Everything Else is in the Cloud These Days, Why Not Terms?

For this exploratory, we wanted to construct a tool that would reflect the multiple meanings and layering of terms present throughout this week’s readings. We also wanted to demonstrate the connections between the readings in order to help users navigate through the networked concepts put forward about genre. In order to accomplish these tasks, we decided to build a full text archive, in which key terms would be hyperlinked. These hyperlinks would enable users to not only view the definition of how the term is being used in the one particular context, but also to see the other ways in which the term is used in a kind of critical gloss.

On the home page of the archive, we would have a word cloud comprised of key terms that we see present across the readings: genre, discourse, social, ecology, collaboration, rhetorical situation, social construction, etc. Though we realize that this list of terms in not exhaustive, we do think it provides a good starting point for theorizing the interconnections and subtle nuances of these terms and how they have circulated within a network of meaning. These key terms would be clickable so that a user can select a term and be directed to readings that address or include that concept.  We chose these terms in particular because most of them are relatively fluid as employed or interpreted across our readings for this week. As we wrote in our theoretical tool description, the most obvious example of this fluidity is the term “genre.” The concept is present in each of the respective readings—though not always explicitly named. For me, it was difficult to see the slight differences that characterized each scholar’s definition of genre, so we wanted to create a tool that would make the intertextual conversation more apparent and highlight the slight nuances of use between the terms.

Furthermore, we want these same key terms to be hyperlinked in the full texts themselves. These hyperlinks, when hovered over, would provide a definition of the term as employed in that particular text. When clicked, the link would take the user to a separate page that lists the various ways in which the term could be defined in reference to the other archived texts.  We do realize that in providing definitions for these terms, we might be constraining the potential meaning. However, we think the benefits of definition outweigh the costs. Having multiple definitions available and embedded within the texts creates a navigable intertext that allows user to see the many similarities between each scholar’s uses of the terms, and prevents reducing the term to just one definition. This, I think, incorporates Miller’s understanding of genre as a social act: “If we understand genres as typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations, we must conclude that members of a genre are discourses that are complete, in the sense that they are circumscribed by a relatively complete shift in rhetorical situation” (159). Miller also discusses the ways in which genre can be used as a classification system. Devitt takes up a similar approach, but cautions, “Understanding genre requires understanding more than just classification schemes; it requires understanding the origins of the patterns on which those classifications are based” (575). We hope that by providing multiple definitions, we are helping to make the origins of these more terms accessible without conforming or resulting in “accommodation” (Trimbur 603). In a sense, our glossary of terms may actually represent what Trimbur refers to as consensus: “In its deferred and utopian form, consensus offers a way to orchestrate dissensus and to turn the conversation in the collaborative classroom into a heterotopia of voices—a heterogeneity without hierarchy” (615). The gloss may in fact work as a “heterotopia of voices” in which the multiple definitions serve as an instrument to incite conversation of parallels and divergences.

            In sum, we see our tool as offering a networked archive that chronicles the existing intertextual conversation within this particular group of readings. Providing multiple definitions of our terms through hyperlinks enhances this intertext by allowing users to more easily access and note the parallels and divergences of each scholar’s use of terminology. Our archive is intended to be a network of meaning, in which users can explore the layers of this intertextual conversation. As Julianna wrote in her blog post, “The terms are never intended to be read only singularly, but rather, we invite viewers to view the terms in isolation only to better understand the larger meaning created through the intertext.” Though our tool is complicated and multi-layered, we believe that if navigated correctly, it could provide a useful way of approaching these readings. We even see the potential for adding new texts, key terms, and materials to supplement the grouping of texts about genre.