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In my workshops on hypertext, I find one of the useful recognitions for participants is that if you can readily print out your project and it works as a printed document, you (1) are not thinking in hypertextual terms (2) you haven't created hypertext. (One uses these new media (especially educationally), not just because they're cool but because they do things that cannot be done conveniently in other ways. Remember, one can always (or almost always) do things in one information technology that were created in another, but sometimes something that takes a few seconds in the digital realm can take hours to replicate. Think, for example, of hand-retouched or airbrushed photos and Photoshop! Or looking up a word in a print version of the OED, which can take (a) the time to walk to the library and find the volume you need, (2) the 1-2 minutes to look up the item, (3) the time needed to write down definitions and historical examples. Compare that to the online version that returns a response in a second or two and permits copying into one's notes instantly! Years ago I heard a talk by a someone preparing linguistic databases for an experiment in teaching a modern language the way it is actually spoken. In passing he remarked, that looking up a word in a foreign dictionary took about 90 seconds on average and using a computer database returned a response in a second and a half, the result of the difference being that readers try not to have to use the print dictionary — looking up ten words takes 15 minutes — but the quick response time of the digital version creates a vastly different relationship to the text: people use it frequently to check that they have the exact definition or use it almost like flashcards as a learning tool, Conclusion: while the words in each version of the dictionary are the same, the different way of experiencing them changes the reader's use and experience of the text. As a corollary: one of the most discouraging things about many well known media theorists who come from the humanities is that they theorize extensively about things like, say, moving text or hypertext, but themselves have experienced very few examples (and thus their theorizing is very skewed) and have never actually created any themselves. I can think of several very well known books on hypertext, for example, that reveal upon examination, that the authors have almost no experience with it. Gunnar Liestol and Andrew Morrison, both of the U Oslo, have urged that hypertext and digital media give humanists, for the first time, a laboratory or test bed by which humanists can actually prove or disprove their theories. The problem is that most critical theorists, unlike people in the sciences, are not used to the idea that one actually has to test one's theories before publishing them, so now that we have a chance to do so, they still put out what, in the sciences, would be a research proposal as a finished project. Hmm. On Jul 4, 2005, at 2:14 AM, babel wrote: > Susan Pritchard wrote: > >> Digital literarure easily becomes ink/paper based literature and vice >> versa. > > Hi Susan, > > when it is useful to make this distinction, I've found that print > literature can easily become digital, but _not_ vice versa... would > anyone else agree with that? > > chris > > ********** > > To alter your subscription settings, log on to Subscriber's Corner at > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/writing-and-the-digital-life.html > > To unsubscribe, email [log in to unmask] with a blank subject > line and the following text in the body of the message: SIGNOFF > WRITING-AND-THE-DIGITAL-LIFE > > George P. Landow Professor of English and the History of Art Brown University www.landow.com ********** To alter your subscription settings, log on to Subscriber's Corner at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/writing-and-the-digital-life.html To unsubscribe, email [log in to unmask] with a blank subject line and the following text in the body of the message: SIGNOFF WRITING-AND-THE-DIGITAL-LIFE