While we do have the option of just using an online converter to change a Word doc version of our book into HTML (More specifically XHTML, Nyssa - my husband says the only difference between HTML and XHTML is that XHTML conforms to higher standards so you have to remember to close all your tags and such but it's essentially the same), the converters are not always perfect and then we'd probably need someone to double check the coding for us. Assuming (pretty sure this is a safe assumption) that none of us are fluent in XHTML coding, this could pose problems.
Nyssa found a way to use Adobe InDesign to export to ePub, but I'm not sure any or enough of us are familiar with InDesign. Besides, I think we (my genius husband and I) have found a way to convert directly from a PDF to ePub format. This would not only skip the XHTML conversion step but also put most of us in a format that we're probably more familiar with: the PDF. Here's the article that explains this.
It looks like it's originally intended for users who already have ebooks in PDF format and are frustrated that their chosen ebook readers don't support PDF format, and so can use this platform to convert their book into ePub which is supported by most ebook readers. Interesting note: the article says the ebook situation is similar to when the music industry was trying to find a uniform format and now ePub is the closest format we have to the comparable music Mp3.
The article has directions for how to use this "free and cross-platform ebook management tool," Calibre, to accomplish the task and it looks relatively painless and quick. I think we should at least give it a shot, though we may need to understand more about PDF/ ePub formatting of ebooks so we know what is allowed, like what Nyssa discovered about graphics in the ePub format, etc.
Anyways, check out the article about this process and the demo video on the Calibre home page to learn more. Let me know what you all think!
Monday, May 30, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Response to Legitimate Literary Criticism
I wrote the following as a response (just my thoughts typed out as I think them) to Dr. Burton's post today on Legitimate Literary Criticism and thought since it was such a long comment it deserved the attention of a blog post.
Are the conventions of an ebook the same as online writing or is it more like a go-between for the two mediums? I think our ebook feels more formal to me than most online writing and I feel almost compelled to make it longer than not. Interesting.
Also, thank you for this post. It finally does what I feel like I've been waiting for this semester, a justification of the way this course is taught and of what we are doing (ie. "The ubiquitous, media-rich, interconnected, networked online environment is in fact our default intellectual medium, and therefore our literary criticism must be responsive to the conventions of communication developing there." and "I want my students to write "legitimate literary criticism" not according to expiring standards, but by the emerging standards that emphasize frequent, informal, formative, media-rich, interactive prose. Better a living literary criticism than a dead or dying one.")
I've been trying to explain how this class fulfills the parameters of it's original intent as prescribed by the English department and found myself at a loss, but these arguments are pretty sound. They frankly address the tensions or issues the class presents. I do wonder (like our discussion about library database interfaces) if the academic world and its literary criticism can be driven by demand though -- I suppose I'm not as convinced that for everyone in the academic world (or even most) that their "default intellectual medium" is mapped out in the online sphere. Also, is legitimacy most largely determined by audience? or is that a more modern way of thinking? It sounds like our demand/ supply thought.
I don't mean to be contrary ... or maybe I do. These are just all the questions I'm coming up with as I read and respond to your post.
E book Project Thoughts
So I've been looking at the wikipedia page for ebook formats and I think we're going to have to know some kind of computer language to even create this thing. That's slightly daunting. I mean, we could just create a PDF but then that isn't dynamic as we want it to be. I wonder if there's a site out there that is like blogger for people who want their own blog type webpage, but for ebooks.
It brings in questions again about scope*. Can we really complete this project within three weeks? Do any of us know any web markup languages? I was thinking just creating the content for my "chapter" and trying to tie it into a legitimate theme with the rest of the ebook for a legitimate stakeholding audience was going to be time consuming.
As for authenticity I don't think it'd be that difficult to make our book like a collection of essays about digital literary research and to have the essays track our journey in researching each individual book and learning to use the new tools that we've been becoming accustomed to. I don't think writing such an essay (each of us write one) is outside the scope of a 3 (really only 2) week project. I think this definitely lies within the focus and scope of the class in preparing us for "additional literary study and for life-long learning". If we could figure out the ebook format (something I'm a little afraid is beyond us), it'd be a really valuable project to show to future employers.
I'm presenting a problem without coming up with a solution but I'm just not informed enough to know what that solution is. I've sent out feelers into my "networks" to see if anyone has any ideas, but in the meantime ... what do you guys think?
*bolded terms refer to the parameters of the project that Dr. Burton outlined in yesterday's post
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Post Script (added after publishing): I forgot to mention that I still think it's really important to include things like photos, video, links, footnotes (that you can jump down to just by clicking on them) etc in our ebook. I just don't know how we'd be able to do this.
