The piece they wrote for the AHR was titled "The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities" and was wrote in two forms. There was the print edition: in December of 2003 the AHR published a short piece which they had wrote to explain the digital article it included a link to the digital article both in the print edition as well as in the online version on The History Cooperative Website. The digital article was published on the servers at the University of Virgina. Following this the authors began to ponder who it was that engaged with the article in its various forms and how it was that they ''read'' it. When an article is available in several forms it is often the case that some people will always go to the library first and read the print edition and as a result may see it as almost a waste of time to then go and read the digital form as well.
An economic historian contacted the author about reviewing his new work. He informed the author 'that he had read "the actual article" but had "not seen the web site."' As a result of this the authors acknowledge the following fact that 'It is clear to us now, in a way that it was not when we set out, that an entirely new form of scholarly communication is emergent in the digital medium and that its structures are not worked out, not nearly as defined as those we are comfortable with.' The author speaks of how scholarship has been separated in to important categories, which results with boundaries being blurred. '''Digital scholarship'' was welcomed', he says, 'but its process for review would be treated as much as possible like print.' The real issue he declares is 'would a digital article conform to the conventions of print, or more pointedly, should it do so? Was the "actual" article only what appeared in print...?' The following question should then be considered; 'Does "a web site" imply something less permanent, something less significant?
To take myself as an example to answer the above question, for very long I became prone to doing the same thing all the time when going about researching for an assignment. I would firstly go to the library and search for the books from the bibliography I was given and then search for books in general on the area of study. I would then search the UCC Library website for any online articles and then thirdly do a general search on Google or Google Scholar in the hope of discovering further material. This can often be the case that the hard copies bear preference over the digital scholarship perhaps out of habit or as a result of the bibliography one has received from a lecturer. If a lecturer has preference to the written form of scholarship this could rub off on their students who could then view the written hard copies as the first place to turn to or even the only place.
Next the author became curious to discover how his piece of writing was being used and read. To achieve an insight in to this he simply searched the title in Google. He was shocked to discover a varied answer. 'The article was assigned in the syllabi of several Civil War and Reconstruction courses, as well as required reading in some history methodology courses. But it was also listed as the example for a journal article with two authors in the 6th edition of the MLA Citation guide.' He noticed a difficulty had arose- how to cite his work appropriately, problems deciding whether its ''an electronic source'' or a ''journal article'' surfaced. 'The large problem we faced, in retrospect, was whether what we were producing what should be classified as an "article" at all. The scholarly article is a highly structured form of communication with a century or more of intellectual craft behind it. Would an "article" in the digital medium, specifically the World Wide Web, bend or break these structures? Would it conform to them? If so, then how conforming would it need to be?' Such questions then intrigued the author. Such questions were in retrospect, initially when pursuing their work they simply 'wanted to explore how we might integrate the digital form of presentation with the argument we hoped to make.'
I believe as the digital form is so different to the written form I do not think it should conform to the same structures to a high extent at least. On the web I believe presentation is far more important than anything else when something catches your eye you are obviously more likely to read it. Therefore I think more emphasis should be put upon presentation in the digital form than in the written form. Also quality over quantity should be a factor in the digital form as no one wants to sit in front of a computer and go googly-eyed from reading a long version of something which could be written shorter and still contain the same important points but has not been quilted out so to meet a word count! An example of keeping it short and sweet is Twitter where one has to catch someones attention in and around 140 characters, of course I am not suggesting digital articles should be this short merely stating that the title or opening few lines should grasp the readers attention so they will then read all of the article.
The authors viewed the article 'as an applied experiment in digital scholarship.' He notes how in recent years historians have used networked information resources a great deal in their work, and how we are very much familiar with our library research and professional discussion through digital means. While this may be the case, scholars he states had only just began creating 'scholarship designed specifically for the electronic environment.' He states what it was they attempted to do; 'We attempted to translate the fundamental components of professional scholarship—evidence, engagement with prior scholarship, and a scholarly argument—into forms that took advantage of the possibilities of electronic media.' At this time when scholarship was only beginning to be created specifically for the electronic environment a difficult task was set to the authors. However I think it is important such works increase as technology and the web are a huge part of our lives today and is very accessible to people and therefore has the ability to reach a huge audience far more than a written form left to go dusty on a library shelf can reach!
'McAdams and Berger explained that electronic text and narrative could not be written in the same way as print text and that this difference could not be reverse engineered.' Put simply one cannot write for a print edition and then break it up and use it for a digital edition. Their first attempt was torn apart by the AHR readers and rightly so believes the author as he recognises that it was a weak attempt. 'They were, on the whole, right to do so. We had not been very clear about our argument; we had not been clear about the article's navigation; and we had used several technologies that some older systems did not support.' They were also criticised for having 'too many buttons, too many moving parts, too much obscurity, and too little guidance...we simply had not nailed down how to convey the most salient points we wanted to make.' When the important points are not so clear it is hard for one to get all that they should have from a piece of work, this is a shame especially if it is a result of too much going on as it was in this case where they were accused of having ''too many buttons''. It is important that such a work is accessible to and appeals to every type of digital user: that is both the advanced individual and the beginner, then everyone can avail of such works.
'The final version of the digital article offered an introduction and a summary of the argument but retained the deep interlinking among evidence, historiography, and analysis.' Personally I think the inclusion of an introduction and a summary is a must in every digital article so one can browse more quickly through such sources so to identify if the source is useful or not to their area of research without having to read the whole article. 'the difficulty of joining traditional forms to the electronic medium', can prove to be problematic at times but as digital scholarship increases such problems will be battled with. 'Another lesson we learned was that readers will need to adapt. So will historians.' This point is very true especially in the case of the traditional historian who is so used to the old books in the library and is happily reliant and comfortable in this sphere it is important such people open their minds up to other options in this case the digital realm as when it is used properly it offers a great deal. Change is encouraged by these authors and is needed 'one thoughtful reviewer admitted, "to most of us on the outside, history is like an old sofa or a well-worn cardigan," I agree that it is time we cast off this ''well-worn cardigan'' and welcome a new and more modern attire.
'We need to cast aside the comfortable if we are to truly understand how to communicate in the digital medium.' 'We historians might have to cast aside our illusions of permanence and our penchant for the "cardigan." If we experiment, however, we might discover that the openness of the digital medium is what allows us both to create vibrant new scholarship and to speak to a rising generation of students,' this concluding point sums up this piece of writing, the lessons learned from this work help people realise how important it is to learn to adapt to new structures such as the digital form all in the hope of offering useful scholarship to students.
http://digitalhistory.unl.edu/essays/thomasessay.php
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