I found Galey and Ruecker's observation
that prototypes often come in a series (p. 414) to be an interesting
point, because it reveals a key difference between texts and objects
– that while both go through processes of editing, an object is
much more likely to become a distinctly new concept in the process.
Or rather, this may happen in texts as well, but the publishing
process for academic work is such that the sense of a series is more
obscured. Authors often refer in articles to related prior research
they've done, but publishing two articles minimizes the connections
between them. In the potential review system for prototypes that this
article discusses, there is much more freedom to show gradual and
incremental changes in prototypes, and in general to show how objects
build on each other.
This potential approach to reviewing
prototypes is a good jumping-off point for considering how the review
process for texts imposes certain limits, like that against an
article growing and changing over time. What would it look like for
articles to have a space in between edits and entirely new pieces? I
think it might be an exciting and fruitful possibility, although a
difficult one to implement.
Oo, I like this: in "academic work...the sense of a series is more obscured." Obscured, but still there! I find that thinking about prototypes as series reveals the serial nature of texts.
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