It brings in questions again about scope*. Can we really complete this project within three weeks? Do any of us know any web markup languages? I was thinking just creating the content for my "chapter" and trying to tie it into a legitimate theme with the rest of the ebook for a legitimate stakeholding audience was going to be time consuming.
As for authenticity I don't think it'd be that difficult to make our book like a collection of essays about digital literary research and to have the essays track our journey in researching each individual book and learning to use the new tools that we've been becoming accustomed to. I don't think writing such an essay (each of us write one) is outside the scope of a 3 (really only 2) week project. I think this definitely lies within the focus and scope of the class in preparing us for "additional literary study and for life-long learning". If we could figure out the ebook format (something I'm a little afraid is beyond us), it'd be a really valuable project to show to future employers.
I'm presenting a problem without coming up with a solution but I'm just not informed enough to know what that solution is. I've sent out feelers into my "networks" to see if anyone has any ideas, but in the meantime ... what do you guys think?
*bolded terms refer to the parameters of the project that Dr. Burton outlined in yesterday's post
--------
Post Script (added after publishing): I forgot to mention that I still think it's really important to include things like photos, video, links, footnotes (that you can jump down to just by clicking on them) etc in our ebook. I just don't know how we'd be able to do this.
The Only Way to "Climb the Ladder"
This will be interesting I think to many of you though perhaps not in line with our current goal of academic blogging and trying to tie all our posts together. It is somewhat random but really interesting.
According to my Political Science professor this semester, we all think we're middle class and we're all actually somewhere in the lower class. Professor Coffey (sweet older guy) says that middle class starts with a salary of about $250,000 (Say what?!) and the reason many families think they're there is because they're getting closer to that mark with a joint income (both parents working). And I thought I had it made at age 16 when Subway gave me a $0.50 raise from minimum wage.
Dr. Coffey, my polysci prof, also informed us that the only sure way to ascend socio-economic classes is education (you know ... unless you create facebook). This leads me to an interesting link I found by following BYU IPT professor, Dr. David Wiley on twitter. The link (click here) displays a dynamic graphic that shows you the median income of each college major based on U.S. Census Bureau data. Pretty incredible. The thing I found most interesting is that not a one of these median bachelor salaries exceeds 120K. So how much education do you really need to climb the ladder?
According to my Political Science professor this semester, we all think we're middle class and we're all actually somewhere in the lower class. Professor Coffey (sweet older guy) says that middle class starts with a salary of about $250,000 (Say what?!) and the reason many families think they're there is because they're getting closer to that mark with a joint income (both parents working). And I thought I had it made at age 16 when Subway gave me a $0.50 raise from minimum wage.
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| Image courtesy of Christop | flickr |
Thoreau's Education in ABELL for James Matthews
After many dead ends, at least online, I've decided to start tracking my progress in searching out a useful article for James Matthews who is studying Henry David Throeau's Walden.
2. I have been using ABELL to look for articles about Thoreau and education or teaching (unsuccessfully at least in full text carried at BYU for the past hour I might add).
3. The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature contains 860,000 records, covering monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published anywhere in the world from 1920 onwards. What I am confused about is why the library site, when I click on ABELL's database takes me to LION and uses that platform to search ABELL. Rather confusing.
4. I searched terms like "thoreau" and "edu*" in the keywords box and "throeau" and "walden" in the subject box. I turned up a number of "brief records" but in order to determine their usefulness to the project I wanted abstracts. I tried looking up several of the journals on the HBLL site but without sucess. Once the journal was in another language, once not listed, and the last time I found an article that from the title looks as though it'd be very pertinent to James's research but is only available in hardcopy at the library. I thought I would list it here for James's to determine it's usefulness.
5. Dillman, Richard H. "Thoreau's Harvard Education in Rhetoric and Composition." Thoreau Quarterly (1981): 47. Print.
6. I assume the article to explore Thoreau's Harvard education though I could not access an abstract of it presently. I thought it might be interesting for James to check out the journal it is in though as that may be a valuable (if dated) resource. The journal is the Thoreau Quarterly and the HBLL has a copy of the journal, including the issue containing the aforementioned article at this location: PS 3053 .T5
7. About his research, James wrote, that he'd like to "analyze Thoreau as a teacher and an educator, that's actually what he did right after he graduated from Harvard. To the casual onlooker of his life at that point, he was rather unsuccessful at it. I want though to look at his mode of teaching in Walden, especially as a spiritual/moral/ethical teacher." An article on Thoreau's Harvard education would certainly be a great entry point into James's research and who knows what other valuable articles he might find in the Thoreau Quarterly.
