Code Appendix for “Changing Medium, Transforming Composition”

Trey Conatser

Appendix A: Selections from Major Assignment Markup Schemes

Primary Source Analysis

• In at least one paragraph match evidence (details) from the primary source with the interpretations you draw from them:

<seg type="ev_interp">

<seg type="evidence">evidence (details) from the primary source</seg>

<seg type="interpretation">interpretation based on corresponding evidence</seg>

</seg>

• Tag all research questions at the end of the PSA with unique  xml:id  identifiers:

<seg type="research_question" xml:id="surname_rq_#">research question</seg>

• Tag a moment of the PSA when you complicate the seemingly obvious:

<seg type="complication">text here</seg>

• Tag at least one exact repetition that you find in the primary source:

<seg type="pattern">text here</seg>

• Tag a moment of the PSA when you identify a strand: a pattern of approximate (not exact) repetition:

<seg type="strand">text here</seg>

• Define one binary—an  organizing contrast —that you are identifying in or from the primary source:

<seg type="binary_a">text here</seg>

<seg type="binary_b">text here</seg>

• Tag an anomaly in the primary source as well as your explanation of the significance of that anomaly:

<seg type="anomaly">text here</seg>

<seg type="anomaly_sig">text here</seg>

Annotated Bibliography

• Markup structure for each annotated bibliography entry; possible type attributes are “book” for a consistently authored book, “chapter” for a separately authored chapter in a collection or anthology of separately authored chapters in a book, “pr_article” for a scholarly, peer reviewed article from an academic journal, “np_article” for a newspaper article, “m_article” for a magazine article, “o_article” for other article types:

<bibl type="type_here" xml:id="id_here" n="alphabetical_organizer"> MLA Works Cited Entry

<note type="ab_annotation" corresp="xml:id_of_corresponding_research_question"> Annotation here.</note>

</bibl>

• Professional status of author or authors for each entry:

<seg type="author">text here</seg>

• Main argument for each entry:

<seg type="main_argument">text here</seg>

• Relevance of each entry to your primary source, primary source analysis, and/or research questions:

<seg type="relevance">text here</seg>

Secondary Source Integration

• Tag in your introduction and/or conclusion your preliminary thesis, however vague it may be. Tag each part of the thesis within the overall thesis tag; see the Writing Analytically sections on incorporating tension and complexity into your thesis:

<seg type="thesis">

<seg type="thesis_part">text here</seg>

<seg type="thesis_part">text here</seg>

</seg>

• Tag the sequence or line of thought when you cite a secondary source to extend your line of thought:

<seg type="integrating_sources">

<seg type="me">your initial insight about the primary source</seg>

<seg type="source">citation/integration of related insight(s) from a secondary source</seg>

<seg type="synthesis">your new, clarified, qualified, or modified insight(s)</seg>

</seg>

Analytical Research Paper

• Tag your thesis whenever it occurs in your ARP, as many times as it evolves. Tag each part of the thesis within the overall thesis tag; see the Writing Analytically sections on incorporating tension and complexity into your thesis:

<seg type="thesis">

<seg type="thesis_part">text here</seg>

<seg type="thesis_part">text here</seg>

</seg>

• Tag whenever you explore the significance of the primary source’s audience:

<seg type="audience">text here</seg>

• Tag whenever you explore the significance of the primary source’s medium:

<seg type="medium">text here</seg>

• Tag whenever you explore the significance of the primary source’s author(s), creator(s), host(s), sponsor(s), etc.:

<seg type="author">text here</seg>

• At least twice tag an insight that you then explore in terms of its significance—in other words, following the  so what?  question—repeat the as many times as necessary, assigning the same value for the  corresp  attribute linking all  so what?  explorations back to the same original insight:

