VIII. Implications

Based on the findings that emerged out of my analytical approach, I want to highlight the following implications as takeaways for building professional infrastructures to support webtext composing, invention, and design as a mode of scholarly composing and communication.

• "Motivate" highlights a need for expanding professional communities around webtext composing, such as webtext working groups or training for writing center consultants in responding to multimodal projects. If the opportunity to meet and work with specific individuals on a webtext process serves as a key influence on invention, it is important to not only have formalized publication venues, but also less formal opportunities to regularly connect with people who value, are invested in, and are prepared to talk about multimodal scholarship.

• "Halt" reminds composers to be prepared to balance the demands of developing explicitly articulated arguments and implicit designs and to advocate for the importance of focusing on design if needed. The current realities of scholarly composing often mean that they are encouraged to give explicit argument precedence over implicit design in their invention process, but strategic moments of resistance that emphasize design can serve as “small potent gestures” (a favorite phrase of Cynthia Selfe) to expand the scope of institutional knowledge-making practices.

• With regard to “Give," composers might consider making a systematic inventory at the beginning of the project (especially if working with collaborators) what pieces are available, what pieces are needed, who will make them, and when they will be provided. Such an inventory can make each contributor’s needs and responsibilities clear for completing their tasks, can be adapted as the project grows, and can facilitate strategic reflection on the addition of each piece (and how it contributes to the implicit argument as a whole).

• “Inform” suggests that composers consult with domain experts to make sure that their webtext’s design reflects key insights and cultural contexts. Here I offer especially as an example Kim Christen and Chris Cooney’s representation of the cultural protocols of the Warumungu people of Central Australia. Christen and Cooney designed a digital interface that maps out culturally situated rules around knowledge circulation based on Christen's collaborative research with Warumungu community members. These protocols are both the subject and informing design principles of their scholarly web project “Digital Dynamics Across Cultures.” This category reflects the fact that it takes multiple kinds of skills and knowledge to make a webtext happen, over which perhaps one single person does not have complete mastery, and that implicit design-based arguments, like explicitly articulated ones, are significantly enriched when they reflect conversation with informed experts.

• “Suggest” invites composers to seek out user experience feedback on how to engage the project as a point of equal importance to seeking content-based feedback. If possible, composers should seek out a diverse base for user testing to make sure that the webtext’s design is as accessible as possible in response to multiple kinds of information access needs such as inclusion of a wide range of sensory channels, alternate formats, and clear information breakdowns.

• Finally, considering “Re-Envision,” composers are encouraged as possible to create detailed mockups or proof-of-concept pieces and test them on a wide audience before investing time and energy in a full draft. At the same time, they should also be prepared to invest a considerable amount of time and resources in the design invention process with the acknowledgement that new or revised configurations may be necessary that render much of that work unusable. Expanding the inclusion of invention narratives in webtext scholarship might help to recover the integration of what seems like “wasted” work as, in fact, a significant part of the invention and knowledge-creation process.

I also want to note an interesting lack of influence on pieces based on other people, which was the removal of pieces. There were certainly self-motivated moments of removing pieces, as seen for example in the transition between Drafts MN3 and MN4, as I respond to an overcrowded interface. However, for these selected drafts, other people were generally more likely to suggest new pieces (or ways of building on existing pieces) rather than the removal of particular pieces. This phenomenon might imply a sort of “believing game” (Elbow) response—the assumption that all pieces present make some kind of successful contribution—or a hesitation to offer critique due to a lack of familiarity with multimodal scholarship. In any case, based on these examples, a webtext design seems more likely to grow by accretion than to condense based on other people’s suggestions. This pattern indicates a need to conscientiously consider the role of each piece in the overall argument, whether suggested pieces are beneficial or superfluous, and whether any pieces need to be removed (even those that represent significant effort) in service of the design-as-argument as a whole.

Furthermore, I want to highlight the importance of particular contributors to the webtext composing and invention process whose labor seems to be erased or minimized (Burgess and Hamming)--that of undergraduate assistants. Three other composers’ narratives (Lauer, Kinloch et al., and Voss) have indicated the significant help of an undergraduate contributor in developing the project’s web design components--only one of whom is mentioned peripherally by name (Angelo Veto, designer for Kinloch et al.), and none of which are included in the citations. These undergraduate consultants occupy interesting roles somewhere between consultant, colleague, and collaborator: they are part of the disciplinary intellectual community, though in a more marginal way; they may possess technical skills that the main composer does not; they may make a significant long term design-based contribution, but not the intellectual one required to count as a co-author; and their help may be solicited (as in the case of writing center consultants) or arise out of a pre-existing collaboration (as in the case of Lauer and her student advisee).

If design is indeed an important component of a webtext’s overall argument, it is important to find ways to recognize the contributions of these individuals in generating that argument, perhaps by developing a format for including designers in academic citations. This is not to say that every single individual who influenced the project needs to be included in citations, or that undergraduate and graduate student contributions to research projects are not being overlooked in other modes of scholarship. However, the increased visibility of a webtext’s design as a significant component of its knowledge structure might help to draw further attention to the many mind, hands, and skills behind its development, including contributors who might otherwise go unrecognized. By mapping out the narrative systems behind the invention and design of webtexts, icon-coding might serve as one approach for drawing attention to and visualizing this otherwise “invisible” labor.

As with any publication project, the credits on a webtext’s design often don’t fully account for the many hands that went into the work and the nuances of their contributions to the invention process, both as resources and obstacles. I hope this investigation will help foreground the collaborative nature of scholarly knowledge creation by highlighting the ways that the webtext’s design--an important part of its performance of argument--took shape and substance through the intervention of other people.