Good luck James! (P.S. Are you still in the class? I see you haven't posted since the 17th.)
2. I have been using ABELL to look for articles about Thoreau and education or teaching (unsuccessfully at least in full text carried at BYU for the past hour I might add).
3. The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature contains 860,000 records, covering monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published anywhere in the world from 1920 onwards. What I am confused about is why the library site, when I click on ABELL's database takes me to LION and uses that platform to search ABELL. Rather confusing.
4. I searched terms like "thoreau" and "edu*" in the keywords box and "throeau" and "walden" in the subject box. I turned up a number of "brief records" but in order to determine their usefulness to the project I wanted abstracts. I tried looking up several of the journals on the HBLL site but without sucess. Once the journal was in another language, once not listed, and the last time I found an article that from the title looks as though it'd be very pertinent to James's research but is only available in hardcopy at the library. I thought I would list it here for James's to determine it's usefulness.
5. Dillman, Richard H. "Thoreau's Harvard Education in Rhetoric and Composition." Thoreau Quarterly (1981): 47. Print.
6. I assume the article to explore Thoreau's Harvard education though I could not access an abstract of it presently. I thought it might be interesting for James to check out the journal it is in though as that may be a valuable (if dated) resource. The journal is the Thoreau Quarterly and the HBLL has a copy of the journal, including the issue containing the aforementioned article at this location: PS 3053 .T5
7. About his research, James wrote, that he'd like to "analyze Thoreau as a teacher and an educator, that's actually what he did right after he graduated from Harvard. To the casual onlooker of his life at that point, he was rather unsuccessful at it. I want though to look at his mode of teaching in Walden, especially as a spiritual/moral/ethical teacher." An article on Thoreau's Harvard education would certainly be a great entry point into James's research and who knows what other valuable articles he might find in the Thoreau Quarterly.
Good luck James! (P.S. Are you still in the class? I see you haven't posted since the 17th.)
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Huck's Bloggophere and Cussin'
2. My purpose is to explore LION (Literature Online), a literary database, in order to pursue my research on connections between current hot topic discussions of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the online writing environment and higher education.
3. LION (Literature Online). This is a resource indexing multiple databases about English poetry and drama, some fiction, and Shakespeare. It has reference works and lists of selected web resources.
4. I searched "Huckleberry Finn" and scrolled down to a list of criticism on the text. The title of one article caught my attention but they didn't have the text, only the "full record". I might've been tempted to count this as a dead end but I'll never tell. However I was so interested in what the article had to say that I went to the library website, looked up the journal that the article was in - Chronicle of Higher Education - and found we had the full text online through EBSCO host so I linked through the journal with the rest of the publication information and then scrolled down till I found this article. I clicked the full text link and there it was!
5. "The Redacted 'Huckleberry Finn': 'Chronicle' Bloggers Respond." Chronicle of Higher Education 57.21 (2011): B4. Print.
3. LION (Literature Online). This is a resource indexing multiple databases about English poetry and drama, some fiction, and Shakespeare. It has reference works and lists of selected web resources.
4. I searched "Huckleberry Finn" and scrolled down to a list of criticism on the text. The title of one article caught my attention but they didn't have the text, only the "full record". I might've been tempted to count this as a dead end but I'll never tell. However I was so interested in what the article had to say that I went to the library website, looked up the journal that the article was in - Chronicle of Higher Education - and found we had the full text online through EBSCO host so I linked through the journal with the rest of the publication information and then scrolled down till I found this article. I clicked the full text link and there it was!
5. "The Redacted 'Huckleberry Finn': 'Chronicle' Bloggers Respond." Chronicle of Higher Education 57.21 (2011): B4. Print.
6. A compilation of sorts of blog posts by different bloggers from this journal on the deletion of the 'n' word in Huckleberry Finn by editor Alan Gribben of NewSouth.
7. This article is all about the hottest topic of discussion about Huck Finn today, that Mark Twain scholar, Alan Gribben, has replaced the word "nigger" in a new edition of Huckleberry Finn with "slave" so as not to offend readers and open up potential audiences (i.e. high schoolers) that the book might not have had before. I followed the lead in the article to the Chronicle's original blog posts on the subject and found a listing of several. I'm interested now to know what audiences outside of higher education are having this debate, if any, and what they're saying.
Posting and Blogger
Couldn't get my post on here yesterday because of blogger errors but you can check out my academic post for yesterday at my other blog.
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