Scalar naturally facilitates a kind of re-orientation that encourages alternative modes of scholarship. In its design, for instance, it allows users to categorize writing into different genres--annotation, commentary, paths, etc., thus challenging the textual bias of literary scholarship by allowing us to privilege other mediums (and even other forms of writing) within the inherited hierarchy.  The workflow assignment was particularly interesting in this regard.  In being asked to describe and then exhibit our workflow, the difference between writing and building were collapsed, revealing that writing too--as Ramsay and Rockwell point out--is a methodology.  The process of documenting our workflows revealed how writing is only one among the many facets of scholarly work, while exhibiting these workflows--for many of us via screencast--reminded us that building a digital object was every bit as much a part of our scholarly work as writing. Using Scalar as both a platform for composition and building thus facilitated reflexive thinking about both.

An example of how Scalar worked to challenge this bias is my own workflow assignment.  When I first completed this assignment I posted it on Scalar as a description of my workflow, organized as a long list of bullet points beneath the accompanying video.  When I went back to edit this piece for the book, at this point having a much more sophisticated understanding of Scalar, I used the same description of my workflow, but this time I broke this description up into annotations to accompany the video.  By making the video the main page, and the writing simply annotations to this page, the video became the primary object of inquiry, while the writing simply facilitated its understanding.  While it is true that given our increasing familiarity with new media, we are becoming more and more accustomed to reading visual representations which supplement writing, we (in the humanities at least) are still little-accustomed to ‘reading’ these visuals as their own objects of inquiry which make their own kinds of arguments.   

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