For this assignment, I reviewed the following articles.
"Hearsay of the Sun: Photography, Identity, and the Law of Evidence in Nineteenth-Century American Courts" by Thomas Thurston
"From Hogan's Alley to Coconino County: Three Narratives of the Early Comic Strip" by David Westbrook
The articles by Thomas Thurston and David Westbrook basically ‘fulfilled the promise of digital scholarship’. The authors did not have to deviate from traditional scholarly practices. Both articles are aimed at scholars. The articles take advantage of the hypertext capability of the Web. The article on cartoons capitalizes on the ability of the Web to present images. The reader does not have to go to the library bowels or endure the tortures of microfilm to find the material.
David Westbrook discusses early cartoons in terms of three ‘threads’; that is, the economic, cultural and formal contexts that characterized the development of early comic strips. Westbrook claims the competitive economic environment of newspapers influenced early cartoonists to move their characters from a recognizable urban setting to a ‘detachment from real places’ and caused early artists to evolve their characters from types to individualized and fictional characters. The second thread deals with the dichotomy of comic strip underdog characters in the wealth and commerce of the city. In his third thread, Westbrook discusses frame and narrative sequence. The Yellow Kid changed and the reader moved from the ‘rowdy spectatorship’ required to read the cluttered single frame cartoon in its early days to the more focused attention required by panels and narrative sequence. Only a scholar searching for insight could come to these conclusions.
By developing three threads, Westbrook can experiment with a new technique in the use of hypertext. He establishes three color-coordinated parts in his Web article. Westbrook creates a fourth thread for a reader to examine each cartoon and link to relevant text about the illustration. The cartoons reveal other aspects that are worth analysis. In the early Yellow Kid cartoons, why does the cartoonist display the happiness of these lower middle class children, their ingenuity in play and the friendliness of the urban setting? These cartoon children do not seem to be miserable dwellers of an immigrant ghetto but well-adjusted and fun-loving. Westbrook may be perfectly innocent in his superciliousness but he is so wrapped up in using big words to talk about the high-class implications of these cartoons that he does not deign to mention the cartoons are charming and funny.
Westbrook’s integration of visual materials adds to his discussion. The cartoons are charming and well worth examining. There needs to be a zoom capability since the text in the images cannot be read without enlargement. Westbrook’s trick of framing the area of the cartoon that illustrates his comments is a technique that could only be done on the computer. Westbrook allows the reader to use images to link to the relevant written material. The section that uses the cartoon to drive the reader does not work well as a starting point. Navigation through this area is a not obvious and the reader must close the enlarged window of the cartoon to get back from whence he came. The cartoons direct one to the chapter where a discussion occurs but unless one reads the whole chapter at this point, the result is fragmented and confusing. There appears to be no way to go to another thread or see a table of contents at certain points and the only way out of some pages is to back track.
Westbrook’s ‘tripartheid’ structure is impressive and complex but it is unsuited to many topics. The subject matter must allow for several ‘threads’. The texts must be carefully planned and constructed so alternate paths make sense. The technical effort is not trivial. Even if this approach is suitable for other writers, it appears cumbersome and difficult to deploy. Nevertheless, Westbrook’s approach has possibilities when there is an abundance of visual material.
Thomas Thurston discusses the impact of photography in the nineteenth century legal environment. The article demonstrates that even if photographs were not altered and appeared to be irrefutable as evidence, lawyers were successfully able to transmute photography into another legal bone of contention. If the lawyers could not argue over the content of the photograph, they argued about the photographer, the equipment and the circumstances of the photography. An interesting aspect of this story is that photographs were frequently used as evidence in the verification of signatures. I was disappointed there was not an abundance of photographs but there were only a few at the head of the sources area.
Thurston used the Web’s hypertext capability to point to the referenced material and footnotes for what reads like a typical journal article. Thurston lays out his screen in three panels, one for text, one for footnotes and one for referenced source material. Panels can be adjusted so that if not interested in the source or the footnotes, one can reduce those panels and they stay visible in a proportional view. Panels can be enlarged when the user wants to look at the source or footnotes. Thurston has a bibliography. Some sources in the bibliography are linked to an on-line document in a second panel. This structure may have been difficult to establish but once the technique is established, it appears it would be relatively easy for others to learn and use this approach. This approach has the advantage of similarity to what journal readers are used to. It is not necessary to wander around the site admiring the technical virtuosity.
There were some minor faults. The site is somewhat confusing in the source area. The reader can see all sources but sources have numbers that do not match footnote numbers. If the reader is looking at a particular source all other sources can be scrolled to leading one (at first) to believe that other sources are part of the source under review. The Search capability found matches in the article but when I clicked on what was found, I went to a ‘page has expired’ page. Three of four links to ‘online resources’ did not work.
There needs to be a lot less creativity on the Web and a lot more standardization would benefit both authors and readers. Thurston’s approach could be standardized. A software developer, Web publisher or commercial or institutional site could set this model up for scholarly use. A software package should be able to take the material in a word processing document and fill in the content and footnote panels and allow users to set ‘source’ pointers and upload images, documents and other materials.
The 2 examples of ‘digital scholarship’ I examined did not seem to be extensive departures from ‘paper scholarship’. The articles can be read on paper and make perfect sense. For the convenience of paper readers, Web authors should provide a printable and easily copied version of their text (not a PDF file, please) that does not include graphics. I did return to the Web to check out the Web-specific aspects of these sites. As an open-minded Luddite (I do not reject everything new but I do not accept supposed advances uncritically either.), I prefer to read dense material on paper. On the other hand, maybe I am not such a Luddite and scholars should follow Dr. Petrick’s advice about dense text. “chunk the information into bite-sized pieces, use shorter lines (1012 (sic) words) adopt shorter paragraphs and employ bulleted lists where possible’.(FN 1) This is the same advice business writing specialists give corporate writers. There might be concerns about scholarly impressiveness and literary elegance if this approach is used. Scholars seem inured to believe complexity and big words rather than simplicity and straight-forward text demonstrates expertise and intelligence. On reflection, it seems simplicity and elegance could demonstrate these qualities equally well and convey the author’s arguments just as effectively, if not more so. The goal should be to get the information to the reader.
Footnotes
1. Paula Petrik, "Top Ten Mistakes in Academic Web Design," History Computer Review, May 2000,
http://chnm.gmu.edu/assets/historyessays/topten.html