<seg type="insight" xml:id="lastname_insight_#">text here</seg>

<seg type="so_what" corresp="lastname_insight_#">text here</seg>

Appendix B: Example Primary Source Analysis with Markup¹

<div type="primary_source_analysis" n="1" xml:id="psa_example_1">
<head type="student_name" n="1">J. Q. Student</head>
<head type="instructor_name" n="2">Trey Conatser</head>
<head type="class" n="3">English 1110.01</head>
<head type="date" n="4">04 February 2012</head>
<head type="paper_title" n="5">Primary Source Analysis</head>
<p>
<seg type="introduction">
Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison’s <title level="a">Summer Arm</title>, a mixed media (though mostly photographic)
piece in their <title level="m">Counterpoint</title> series, presents us with a mechanical apparatus holding the
outstretched arm of a man whose body for the most part lies beyond the frame.
<seg type="pattern">
Atop the arm grow three clusters of plants, including Black-eyed Susans, a Tiger Lily, and small fern stalks.
</seg>
<seg type="pattern">
Four butterflies of varying colors and an insect of an uncertain type fly around the flowers in front of the flat, off-white background.
</seg>
<seg type="thesis">
<seg type="thesis_part">
<title level="a">Summer Arm</title> therefore consists both compositionally and conceptually of
three major parts: the mechanical, the human, and the natural, a triad that the ParkeHarrisons have
made the focus of most, if not all of their work.
</seg>
<seg type="thesis_part">
In addition to raising questions about the nature of each of these parts, <title level="a">Summer
Arm</title> leads us to reconsider how much they feed into or push back against each other.
</seg>
</seg>
</seg>
</p>
<p>
The apparatus occupies roughly the bottom fourth of the image.
<seg type="ev_interp">
<seg type="evidence">
Hard right angles and sickle-like curves convey a harshness and coldness matched by the silver and
black of the skeletal pieces. Though obviously mechanical, the device also appears to have been assembled
idiosyncratically;
<seg type="pattern">
the irregular knobs, connectors, and sections
</seg>
may very well have been scrounged from a scrap pile.
</seg>
<seg type="interpretation">
At best, therefore, the apparatus suggests a moral ambivalence; while it unavoidably points to the impersonal,
mass fabrication of modern industry, it also represents a creative recycling of available resources, the
castoff detritus from the engines of consumption and waste.
</seg>
</seg>
<seg type="ev_interp">
<seg type="interpretation">
Moreover, the device both threatens and supports the man’s arm.
</seg>
<seg type="evidence">
Rods taper to needle-like points uncomfortably close to the man’s flesh, and a circular component just above
the elbow seems to function as a clamp holding the arm in place: a buttress, or, conversely, a restraint.
</seg>
</seg>
</p>
<p>
Thus, we question whether the man himself constructed the apparatus or if he simply was placed in it. His upturned
arm appears hyperextended, and his shirtsleeve has been rolled back; overall, the body’s position recalls the act
of giving blood or having a blood sample taken, in both cases the loss of vivifying, essential fluid. Furthermore,
the man’s head bolsters the appearance of exhaustion.
<seg type="anomaly">
Though we see only the very top of his head, it clearly tilts deeply in the direction of the extended arm
</seg>,
<seg type="anomaly_sig">
perhaps compensating for the awkward hyperextension, or perhaps resting out of sheer exhaustion. Indeed, we
don’t know how long the man has been in the apparatus; if the plants actually have grown on his arm, he may
very well have been in this position for quite a while.
</seg>
</p>
<p>
Returning to the question of purpose, the <hi rend="italics">why</hi> of the image’s representation, we look
to the plants themselves.
<seg type="binary_a">
Utility
</seg>
does not underwrite their cultivation; rather, the
<seg type="binary_b">
whimsy
</seg>
of their variety indicates that they function more as a sign of the color and bounty of summer’s flora.
Put simply, the man doesn’t seem to be accomplishing anything substantial in the world. Growing the plants,
then, evinces less of
<seg type="binary_a">
a material goal
</seg>
—human use or natural restoration—and more of
<seg type="binary_b">
a ceremonial devotion
</seg>.
Because we have no context for the ritual, because instead of on lush scenery the image foregrounds the
situation atop a depthless, ascetic, white matte, the tone strikes the viewer not as celebratory but as elegiac.
</p>
<p>
Again, the ParkeHarrisons imply narrative through the questions that we’re led to ask: what is the purpose
of the ritual, if it is a ritual in the first place? what does the ritual elegize, and if it does elegize
something, what led to that loss? At this point a narrative of ecological decline or even disaster isn’t
beyond the pale, and we wouldn’t be out of line in postulating for the man the role of a minister of a
forgotten religion.
<seg type="complication">
Despite the clear differences between the mechanical, the human, and the natural, complicating similarities
slyly lie behind the organizing contrasts.
<seg type="strand">
The vertical lines of the mechanical apparatus continue in the more organic form of the plants’ stems
and leaves beyond the perpendicular horizon of the man’s arm.
</seg>
Compositionally speaking, then, the human either divides the natural from the mechanical, or it represents a
blend of the two. We often invoke technology and industry as antithetical to nature, but in
<title level="a">Summer Arm</title> their purpose is specifically to support natural growth, which then attracts
the additional life of the butterflies and bee-like insect. Of course, this use of mechanical technology results
not from large-scale efforts but from an individual’s ritualistic bricolage.
</seg>
</p>
<p>
<seg type="conclusion">
<title level="a">Summer Arm</title> leads us to several larger questions about the ParkeHarrisons’ work.
<seg type="research_question" xml:id="student_rq_1">
Despite the implication that industry and technology destroy the natural world, to what degree do the
ParkeHarrisons present (and endorse) the possibility that they can be harnessed as ecological adjuncts?
</seg>
<seg type="research_question" xml:id="student_rq_2">
Like the man in <title level="a">Summer Arm</title>, do the ParkeHarrisons make their artworks as elegies
or as the kind of patched-together scaffolds on which the human may foster growth?
</seg>
<seg type="research_question" xml:id="student_rq_3">
Just what sort of sacrifice or support does nature require from us?
</seg>
<seg type="research_question" xml:id="student_rq_4">
Ultimately, how can we negotiate Summer Arm’s various <q>selves</q>—aesthetic object, abstract
symbolism, programmatic allegory, call to action, and, finally, material object whose very composition
involves the mechanical-human-natural triad that it represents?</seg>
</seg>
</p>
</div>

About Trey Conatser

Trey Conatser is a graduate student in the Department of English at The Ohio State University, where he studies 18th- and 19th-century British literature and digital humanities. He has taught in the First-Year Writing Program and currently works for the Digital Media Project and the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing.