This
chapter expounds on a study based on a rhetorical analysis of scholarly texts
in various digital forms for publication. These include venues such as journal
articles, blog posts, discussion forums, and Twitter feeds. In this study, the
group considers the ways in which these digital forms present content, provide
for analysis and consideration of scholarly topics, use visual design to shape
the reader’s interaction with the information, or organize the content in
complex ways. The theory and conclusions in this chapter are based on group
findings after performing this study. In order to determine if these digital
forms were sufficient venues for academic scholarship the group chose five
categories of “rhetorical moves” to focus on during their study including
explicit argumentation, speculation, implicit association, dialogic exchange,
and formal enactment. These categories were chosen for analysis because of the
tradition set by existing pedagogy.
Explicit argumentation refers to the practices taught in
composition classes and what is usually represented in published works.
Explicit argumentation is a convention familiar to composition textbooks and
teacher-scholars of English. These practices are typically used in traditional
research texts and scholarly work. Speculation
refers to the rhetoric that isn’t necessarily asserted but a kind of writing
that is left open-ended to an extent. This practice asserts that scholarship
and rhetoric need not only be argumentative or used to reveal one prevailing
truth. Implicit Association argues
that digital forms of scholarship allow the reader to interact with the content
and produce knowledge by associating information and draw connections and form
the content to create meaning that the author could not have imagined. The
study explains that digital texts are already using hyperlinks as well as
juxtaposition of words, images, and design elements to enforce this type of
reader interaction. Dialogic exchange is
based on the theory of Kenneth Bruffee (1984) who believed that knowledge is
born in conversation. For Bruffee, dialogic exchange is the concrete on which
the production of knowledge rests. This theory implies the importance of
community, interaction, and socialization. The digital forms that the group
found to support this theory are interactive discussion forums, wikis, and
other social media platforms. Formal
enactment refers to the theories of visual perception and new media. These
ideas analyzed the ways in which digital forms allow for interpretation though
presentation and implementation. The group identified places where authors make
use of the digital space for design possibilities to make meaning.
The
conclusion of the chapter sums up the group’s analysis in three significant
ideas:
“The first is that the rhetorical
moves that we conceive of as characteristic of traditional scholarship also
happen in recognizable ways in digital forms, most evidently in webtexts, but
in all the forms we studied. Thus, we argue that our analysis provides concrete
evidence that the kinds of moves that define traditional scholarship can also
define digital scholarship.”
“Second, scholarly activity happens
in new ways in these digital spaces. Digital forms not only allow for some of
the same moves that define the scholarly productions long valued in English
studies, they allow for extending our definitions of the “scholarly” and
provide new outlets for productive knowledge-building work.”
“Finally, our analysis illustrates
how spaces like Twitter, Techrhet, and blogs can serve as a direct outlet to
most formal scholarly productions. That is, ideas explored and developed in
these spaces frequently find their way into other scholarship and play a role
in the development of ideas and production knowledge.”
You can view the full chapter here:
http://ccdigitalpress.org/nwc/chapters/purdy-walker/index.html
-Amy Eades
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