IText

I have had a look at what’s called ‘IText’ in the paper IText, Future Directions for Research on the Relationship between Information Technology and Writing (IText Working Group, 2001) by Cheryl Geisler of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the rest of the working group.

I find their enthusiasm uplifting:

These texts form a new page in the story of the coevolution of humanity, culture, and technology in ways that give them new function and significance. Texts, already technology for communicating at a distance, are deeply embedded in cultural, cognitive, and material arrangements that go back thousands of years. Information technologies with texts at their core—the blend of IT and texts that we call ITexts—are, by contrast, a relatively recent development … In a few short years, however, these ITexts have initiated social and material changes that appear to be altering the very character of texts and the interactions of those who use them.
Geisler, 2001

Their research agenda builds on research activity in the areas of rhetorical theory, activity theory, literacy studies, genre theory, usability research, and workplace writing. Quoting the descriptions from their paper:

•  Rhetorical Theory. Rhetoric is a design art, a goal-directed activity similar to engineering and architecture in its regard for practical effects in the future and in its need to be socially responsible and ethical.
•  Activity Theory. Activity theory, based on the work of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev, provides analytic tools for studying how ITexts function within human activity. Activity theory is particularly useful in examining the text-mediated interaction of multiple participants as organized in the patterned social relations of activity systems that vary according to the practices and cultures of social collectivities.
•  Literacy Studies. Literacy studies examine how reading and writing are used and function in the daily mental and material lives of individuals, in the work and interactions of social groups, and throughout large cultural movements.
•  Genre Theory. Texts link readers and writers by using typified generic forms, or genres, that signal texts’ function and meaning.
•  Usability Research. Working with IText requires us to reevaluate and rearticulate our understanding of textuality. Although all texts, strictly speaking, are technological artifacts, ITexts lie on the far end of the technological spectrum—the bleeding edge, where the two ends of the terms technology and communication overlap each other in critical and exciting ways.
•  Workplace Writing. In the workplace, texts are stereotypically treated simply as one of the means by which communication occurs.

Literacy Studies:

  • Literacy studies suggest that to be literate does not mean to possess a set of discrete skills but rather refers to a way of doing, a way of functioning within complex communicative situations. Literacy is in fact a complex of abilities and knowledge that enable individuals to function and contribute in specific situations.

  • The course of literacy development is complex and life- long.

     

    I am not sure of what the actual work product became from their effort, but I have emailed Cheryl Geisler and told her about The Future of Text Symposium.

Liquid | Author 1.0 Features

A list of features at launch:

•  Cuttings. Cut anything and cmd-shift-v shows you everything you have cut, though not anything you have deleted or copied or even cut then immediately pasted
•  Very minimalist interface but use of rich text, not markup
•  Pinch to collapse Headings into a Table of Contents using trackpad
•  Reading/Edit Modes for specific interactions to make both modes more powerful and pleasant, such as spacebar to move down a screen in Read mode and select text and spacebar to have the text spoken to you.
•  Quick Citation through select text and cmd-t for academic papers, books, web and video citations.
•  Instant find with cmd-f on selected text which changes the view to only show sentences with the searched for text
•  Document Cover with the document author’s details. Two finger horizontal swipe to flip the document to see this document ‘cover’
•  cmd- / cmd+ to scale all the text. You cannot change colour or size of specific text in Author since Author is a writing application, not a layout application
•  Modern Architecture including auto saving and everything else you would expect from a modern, native macOS application including iCloud Drive (sync with Author iOS in the future)
•  Warm background to reduce eye strain. Note that in full screen mode your eyes will quite quickly adjust to the cast so you will enjoy the benefit without really noticing anything different.
•  Fast and innovative keyboard interactions: Triple click selects the sentence, not the paragraph, since testing shows you are more likely to select a paragraph with stripe select. Double click between words to select both words. Cmd-k assigns link instantly, without need for dialog box.

Preamble

[Edit] This was written around the thought of the ‘word’ history. It did not come across however, so a new entry was made after this one: http://wordpress.liquid.info/preamble-large-edit/

_____________

Francis Fukuyama was right when he said this is the end of history.

History is delineated as starting when human actions became frozen onto physical substrates,
with all prior to that being pre-history.

History recorded on the fluid medium of digital devices will record a completely different type of action
in a completely different world, where very little is set in stone, even ‘facts’,
and we must work hard to stay current with the information flow.

History of the digital world becomes democratic, moving away from the wise man ‘histor’s (Harper) view and towards the ever changing, ever interpretable story.

What is part of history and what is left out becomes the responsibility of the reader as much as the author – the future of our story is deeply literate.

