Not being so very familiar with Voyant, I don't know what this implies...and for you to make any assertion that these visualizations mean anything, you definitely need to know!! How would you go about finding such things out and resisting the temptation to think (as you seem to do here), "It must mean something so this viz must be meaningful!" There is nothing inherently meaningful in a computer, so it is definitely up to you to maintain complete responsibility for your interpretations.

This is a very useful decomposition of the text if you are trying to make an argument that the book has four distinct sections. Is that something you still wish to do?

I wonder if you've had a chance to go back and try this again, given the fact that it was only the one visualization that was breaking your text apart?

It would be great to find this...I would very much like to know your sources!

Larger scale how? Is this a gesture towards work beyond Jane Eyre, or do you mean something different?

This is not so.

This must change in order for you to use the tool. No questions asked.

How will you go about recognizing something unobvious when it is presented to you? Won't it be obvious at that point? How are you to remember what was once unobvious?

Why? More is indeed better with MALLET...you can refine later if you like.

...at their foundation. There are many things they can do, way up here on the pile of abstractions we've constructed, that we cannot (like store millions of documents and retrieve the ones with the exact string "foobar" exactly every time).

You know who you might have a great conversation with...Mehul and Yujin together. Between Mehul's interest in orality, and Yujin's interest in sound, and your text-forward orientation, you could really blow each other's minds!

Or are they a step...closer?

I don't know...are they?? :)

This is going to be key here.

Good!!

Dublin Core, I rush to note, is a default. It can be changed.

Actually, if I might be so bold, Dublin Core is not computationally extensive. I would very much suggest that you look into Dublin Core for your second iteration. Where did it come from? What was it designed to describe? Once you see that...I might suggest you look into EAD (Encoded Archival Description) which is a metadata standard that represents archival approaches to description. The comparison between the two standards will be very helpful to you, I suspect.

I'm very taken with the "or" here between two words that are quite different in connotation. For myself, I think that digitizations are almost entirely completely different objects from the original--so any tension or hierarchy will be necessarily constructed in the eye of each beholder! What exact tensions and hierarchies do you perceive?

Yes! This will be key not only to your own process, but perhaps even to the work of interpreting Cha's output?

So, the focus here will be on her assertion of her position as a Korean American.

I would love to hear more, in your next iteration, about how you distinguish between "causality" and "association between!"

Ah, big touchstone phrase!

Was this by the avant-garde artists or the Asian American literary critics?

These seem like very different adjectives! How do they come together in your mind to express what you are perceiving in DICTEE?

How so?

How does their "insubordination" make them any more or less performative? Do say more for the next iteration!

Could you say a little more about the tone and content of this heated attention for the next iteration?

attention

practices

I would very much recommend that you consolidate your theoretical approach as part of your next iteration. It will be almost impossible to divine the best digital methods to emply without them--your disciplinary theories and tools need to work in harmony!!

I can completely understand why you're using internet-friendly phrases like "check out" and "simply enjoy," but I would ask you to deeply consider that the rhetoric of the internet conveys a certain type of engagement (of the "Don't make me think" variety) that you may not wish to be a part of for this project. What are your thoughts on this?

AH! Now this is key...figuring out all you can about the remediation of these languages from oral to written/inscribed communication will be utterly key to anything you do going forward.

This sentence is unclear.

This sentence isn't quite clear to me. Let's meet and discuss, perhaps, the differences and similarities between what is implied by words and phrases such as "collocation" and "textual analysis." This paragraph suggests you've not quite gotten your head around it yet--there's still time!

Frankly, this is may or may not be true...what if it is not? What other reasons might you have for using a digital computer in your research--even outside this particular project? "Efficiency and effectiveness" are buzzwords of computing, sure, but they're also buzzwords of the 20th century and deserve a great deal of skepticism. They are not unqualified goods.

Fascinating, again...how do you propose to do this? Just a small clue, or even a hint as to your plan, would be greatly appreciated!

This seems vague. I know you are just beginning, but is there any more clarity you can offer to your reader here? And, again, I note, that it seems critical for you to differentiate between the ways that this happens orally and the ways that you are going to be able to reveal the patterns--that is within an inscription.

are

This sentence is a question!

