VII. Discussion

A. Synthesize | B. Emplace | C. Interact | D. Symbolize | E. Emphasize

A. Synthesize

The first kind of impact metaphors had on the webtext invention process was “synthesize,” or serving as a new conceptual resource for integrating a webtext’s total components.

One example of “synthesize” occurred in Draft 2 of autoethnographic webtext “The Magpie’s Nest.”

• Linguistic | Synthesize | Total

I was working on a review essay of three webtext projects; I’d chosen design metaphors for each of the individual pages, but had no way to make the project work as a whole. I represented the three reviewed webtexts with some kind of space oriented around a creative or literate practice associated with my argument about the reviewed work. However, the three spaces didn’t make much sense in combination, and I didn’t have a smooth way of tying them together that made sense. So I decided to use some kind of avatar around which to fashion a narrative of moving through each space, and hit upon the idea of a magpie. Magpies have a folkloric reputation for stealing shiny objects and arranging them in their nests, which seemed a fitting metaphor for my sampling and remixing work. This decision partially came out of my fondness for illustrating birds, but also conceptually served as a way to frame the work I was doing: designing as a webtext composer sampling other composers’ projects and rearranging them for critical review in my own web home. The magpie and nest metaphor emerged at a distinct moment in my drafting process on 26 December 2016, as a conceptual and design resource for tying the whole project together.

Another example of “synthesize" occurred in Boyd’s invention narrative for her webtext “Pulling the Difference”, published in Kairos Journal.

• Linguistic | Synthesize | Total

Boyd's webtext features several visual or "tactile" pages featuring items such as thread, stitching, or dressmakers' forms as navigational pages, and the title itself—"Pulling the Difference"—is itself a sewing reference. Furthermore, many of the essay pages are divided by thin columns of dashed lines which evoke stitching. This metaphor entered not as a visual or tactile object, however, but rather through Boyd's and Madeleine's discussions around developing the text. As Boyd notes, the concepts of stitching and thread emerged frequently in their discussion around the two comparative essays. Once Boyd encountered the phrase "pulling the difference" in Miall's essay, the project's components as a whole locked into place around this central organizing concept. The thread and stitching metaphor served as a powerful summarizing around which the argument as expressed through title, navigation, layout, images, and text could synthesize into a cohesive whole.

This kind of impact was seen in all three case studies; for every first version of the webtext draft, there was some kind of synthesizing metaphor to conceptually orient and pull all the pieces together in a web space. This is not to say that the metaphor was the very first thing to emerge overall in the webtext process; on the contrary, as seen by the fact that the move to webtext drafting did not tend to happen until much later in the drafting and invention process, it seems that the metaphor-as-orienting-object does not emerge until considerable conceptual groundwork has already been laid.