Web Pages Relevant to Bolter and Schneider

Bolter marginalia p. 77  Summary/excerpts from Agee & Altaribba (2009) on 6th and 7th graders' reading in digital and print media: See especially #1 (ex-Kress, 2003), #3 (Wilder & Dressman 2003 and A&A), and #5 (A&A's original research).  Fulton (2001) on saccades and pauses in non-linear reading of ordinary print.

        Documents without punctuation or word division may seem bizarre (Bolter 76-77 and 83), but think about writing as a representation in text of what someone has said.  Is there clear word division in the stream of sound you make when reading this sentence out loud?  What form does punctuation take, or should it take, when you read this sentence?  Note that modern logical punctuation differs from ancient "musical" punctuation; the former was for the eye, the latter for the ear.  When silent reading replaced the habit of reading aloud, punctuation conventions appear to have grown more important to help the eye bring order to the silent text on the page.  For another undivided, unpunctuated MS, see the British Library's image of a leaf from the Biblical Codex Sinaiticus.  Its all-capital alphabet in Biblical majuscule (i.e., caps) is similar to the script of the Vatican Library's Virgil in Capitalis Quadrata.

        Questions for today's reading in Bolter and Schneider.

1)  In Bolter's analysis, what is "linear reading" (76-8)?

2)  What kind of reading does Bolter call  "dialogue" (78-80)?

3)  What is reading a "network" (81-84)?

4)  What old-print typographic (or "paratextual") features may change in the new hypertextual environment (86)?

5)  What does Schneider say are ordinary reading's "non-linear processes" (199-200)?

6)  What does Schneider say may change about "character" in hypertext fictions, and how might that also affect hypertext non-fictions (e.g., blogs, ordinary web pages like this one, Wikipedia entries, etc.) (203)?