Reading Notes 1/29/07

Trusting Writing -Michael Clanchy

• Evolution of trust in documents: 12th century England
• People had to be persuaded that documenting was a "sufficient improvement"
• Assumption: "modern literature tends to assume that statements in writing are more reliable than spoken word"
• Writing = secondary importance (over oaths and public ceremonies)
• No stability in early charters
• Truth existed on the good word of one's fellow
• Customary law quietly passes over obsolete laws vs. written records which do not die peacefully
• Memory will no longer be exercised if we become dependent on written records -king of Egypt (Thamuzz)
• Hard to tell what was forged and what was not
• No system of safeguards to prove documents (or at least these principles were not followed in medieval England)
• Date omitted vs. various systems to date a document
• Even "time" was written on document
• "More precise forms of dating began in the last decade of the 12th century"
• Pg. 301 explanations for not dating documents
• In 13th century, dating becomes "less self-conscious" and more "uniform"
• "What constituted a valid signature?"
• "Qualified notaries were not used much in England"
• Training for notaries = "haphazard"
• Seal (pictorial symbol and legend)
• Seals=more efficient
• Earliest seals, middle of 11th century
• Portablility of seals
• Crosses over seals = "primitive" and "unprofessional"
• William the Conqeror and improvements to the seal
• The cross (or form of wax impression) plus the seal = "to signify a sacred undertaking"
• Seals were more to show a "status of power"
• Phrases began to be used to justify seals
• Antique seals (w/gems) become popular in 12th century
• "Before being offered printed books, the public had to be persuaded of the value of writing itself (317).
• FORGERIES!
• "The purpose of forgery was to produce a record in a form which was acceptable" (318).
• Very hard to tell fact vs. fiction
• Italians in theory has a way to eliminate forgeries; however, this was not practiced in England
• Innocent III (scrutinizer of documents)
• English courts became skillful in detection of forgery
• "In this bewildering world...it may seem surprising that written record ever got a good name at all or established itself as a reliable form of communication" (326).
• Writing acquired prestige
• "A new technology usually adapts itself at first to an existing one" (237).

From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology -Dennis Baron

• Does the computer promise or threaten to change literacy practices for better or worse, or is a change already in progress?
• The computer has "left its mark on the way we do things with words"
• Could computers one day replace books?
• Baron's point of his article: 1. To acknowledge the importance of the computer 2. To predict that in the future the computer will be put to communication uses we cannot now even begin to imagine
• Baron tried to write on paper, but it felt awkward.
• Baron states, "writing itself is always first and foremost a technology"
• New communication strategies go through similar stages that the pencil did: 1st-restricted communications function (available only to a few) 2nd-begin to mediate the technology for the general public 3rd-cost decreases and the technology mimics familiar communication and a new literacy spreads across a population
• New technologies = opportunities and fraud possibilities
• "Literacy technologies, including writing itself, were initially met with suspicion as well as enthusiasm." (the suspicion part is similar to Clanchy's article)
• Humanists a.k.a. writers/scholars of liberal arts (also people who have long been considered out of technology loop)
• The pencil developed into a "tool [technology] so universally employed for writing that we seldom give it any thought" (during my interview with my grandma, she said she did not consider a "pencil" as a technology)
• Progress: pencil (writing), printing press, telephone, electric power, radio, typewriter?, television, computer
• "Computer gurus offer us a brave new world of communications where we will experience cognitive changes of a magnitude never before known"
• I agree with Bolter in what he is saying about the shift brought about by the computer.
• "Cuneiform geeks" - no pun intended
• First forms of writing for record keeping
• Speech vs. Writing...two very different forms of communication
• Reference to Clanchy's article and human witnesses
• Monks responsible for forgeries (as also mentioned in Clanchy's article)
• Digital age: we are also faced with the "task of reinventing appropriate ways to validate"
• Pencils originally used for measuring
• Pencil manufacture/production (Thoreau and Co.~ironic since Thoreau did not value pencils)
• From telephone to e-mail messages (and privacy)
• Interesting discussion about use of words "hello" and "good-bye" on the telephone
• "Personal computers were not initially meant for word-processing"
• Not so easy going with computers at first (for both programmers and writers)
• Digital fraud (figures 8 and 9)
• "A lot of text is still accepted on trust"
• Digital text is easy to corrupt using scanners
• Ways to establish expertise of author (bicycle example)
• Information and the WWW
• More concerns with newer technologies (old become invisible with time)
• It's not computers that divide haves from have nots, but literacy itself
• Sledd's view about computers reducing literacy
• Will the computer one day be taken-for-granted like the pencil? Is this theory already in motion?

The Effects of Computers on Traditional Writing -Sharmila Ferris

• 3 Great Communication Revolutions: symbolic language, writing, print
• No. 4 = computers
• "Writing enabled societies...to communicate across the boundaries of space and time"
• What is incorperated in "writing" (ex. alphabetic word, vocabulary, relationship to spoken word etc. It's both abstract and analytic thought)
• Writing has permanent quality about it, and print made writing even more permanent
• Print enabled development of modern educational system
• Printing Press-------->Computer
• Computers are unique because of participation and interactivity
• "Computers re-introduce many oral characteristics" (and beyond)
• "Roles of writers and readers...become unclear"
• Electronic writing jargon
• More focus on group thinking than individual
• There are similarities of traditional writing as well
• Electronic writing has "brought about a 'significant increase in the artifacts of literacy"
• Ferris argues, "ideas are expressed in a logical, linear fashion" (what about stream of consciousness?)
• Hypertext=non-linear=the way the mind works
• "Electronic text is always fluid; it is never fixed" (dynamic)
• Interpersonal relationships
• Vanishing words on a screen (I see as not much different as vanishing words from turning the page of a book)
• But no one communicates in binary code?
• "Non-discursive reading...electronic writing opposes the standardization of language encouraged by the traditional text"
• Interactivity among reader, author, medium
• Hypertext=navigate using links (or how about navigate a book using chapter titles or index)
• Electronic writing must be visually appealing and utilize interactive features
• "Electronic writing requires a knowledge of computers and software," as does electronic reading
• Anyone can "publish" on the Internet
• "What common standards or criteria can we judge content in cyberspace?"
• "Any writing that leads the reader to seek it out can be called good writing." Wow, really???
• Electronic writers have the potential to shape "the development of standards and norms of writing."
• Is electronic writing more oral than like print? (Ferris is perhaps leaning more toward oral)
• Fish metaphor made me laugh! Where'd that come from?

-AAK