Digital Humanities: 9/25/19

Clement: Where Is Methodology in Digital Humanities?

       The article seemed to be focused on how Digital Humanities incorporates social studies and other scientific information. Clement brought up Michael Buckland as one of the most well-known theorists. His theory was of the three kinds of information: information as knowledge, information as thing, and information as process. The first, information as knowledge, is subjective and personal according to Buckland. Information as thing is more tangible and requires physical expression be it a sign or communication. Information as process allows researchers to narrow down a very specific sect of information for analysis.

Tan: Four Ways to Show the Value of UX Writing

       Tan focused intently on making information more accessible to people with lower reading levels, more objective pursuits, or just less time. Throughout the article she discussed and provided examples for becoming a better UX writer. Some of these examples included detailing when to refer to your company's writing policy, how to make information appear more objective through using bullet lists, and how to research more commonly searched terms. The article focuses more on the informative than the speculative.

Comments:

       Both articles are decidedly difficult to compare to each other, as they don't share the same demographic, in a sense. However, both involve the work of Digital Humanities, providing useful information to those that need it. While Tan focuses more on informing and aiding future and current UX writers, Clement looks more deeply into the affairs of Digital Humanities as a whole and what helps creators in that world. I did find it amusing, however, that after reading Tan's article, Clement seemed to do everything that Tan said not to do. Clement was well over a 12th grade reading level; had headings, but lacked prioritized information such as bullet points; and presented the bulk of their information in long and drawn out paragraphs. Still, as I said the forms they are both writing in are not quite comparable enough to judge on those grounds.

Question:

We've read quite a few DH articles now, but most have been of a higher reading level than the general public can digest. Taking inspiration from Tan, should scholars consider making versions of their work at a lower reading level to make the information more accessible to others?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday: September 10th

A Political History of Digital Humanities:        This reading, like past readings, seemed to focus on defining what Digital Humanities both is and is not. Digital Humanities prefers lab based research and digital projects to over reading and writing when it comes to studying the humanities. The article also focused extensively on the onset of computers in scholarly learning, the creation of "computer specialists" who were mostly librarians, and their poor worth in the eyes of literary scholars. Jerome McGann and his Rossetti project are mentioned, as well as the necessity of computers in compiling the data required. And in the face of all of this, Digital Humanities is created from the anger and disdain carried by growing Digital Humanists as literary scholars looked down on them. The Scandal of Digital Humanities:       The article was about how people seemed to think that Digital Humanities represented and encouraged Neoliberalism. The aut...
Read more
To my understanding, the reading focused on the reasons for having peer tutoring, as well as why peer tutoring is a beneficial method of teaching. Something I liked in particular about it was the way it questioned, and subsequently answered, why peer tutoring is an effective method of teaching. Not only does this form of teaching benefit those who do not quite understand the material, but in teaching it to others it helps reinforce the material in the minds of the peers doing the teaching. In this way, the text explains to us how peer tutoring is not simply, "the blind leading the blind," but rather students explaining concepts in a language their peers can understand. A question that this poses, however, is the matter of what is the most effective teaching environment if tutoring is such a progressive method of instruction. Does the success of tutoring create a smaller demand for more learned instructors, as all it seems to take is one instructor and several students that gr...
Read more
March 25-29         Activity is starting to speed up in the writing center, if the last two weeks are anything to go on. Just last week, I must have had 4-5 sessions, making about half a week's worth of sessions for me, good for this semester, while this week I got a very similar number, close as I can recall. Friday felt like the busiest time, however, as my short hour and a half slot had both appointments booked, and I filled in for Kensie's last 45 minutes. The sessions I had on Friday were both relatively simple (I even had a return visitor from one of my past sessions, which is always nice), but both sessions revolved around one thing in particular. Works cited pages and in-text citations. In the first case, it was a matter of being unfamiliar with APA format, while the second was having trouble citing non-scholarly sources, such as the page on a gaming website.          The first student brought in a leadership paper, standard fair...
Read more