This link takes me to a page where I need to login. Is this something you'd like me to see?

I definitely feel that your project, on an ongoing basis, will need to deal with the paradox of preserving something oral by fixing it in writing or on substrates beyond paper. What are your thoughts on this?

All indigenous communities or only specific ones? This could use clarification!

Yes, especially because you can't ever "recreate" the space. There is only one way to inhabit the space--and that's in the space.

I do believe you can embed such things into Scalar, for what it's worth...

yay!

It would be very interesting for you to identify exactly what your original expectations were and how/why they were subverted. Because in this investigation, you'll find out information about how you think you are perceived and how you think computers are perceived...and that's going to be valuable information for you going forward. "News you can use," so to speak.

Think more, perhaps, about how this has helped/hindered you...and, is this the sort of technique that you might want to actively produce in your research as you move ahead? That is, an intentional shifting of scales to help you see better?

Omeka is a backend and a frontend. The backend might be fixed, but the frontend is not: it is simply a webpage. The platform is amazing for presenting research, but to do it the way you might really want to do, you need to gain the skills of a web programmer! And...that may be something you'd like to do. Let me know if you'd like to start on that path. It's not as daunting as it sounds, but it does take time and attention.

Please do be mindful of the fact that "replication" of that physical experience is truly impossible in the digital realm. What other verbs might you use that are more accurate to your working process?

This phrase here seems to hold a bit of an unstated (and well-known, unstated) assumption to me: that the canon cannot or does not hold authors who engage with the world. And yet this cannot be true, in any real sense of the word, as people are always embedded in social systems. So, I wonder--what work is reinforcing this unstated assumption doing for you here? If it is the "surprise" that Dickens was popular amongst middle- and working-class readers, I might ask how this seeming disjuncture works for you.

This is a great summary. How do you think you might go about writing out this assertion such that the evidence for your argument is clear, and the full reasoning behind your conclusions is clear to the reader?

Do consider that your positionality is not something to be hidden, and that there are those who would like to hear how you are receiving this information rather than erasing yourself behind it. It is an option, not a request from me, that you consider it!

I'd be very interested to hear where you feel this drive for completism comes from "writ large."

Yup.

If I might--you do this by mentally building a hypothetical world you want to investigate and then figuring out what aspects of these materials tell you more about its nature.

If what you're interested in is ordered time, then timelines are good visualizations!!

How would you find out?

Honest question. How long did you sit with the viz?

No need for "mic drop" moments, but as I have been mentioning above, what you're describing is a bimodal network and knowing that might help you understand better what you are able to do and not able to do in this situation.

Yes, although it is possible for a syllabus author to also be an article author--unless, as I note above you are committing to a bimodal network where each node is a person+role.

So, a bi-modal network.

Addison, you and Kathryn might have some very useful conversations about "utility," "simplicity," and network analysis. I say this to you and not her, as I am here after having read her palimpsest :).

Good! Essential bibiliometrics move.

frag

It might also mean changing your categories?

Also the valences of publishing in these different areas has markedly changed over my parent's lifetime...

Difficult!

:) Sometimes I guess we don't know what we know!

This jump here--it's still a jump. Yes, a good instructor will scaffold asynchronous assignments with synchronous activities, but you'll need to argue for this connection.

Let me be clear--I think you can do it! But don't let it be an assumption.

Very interesting, and worth keeping in mind as you work. Do you actually want it to link up?

So, not the Story Map?

Browse by region? Browse by map?

Oh, yes, and age old issue...vagueness of geographic (and temporal) description!

Thank you for all of this background information Yuanziyi! It is very helpful in an interdisciplinary context to have this--and I also (perhaps selfishly) hope that it also helped you to see paths forward in your own digital work this term! Working with new methods can often be the most comfortable when you are working with known material...pushing the boundaries only a little bit!

This phrase is unclear to me--no big deal, but I wonder what you mean! Is it that these gazetteers were simply kept locally?

Again, fascinating! How does heterogeneity map onto "strangeness" and also "hardships" and in what way will StoryMap help you show this work?

Fascinating! How do hardships and strangeness interact in his texts and how might you show that on your StoryMap?

Hmm, by "negative description" do you mean that he didn't talk about it? Or that he actively said negative things?

