Reading literature with the aid of computational techniques is controversial. For some, digital approaches apparently fetishize the curation of textual archives, lack interpretative rigor, and are thoroughly ’neoliberal’ in their pursuit of Silicon Valley-esque software-tool production. For others, the potential benefits of amplifying reading-labor-power through non-consumptive use of book corpora fulfills the dreams of early twentieth-century Russian formalism and yields new, distant ways in which we can consider textual pattern-making (Jockers; Moretti, Distant Reading; Moretti...

What is there not to like about “openness”? The premise seems to have virtue, particularly in the space of critique of government. From totalitarianism through to oligarchies, it can be argued that it is opacity and secrecy that have contributed to abuses of power for many centuries. In other spaces, the notion has caught hold. In several scientific fields, it appears that a lack of openness can lead to misconduct and in some cases a slowness that may cost lives. In (...) the humanities, we might say that its absence fosters insularity. In computer software production, open-source paradigms have led to remarkable developments such as the Linux kernel and allowed us to see the inner machinations of the code that is.. (shrink)

Digital spaces are saturated with metaphor: we have pages, sites, mice, and windows. Yet, in the world of digital textuality, these metaphors no longer function as we might expect. Martin Paul Eve calls attention to the digital-textual metaphors that condition our experience of digital space, and traces their history as they interact with physical cultures. Eve posits that digital-textual metaphors move through three life phases. Initially they are descriptive. Then they encounter a moment of fracture or rupture. Finally, they go (...) on to have a prescriptive life of their own that conditions future possibilities for our text environments - even when the metaphors have become untethered from their original intent. Why is "whitespace" white? Was the digital page always a foregone conclusion? Over a series of theses, Eve addresses these and other questions in order to understand the moments when digital-textual metaphors break and to show us how it is that our textual softwares become locked into paradigms that no longer make sense. Contributing to book history, literary studies, new media studies, and material textual studies, Theses on the Metaphors of Digital-Textual History provides generative insights into the metaphors that define our digital worlds. (shrink)

BackgroundInaccurate citations are erroneous quotations or instances of paraphrasing of previously published material that mislead readers about the claims of the cited source. They are often unaddressed due to underreporting, the inability of peer reviewers and editors to detect them, and editors’ reluctance to publish corrections about them. In this paper, we propose a new tool that could be used to tackle their circulation.MethodsWe provide a review of available data about inaccurate citations and analytically explore current ways of reporting and (...) dealing with these inaccuracies. Consequently, we make a distinction between publication and circulation of inaccurate citations. Sloppy reading of published items, literature ambiguity and insufficient quality control in the editorial process are identified as factors that contribute to the publication of inaccurate citations. However, reiteration or copy-pasting without checking the validity of citations, paralleled with lack of resources/motivation to report/correct inaccurate citations contribute to their circulation.Results and discussionWe propose the development of an online annotation tool called “MyCites” as means with which to mark and map inaccurate citations. This tool allows ORCID users to annotate citations and alert authors and also editors of journals where inaccurate citations are published. Each marked citation would travel with the digital version of the document and be visible on websites that host peer-reviewed articles. In the future development of MyCites, challenges such as the conditions of correct/incorrect-ness and parties that should adjudicate that, and, the issue of dealing with incorrect reports need to be addressed. (shrink)