User:Kim/writing/Thesis outline draft

This outline draft refers to the GitPub project proposal

How to draft an outline?

step 1

1. What do you WANT to write? [What will the text be about? (thesis). What do you want to explore? Be clear about HOW you want to tell your story.]

I aim to write a text that is concise, yet playful in its form. It will be about the role of meta data in (post) digital publishing practices. I will explore historical developments in the production of text by looking at early forms of markup such as marginalia and the pecia system, different digital characteristics for instance source code comments or protocols and will finally propose version control software for (collaborative, experimental) writing and making public. The meta data of the present text is a crucial part of the text and the process of writing itself.

2. Outline three key issues you want to explore. (Please think of only 3 key issues)

1. hiddeness (veiled, closed source, seamless) in present day technology/ interfaces but also in the sense of invisible labor (in writing, rendering, reading?)
2. paratexts
3. how do we publish together but apart from platforms and bloated applications?
4. (infrastructure)

step 2

Intro (what is this text about?)

on including meta data in digital/hybrid publishing projects, not only as means to an end of production but making them part of the text, the body of work at hand. define meta-data (or what ever terminology I come up with), contextualize my interested and lay out importance of this text

Key issue 1 = chapter 1 (invisibility)

labor: holistic- vs prescriptive technologies and division of labor (here also: using early markup "pecia system" enabled division of labor in print production) resulting in opaque processes and culture of compliance, invisibility of 'software' and todays invisibility of interface , culture of compliance – todays user condition (vs "programmer")

also include "the right to opacity" bc visibility doe snot equal good, but must be understood contextually >> could "right to opacity" also have implications for this specific technology / practice of publishing i am discussing?

Key issue 2 = chapter 2 (Paratexts)

Paratexts: historically conceptualized for print / literature (include page numbers, headers, pre-and post faces, footnotes and other marginalia ...) - possibilities for digital paratext?, What implications do paratexts hold for present day digital / hybrid publishing? >> "paratext mediates between text and reader", what mediates relation between text and user?

Paratext is, rather, a threshold, (p 2) A Zone not only of transition but also transaction (p 2)

Key issue 3 = chapter 3 (publishing otherwise) (infrastructures)

away from proprietary, bloated platforms and applications. highlight necessity of agency and collective autonomy both in the creation process and over public objects. discuss adjacent tools and attempts (octomode etc). making the hidden visible as possible breaking with closed of/ invisibility discussed in 1 - present git and version control. excurs into history and version control, socio-cultural embededdness of git, present gitpub.
maybe the last chapter could also have a rather infrastructural focus through which we arrive at the git software and gitpub? what would my take or understanding of infrastructure be in this context? it does relate to paratext in the sense of enabling circulation, it also mediates a relationship/ action, just as infrastructure does

Conclusion

will state the role of meta-data in current day publishing as a possibility for resisting (invisibility)