IText

I have had a look at what’s called ‘IText’ in the paper IText, Future Directions for Research on the Relationship between Information Technology and Writing (IText Working Group, 2001) by Cheryl Geisler of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the rest of the working group.

I find their enthusiasm uplifting:

These texts form a new page in the story of the coevolution of humanity, culture, and technology in ways that give them new function and significance. Texts, already technology for communicating at a distance, are deeply embedded in cultural, cognitive, and material arrangements that go back thousands of years. Information technologies with texts at their core—the blend of IT and texts that we call ITexts—are, by contrast, a relatively recent development … In a few short years, however, these ITexts have initiated social and material changes that appear to be altering the very character of texts and the interactions of those who use them.
Geisler, 2001

Their research agenda builds on research activity in the areas of rhetorical theory, activity theory, literacy studies, genre theory, usability research, and workplace writing. Quoting the descriptions from their paper:

•  Rhetorical Theory. Rhetoric is a design art, a goal-directed activity similar to engineering and architecture in its regard for practical effects in the future and in its need to be socially responsible and ethical.
•  Activity Theory. Activity theory, based on the work of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev, provides analytic tools for studying how ITexts function within human activity. Activity theory is particularly useful in examining the text-mediated interaction of multiple participants as organized in the patterned social relations of activity systems that vary according to the practices and cultures of social collectivities.
•  Literacy Studies. Literacy studies examine how reading and writing are used and function in the daily mental and material lives of individuals, in the work and interactions of social groups, and throughout large cultural movements.
•  Genre Theory. Texts link readers and writers by using typified generic forms, or genres, that signal texts’ function and meaning.
•  Usability Research. Working with IText requires us to reevaluate and rearticulate our understanding of textuality. Although all texts, strictly speaking, are technological artifacts, ITexts lie on the far end of the technological spectrum—the bleeding edge, where the two ends of the terms technology and communication overlap each other in critical and exciting ways.
•  Workplace Writing. In the workplace, texts are stereotypically treated simply as one of the means by which communication occurs.

Literacy Studies:

  • Literacy studies suggest that to be literate does not mean to possess a set of discrete skills but rather refers to a way of doing, a way of functioning within complex communicative situations. Literacy is in fact a complex of abilities and knowledge that enable individuals to function and contribute in specific situations.

  • The course of literacy development is complex and life- long.

     

    I am not sure of what the actual work product became from their effort, but I have emailed Cheryl Geisler and told her about The Future of Text Symposium.

Liquid | Author 1.0 Features

A list of features at launch:

•  Cuttings. Cut anything and cmd-shift-v shows you everything you have cut, though not anything you have deleted or copied or even cut then immediately pasted
•  Very minimalist interface but use of rich text, not markup
•  Pinch to collapse Headings into a Table of Contents using trackpad
•  Reading/Edit Modes for specific interactions to make both modes more powerful and pleasant, such as spacebar to move down a screen in Read mode and select text and spacebar to have the text spoken to you.
•  Quick Citation through select text and cmd-t for academic papers, books, web and video citations.
•  Instant find with cmd-f on selected text which changes the view to only show sentences with the searched for text
•  Document Cover with the document author’s details. Two finger horizontal swipe to flip the document to see this document ‘cover’
•  cmd- / cmd+ to scale all the text. You cannot change colour or size of specific text in Author since Author is a writing application, not a layout application
•  Modern Architecture including auto saving and everything else you would expect from a modern, native macOS application including iCloud Drive (sync with Author iOS in the future)
•  Warm background to reduce eye strain. Note that in full screen mode your eyes will quite quickly adjust to the cast so you will enjoy the benefit without really noticing anything different.
•  Fast and innovative keyboard interactions: Triple click selects the sentence, not the paragraph, since testing shows you are more likely to select a paragraph with stripe select. Double click between words to select both words. Cmd-k assigns link instantly, without need for dialog box.

Preamble

[Edit] This was written around the thought of the ‘word’ history. It did not come across however, so a new entry was made after this one: http://wordpress.liquid.info/preamble-large-edit/

_____________

Francis Fukuyama was right when he said this is the end of history.

History is delineated as starting when human actions became frozen onto physical substrates,
with all prior to that being pre-history.

History recorded on the fluid medium of digital devices will record a completely different type of action
in a completely different world, where very little is set in stone, even ‘facts’,
and we must work hard to stay current with the information flow.

History of the digital world becomes democratic, moving away from the wise man ‘histor’s (Harper) view and towards the ever changing, ever interpretable story.

What is part of history and what is left out becomes the responsibility of the reader as much as the author – the future of our story is deeply literate.

Liquid Information
thoughts

by frode hegland

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011