I'd be interested in hearing more about what a "traditional" travelogue is so that I can see the distinctions you are seeing!

Do you have any critiques of the tool?

Sharon, where can I find the answers to these questions (requested by the assignment): "Why do you think your question would be well-served by the application of digital analytical tools? What benefits do you anticipate that your exploration of the captaset will draw from the use of such tools? Which type(s) of digital tools do you think will best serve it and why?"

And, "What did your Mindful Practice Journal show you about your process? Please summarize what you have written down, and go ahead and draw preliminary conclusions from your experience."

There's a big jump here between medieval images and online videos. Will these different types of resources be used for the same purposes? If so, how? If not, how not?

You note above that you are still not very familiar with your archives. In what way is the process of transcription helping you out with this understanding...and in what way is it not? Could the two needs of your project be brought together productively?

Adding the field from another table to this table is producing a link between the two.

Key comment!

Again, do be careful: is this work for you or others?

Something I believe Kathryn notes above!

Did your work, as it was, with these tools suggest promise for the future, though? I think there is a danger of sticking to what you know for too long--I don't think you're there yet, but consider that "ruts" are sometimes unhelpful.

Wonderful goal. Why do you have it?

PLEASE DO.

Question...is this Eigner's stated position or a disciplinary argument? I think it matters to know this from both an interdisciplinary point of view, and also so that it is clearer where Jane is, where Eigner is, and where your discipline is.

lol. You're not gonna catch me rapping the back of your hand with a ruler.

How in heavens' name are you supposed to learn without just "using it anyway??"

Yes. I don't know if you're trying to do this, but all of your words so far are suggesting to me that you want to move beyond the symbolic representations of Eigner's words in Unicode and start building other ideas on top of that representation that correspond to your interpretations.

Does that at all resonate?

by word only...or by character...or by phrase, yes.

Oooh. I am really connecting to this sense of DH as something that can allow you to hoard and hide...or to offer and share. It's a question of what you intend to do and how you perceive your discipline.

Interesting. How do you feel about this shift? What do you make of the utility of both of these approaches? Which would you rather be doing? Which of these seems more valued by your field? Valued by you?

In text-analytic projects, the question of what actually constitutes the "item" or the "document" is often VERY important, but not always discussed to its fullest. I'd love to hear more about how you're balancing the spectrum of letter...word...line...stanza...poem...collection in your mind.

sp

I look forward to you looking back on this moment and realizing how important it was that you spent this time learning :)

This is a question of PRACTICE. Not native skill. If you wanted to, you could also become a mechanic. Please don't put off to "I can't" what is a question of "I choose not to/prioritize other things/am happy that others do this"

This is addressed to me, but many will see/hear this!! I'm going to reply to this main annotation with my thoughts stemming from the video...so here goes!

Hmm. I wonder if, for the next iteration, you might gain something from considering the differences between an anthropological hypothesis and an artist's statement (of intent).

It is not necessary to prove things with art. It behooves you to demonstrate something, however. Something of your own.

Great connections, Alysha.

Fantastic self-observation.

Do you see a connection between death and "discarding?"

sp

I'm with Jane (and you) here. There are a number of different ways that people can be moved (do you also mean here "moved to action," by the way?). Some may indeed be moved by this installation--to act, to cry, to become angry--but it is clear you are not.

And it sounds like you are driven to humanize death in order to move (more) people.

This sounds incredibly frustrating, Alysha. It's happening to many students and will have wide-ranging impacts on our disciplines.

What, in particular, did the MPJ show?

Yes, here as in a comment above...what if you have this backwards? What if it isn't "what text analysis can do for you" and is instead "what can you make text analysis do?"

Great question and great framing of an exploration...if I were to ask you to develop three sub-questions that are more specific, what would they be?

My main feedback now is that separating out your project from your thoughts on the project may not be working to help you make one coherent argument out of what you are doing. As you look over your colleague's work, see if you like any of the ways in which they are integrating the work and the metacognition so that the whole project seems to come together...

Hmm...for you and all others who might read this note: Could I ask...How much are you expecting the computer to reveal the as-yet-unrevealed on its own merits, and how much do you think that this will end up being your brain's job?

