Dana Montello Journal #8
When I was reading Sinclair, I realized that our tendency to do aggregate searches for research (that I myself do), is really limited. Even more so, we don't widely use the ideas address about using DH platforms to do some of our research aspects for us. Instead, we just start at the top of the list, read through, and then think/connect everything we read. If there's a value in DH scholarship, it's changing that research and project creation process. Since my project is also concerned with how students absorb information, it becomes even more important that we alter how we do research and how we present research. The current system is a slog, and makes the actual research rather unfun (the synthesis step is the fun one for me). How can we not just codify information in new ways in our brave new world but actually find new ways of creating knowledge in a graphical world.
The problem, as mentioned above, is that you can't create what you can't conceive, and unlike some of those true Artists and Geniuses, I'm limited by what I've seen others do. That being said, I do think that Cairo's suggestions are much easier for me and others to put into place because they've been modeled before. As much as there are bad graphs out there, we've all seen good graphs that do enlighten and make points and create clarity. We might not be able to create them perfectly, but we can recognize them, which means we can conceive it. That which we can conceive, we can eventually grasp.
More than any other field, DH has a responsibility to create new research and teaching tools. If we can have people pioneer new ways of assembling data and having people sift through it, we could have a very real revolution in how and what all fields do for research.
Of course, this doesn't ameliorate my need to find out what to incorporate. How do I get a picture to say everything I want to say, but more so?