Our Present Shaping our Future

There comes a time when we must consider what the future will bring. We must look at where we currently are, what has led us to this point, and what it will eventually lead to. If his article “The Shape of Text to Come: The Texture of Print on Screens” is any indication, Stephen Bernhardt knows this concept very well. The very first sentence in Berhardt’s article states that “changes in the technology of text invariably trigger changes in the shape of text” (410). Throughout his article he elaborates how true this is, how electronic text has altered the production, reading, and limits of text. Bernhardt gives nine dimensions for understanding the framework of electronic text. Before he gives these nine dimensions, he does point out that “electronic text does not create a totally new rhetoric but depends for its design on the strategies of paper texts” (410). The following are the nine dimensions that vary electronic text from paper text.

1. Situationally Embedded: In paper, the text can stand alone from a situation’s context. The text can be taken anywhere that the user wants. An electronic text though is “more embedded in the context of the situation” (411). The texts become a part of the system that is being written about for easy access and learning by any user.

2. Interactive: Simply put, readers of electronic text “construct or reconstruct a text in their own image, bringing as much to a text as they take from it” (412). Paper texts merely exist to be read, but electronic texts can be interacted with via mouse, cursor, touch screen, or a number of other interfaces. Existing files can be changed, annotated, or moved in any fashion.

3. Functionally Mapped: Printed texts are mapped in only one way, drawing only a certain function for the reader. With the use of visual cuing in electronic texts, a number of functions can be achieved.

4. Modular: Through the use of structure, printed texts have self-contained chunks of information. Although the same is true of electronic texts, they can also allow for changes in the modules and link with other modules for quick access. This would allow for more informational access by the reader.

5. Hierarchically Embedded: Books and other print documents are not well suited to hierarchical or embedded text, one can only be read in a linear fashion. Electronic user though “can also read peripheral or supporting information” through the use of window environments (418).

6. Navigable: When reading a printed text, it can be more difficult and time consuming. With the use of electronic graphical browsers, readers can get “a visualization of the structure of information” while at the same time exploring nodes and sub nodes of information with relative ease (420).

7. Spacious: Although printed texts have a good deal of information for portable transport, they can become cumbersome as systems grow larger and more complex. However, no “similar physical constraint shapes electronic text” (421). Large amounts of information can be stored and take up only a small amount of physical space, making them much more transportational-friendly.

8. Graphically Rich: The writers of printed and electronic texts make use of fonts, text sizes, and whitespace to make their documents graphically rich. Electronic texts though make use of metaphorical directions and icons. For example, the trash can is a familiar image that many users will understand.

9. Customizable and Publishable: This comes down to how much power the user has over the document. Berhardt says that although “readers can annotate without the boundaries of hard copy. . .Text on screen can be changed” (423). This fluidity of electronic text can allow the user to adjust the document to their wants and needs.


After reading over Berhardt’s nine points, I had to agree with what he was saying. Electronic information has become a powerful influence in our society, whether it be the fields of academics, business, or government, it has changed how we write and convey information. Every point that Bernhardt makes seems to focus around the fluidity that electronic text seems to offer. We can rewrite it, link to it, reorganize it, we can do almost anything we want to it. The user has gained a great deal of power over text in the electronic realm. As more of us alter these texts, it could become difficult to decide which version is the most applicable one. Who really controls the text, the author or the user? I think that as time passes, the user will gain more and more power over the text, almost like becoming a coauthor of the documents. Does this mean that paper texts will be phased out? That depends on how dominant electronic texts become. I don’t see it happening within the next decade, but I do see paper becoming more outdated as time goes on. With the rise in the selection of downloadable books and literature from Amazon.com, we have already seen the beginning of the end for printed text. Only time will truly tell.

Thanks Stuart

Thanks Stuart, for taking time out of your busy schedule to blog with us. I was particularly interested in your second point about putting together Central Works with Johndan Johnson-Eilola. I sometimes think that the intellectual journey we students take from high school, through undergraduates studies, and on to graduate programs is partly a process of deciding what the relationship should be, in our own work, between personal values and the area we are studying. As you rightly point out, we carry values with us. Perhaps those values are not static. Perhaps they are heavily influenced by our backgrounds and our personal experiences. But surely those values influence our work and when we are in the midst of learning the canon of a field that we decide to study, we work at that relationship between the two. It influences the topics we pick to study, to read about, and the ideas we decide to research. Excellent point Stuart.

Hi/A Few Comments

Lee asked me to check in on your blogging of Central Works. I was hoping to do this last week, but time got away from me. But I really enjoyed reading your posts thus far on Central Works.

I'll make two brief comments: one on my own essay, the other on the task of editing the book.

I don't know if you'll be getting to my essay or not, the one called "Beyond Skill Building," but here is some context (I'm probably repeating a bit from my opening commentary). When I wrote this piece, back in 1992 or so, I saw a lot of work on computers and composition (the first-year course) but much less on computers and technical communication (the service course and advanced courses). It was fun and interesting to survey people in the field to see both how and why they were using computers. The results were not surprising: people were trying to get a handle on how to use computers for technical communication purposes. This was a kind of functional orientation that seems critical when people just get going with technology. The field is much more critical now, looking at not not only functional uses but also being critical of the technology itself.

We are also slowly starting to see past that binary: a web designer, for example, needs both functional and critical skills. Maybe the better term here then is rhetorical literacy--you have that, in my opinion, if you can work productively with technology to create meaningful, rhetorically sensitive things for end users. But you're probably being more than user-centered here: you're paying attention to technology and to users, but also to the larger contexts in which people work. This recognizes the larger set of forces that shape work and the worker.

Editing Central Works was interesting--and challening. How do you decide what gets in and what gets left out? On one level this is a practical decision: we only got so many pages from Oxford, and wanted to offer broad coverage. So there isn't much duplication. But I'm sure we were driven by politics too, even as we tried to keep that out.

We all hold values; they can't be avoided. And I suspect our collection--and our representation of that collection--reflects the work that happens to speak to us. We try to be honest about the constructed nature of the book in the table of contents. I hope people see that. To downplay our views, we gave the authors a chance to comment on their own essays. Many people have told us that this is the best feature of the book. And I agree--the words of the authors themselves are much more powerful and interesting than what the editors had to say.

Stuart