Oooh, interesting. How might you go about figuring out the answers to these questions? Or are these questions not of direct interest to you?

This sounds like THE WORK, Shelbi!!! Keep it up. You're doing it right. Think outside your own box...it will reward you in spades, even if you head right back into the box (because you'll have learned it's not a box, it's a tesseract!).

Well the tool is for finding patterns...and you've identified some patterns. In what way do you mean this phrase? I'm less pushing back than asking you to be more mindful in contextualizing conclusions like this.

This doesn't sounds stupid at all. Let me suggest something to help you along your way. You've offered us here, so far, a bunch of your interpretations of your findings, but not how you went about making those interpretations.

If you were to be more precise about what you did, how you did it, and how you interpreted those two things...you might not only offer your reader some evidence for why you are "right" about your findings, you might also figure out what it is that you want to say about them yourself.

Ah yes! Exactly how?

Great! Could you tell me more about why? That might help you out as you figure out what part of your methods you wish to deepen.

My advice here is to more thoroughly explicate what it is that you DO traditionally do and think about it as an approach you designed, and break it into parts that make sense to you. Then you can see where digital techniques can deepen your work and where they don't make much sense.

Ah yes...but this is how text analysis has historically been used. Stay mindful that there are both tools and contexts...and that "hacking" has both positive and negative connotations!!

Yes, please! Above, I bet you were thinking "I'm getting to it!" :)

Did I share this different story map tool with you? Or, more to the point the Gigapixel variation?

https://storymap.knightlab.com/gigapixel/

Yes, but this was also a decision made by the programmers. For example, many, many phone apps prefer vertical orientations because of the way we hold the phone.

Yes, this is the work of the humanities, though...it is one thing to eschew linearity, but it is another not to structure and shape an experience at all, no?

I think it's going to be worth considering how this is an affordance of text as well...

Claire, I don't seem to have permission to view the map at this link...

OK, so here it seems as if this "ecology" metaphor is a contribution of yours. Excellent. Next iteration, would you be interested in delving into more explicatory work about why this metaphor works for you and how it might interact productively/destructively with digital methods?

Honest question: Are you questioning from the standpoint of criticality? Or are you excited to find out the possibilities?

ital?

sp

This begs the question a bit about why they would not have been taken into consideration previously.

Is this your term, a term of art in your subfield...or something other? My academic mind craves a citation or further conversation about the "ecology" metaphor.

Link?

What's this? I wonder if this is StoryMap?

Kale, I can't see this map, even when I'm logged in. Also, is there somewhere where we can see your captaset as a whole (the capta you're using for this ArcGIS map, for example). Finally, where in this palimpsest are you drawing from your Mindful Practice Journal?

Oh yes, these signs are clearly very important. This whole section of your iteration is very strong, in part because you're linking to direct evidence, but also because you're drawing different threads of your thought together to demonstrate your perspective on the problem--allowing me to learn something new as I perceive our differences and similarities.

Ah! Bias. Is this good or bad, bias? What does bias mean to you in the context of this study? What is the relationship between a "bias" and a "point of view?" What is the relationship between a "bias" and "bigotry?" These are rhetorical questions meant to (hopefully) spur additional insight into what you are investigating.

How do you mean "accurate," here. Accurate to what experience? I'm noting that I'm asking for a lot of additional definitions--please remember that I mean this for your ongoing work, not as something you "should have already done."

Do you mean fair as in "equitable" here?

Excellent! I share these concerns, for what it is worth. Scoping isn't an ancillary skill to the humanities, it is an essential one.

These are fantastic. Tell me, what do you feel the relationship is between "capta" and "signifiers?" Does this latter term "mean" more to you? If so, great! How? Can you tell us more about what the significance of "signifiers" is in this context? I feel it is important.

One of the more difficult methodological turns in your study is this move from your personal experience to the more aggregated sources of information. How are you thinking about making the connection between the two?

Could you tell me more about what you mean by this word? It would help me follow your train of reasoning!

Unclear.

Yup. Start here for sure.

