of them as a way to increase the quality of your IRP report (above). Presentations should be VERY BRIEF (about 5-6 minutes) to allow everyone a chance. Use handouts and PowerPoint etc. to enable us rapidly to grasp what you are doing and what issues you have encountered wherein we might assist you.. Consult the Syllabus for exact day and time.