THIS IS BECAUSE CENSUS DATA IS DIFFICULT. For experts too. Go slowly and go carefully and do it (as mentioned above) in iteration with the simplification of that data provided by the RDM...you can do it. And by "do it," I don't mean understand the Census data all the way down to the bottom. I mean you can start to learn what the shape of the problem is, how you relate to it, what you need to learn, and what information you feel comfortable accessing for now, knowing that it will grow in time.

Ah! Where did you do this and what did you learn? I'd be very interested to hear more about your varying different experiences with "using computers" in different contexts...

You should definitely do this! But please do be assured that almost everyone in this class is being asked to use tools they've never used and feels just as much out of water.

When you get to this part of the project, I have a few tool suggestions...but I want you to focus on your data for now, OK?

I think I know what you are saying, but actually...aren't you articulating them, just not in words? For me, articulation doesn't necessarily mean sentences...but does it to you?

Here do you mean the way that segregation happens in rural America, or segregation in general? Your sentence structure suggests the latter.

OK, some of my questions above are now partially answered. I still wonder why this approach? Also, please, please go over and work with the Census data sooner rather than later. Iterate, even, between working with the RDM and seeing how they got the information they got from the Census. This is critical, Kale...don't let any confusion or fear get in your way (should you have them).

What impact will lapses have on your project?

I am not saying not to do this...but why are you doing it this way? In the next iteration, do say more about this and be more mindful about expressing the hows and whys of your progress.

I think that this is very ambitious for this term and I applaud you. I think that you might do well to focus on your point number 1 here and do it thoroughly, well, and mindfully.

This is your database, yes?

I doubt it if you want to play with one-to-many relationships. That said, if you'd like to see more about what one-to-one can do for you...

Props to Addison--but also, sometimes you have to just DO it to see the issue. However, now you know that you both agree :)

Excellent observation and I feel related to your sentiments surrounding "simplicity," perhaps.

Wonderful, wonderful!

Nice. Next time around, do be sure to take us through your steps more cautiously...those steps are part of your trail of evidence.

Great! Now, what are they again? The visualization clearly means something to you, but you do need to tell us what it is!

Negative connotation again?

This sounds like you felt a lot of compromise. Where is that feeling coming from? Is simplicity somehow a step back?

It might be worthwhile to spend some time writing out this complexity. You'll have to do it eventually :)

Which is a thing that network analysis prefers, it is true.

Or, honestly, you might be confused about what you want to model--which is totally fine! What is it? Or are you just playing around in your data? That is also a mode of discovery (cf. the viz article from last week).

This is a very well known DH-training issue. Please bring this up during any question time available to us--in class or at an individual meeting. Indeed, being able to think laterally about the opportunities available is part of graduate training!

Which I do not yet understand. Could you offer more formal analysis of that visualization?

Insights like this might also help you understand how "representative" your journal is. "German journal" or "Viennese journal" are two different stereotypes, as it were...neither is better nor worse, but you know better what you are dealing with.

There are three things going on here that I'd just like to mention for the purposes of this iteration and for anyone else who swings by here:

1. What are you trying to model? Conclusive relations across authors, articles and issues?
2. What type of capta best represents that model?
3. What type of tool can take said capta and manipulate it in a way that helps you produce new knowledge?

All three of these things work together both in your mind and in your mind with a computer partner...where are you most confused at the moment?

Computers can do both of these things--it depends on the tool you are using! The term you are looking for (and can Google to your heart's content) is one-to-one vs. one-to-many relationships.

Excellent. Thanks for offering a link to your captaset. Which tables are new? Your peer reviewers may wish to know more, right here in this caption if it is important enough to gesture towards!

I'd advise here that you aren't looking for an audience after the fact...you are trying to find the tools that will allow you to express your interpretations of these chapels effectively with an audience in mind. Do you see what I mean here? They're both important (your interpretations...and your audience), but I would hate for you to start a project and then look around for an audience!!

For whom, you? That's great if the audience is you...but it is important to be mindful of that.

I would love to see more of this reflected in this palimpsest! What is this mental picture! We want to know...

It is always thus!

Would visitors actually have access to all of the different types of information you detail below?? This is a wonderful approach to these chapels, and I feel that more precision about audience and modes of production will really help you out here.

I think it is going to be mission-critical for you to define what a "virtual environment" is in this context, and what the affordances are of that environment that you would like to rely upon to bolster your interpretive findings.

Alysha, thanks for what you have presented here. The assignment for this iteration asked you to answer the following questions both in your presentation and on your palimpsest. I'm not seeing a lot of engagement with quite a number of them here...am I missing something?

• You will be asked to assemble your initial captaset, post it to your palimpsest, and present it to the class. This means it must be complete or as near-to-complete as a set of primary sources ever can be. Of course it can change over the term—but not by a lot.
• NB: You truly need to have your capta figured out EARLY to set yourself up for success. This is my long experience talking. Please believe me.

In addition to offering your captaset, you will also offer answers to the following questions for group critique, both in class and on your palimpsest:

• What is your hypothesis, thesis, or engaging line of inquiry that you would like to investigate during this course? Why do you think your question would be well-served by the application of digital analytical tools? What benefits do you anticipate that your exploration of the captaset will draw from the use of such tools? Which type(s) of digital tools do you think will best serve it and why?
• What did your Mindful Practice Journal show you about your process? Please summarize what you have written down, and go ahead and draw preliminary conclusions from your experience.

I feel I should admit to my confusion here. Are you suggesting turning the traditional use of SNA in archaeology on its head, or are you suggesting that you might work with contemporary humans to find out whether or not mortuary goods are markers of anything important in the 21st century?

Are they though? Is it not the case that they can only find the patterns we have programmed them to expect?

Lacking and incomplete data is the norm for every field! Humanists often don't think about it too much. Indeed, I've heard tell from some of my DH colleagues who lean towards the role of technologist that it is somewhat shocking that humanists can believe that there is a "complete dataset that once was," and the fact that we are only working now with the "detritus," is a shame...rather than the position that there was never such a thing as "total information awareness."

Criticisms? Or constructive feedback? ;)

Why is this? One of the goals of this class is to be very clear about both the whys and the whats of what we are doing. From this palimpsest, I don't actually get a good understanding of your current questions or your current data. It will be very very critical for you to nail down any one given data set soon, because as you well know it won't be possible to ask incisive questions before you know what sorts of topics your data addresses itself to.

These works are amazing.

Yes, I would ask that you tend to this very quickly. As I have mentioned, DH projects rest heavily on the quality (not necessarily always the quantity) of data. You would do well to ensure that your data matches the needs of any revised, tightened question.

...and what were the negative ramifications of this? What is the role of structure in your work?

Which, as I noted on the main page, are amazing. Over the rest of the term, I would love to hear even more about how you feel that the juxtapositions between still images, audio files, text passages, quantitative data, and interpretive results work together in your palimpsest to present your ideas across these different media. Is it important to you for them all to work together, or could they be at odds as well?

I'd like to encourage you to use these thoughts to focus your overall question for the term.

What will this audio be? Readings of the work? Other?

This is fantastic, but I feel it important to note that this iteration was not focused on analyzing the data yet...it was about considering the ins-and-outs of the data. For example, what are your thoughts about the size of your data set and the expectations of scale that come with using a tool like Distant Reader, in your opinion.

To be clear, I do not think that work at scale is the only way to do text analysis, but this class is about learning how to express not only the results of your work, but also laying plain the reasons for the choices behind it.

Tell me more about the role of standardization here. Are you interested in generalizing from your own experience through the process of standardization...or something else?

I do believe that you received feedback from your peers on the scope of this question, and I would like to second it. This is an amazing question very worthy of investigation, but I believe its scope is too large for the purposes of this class. In what way could you narrow this question to something that you can deeply grapple with in the next eight, short weeks?

For the purposes of this course, could you be more specific here about what these technical differences are and how Distant Reader can help you get at them?

This would be very interesting. I'd also be interested to know what you would like to get out of expanding your work to include other writers. Is it a question of marking difference between people? Or similarities in pattern? In the next iteration, I would encourage you to offer a response to this provocation.

What is the question here? These are fascinating statements, but statements nonetheless. What are the stakes in asserting this information as a known reality?

How are you thinking this representation will change over time? More on this in the next iteration will be wonderful.

I am going to be very interested to read more about your plans here. Exciting indeed!

Question for now: What taxonomy of emotions are you using and by what criteria are you selecting which word goes with which passage?