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  2. Writing Workflows: Beyond Word Processing

Writing Workflows: Beyond Word Processing

Tim Lockridge and Derek Van Ittersum 2020 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Sweetland Center for Writing in making this book possible.
Open Access Open Access
Since the late 1990s, writing process research has often treated the tools of writing as an invisible variable or idiosyncratic choice. For example, writing process research might examine how a writer develops ideas or moves through drafts, but it often omits the role of tools: a favorite fountain pen, a trusty yellow memo pad, or a mobile notetaking app. Writing Workflows: Beyond Word Processing uses the concept of the "writing workflow" to bring attention to those seemingly invisible tool choices. Through a type of reflection that the authors call "workflow thinking," writers can look at their processes and ask how tools shape their habits—and how a change in tools might offer new ways of thinking and writing. Similarly, the book also introduces a practice the authors call "workflow mapping," which helps writers trace their tool preferences across time. Through workflow mapping a writer can better see how their tool preferences have accrued over time and imagine how new technologies might fit in. Ultimately, the book offers these new theories to help researchers better understand how writing process shapes the tools of writing, and how the tools of writing, in turn, also shape writing process.
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  • EPUB (2.3 MB)
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  • Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative
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  • 978-0-472-12726-9 (open access)
Subject
  • Media Studies:New Media
  • Writing
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  • Table of Contents

  • Resources

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  • Cover
  • Half Title
  • Series page
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Contents
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1. From Process to Workflow
    • What is a workflow?
    • What does a workflow look like?
    • From Process to Workflow
    • Process and Computing
    • The Word Processor
    • The word processor arrives
    • Contemporary computing and normalized friction
    • Workflow as a way forward
    • What workflows offer
  • Chapter 2. Sociocultural Theory and Mediational Means
    • Calls for More Research on Writing Processes
    • Tracing Literate Activity with Sociocultural Theory
    • Participants
    • Computation, Representation, and Inclusion
    • Study Design
    • Case Study
    • Spotlight on Interview Questions
  • Chapter 3. Cooking Ideas
    • Writing with Computers
    • Sparks’s Workflow
    • Tool Selection
    • Mediational Means
    • Workflow Thinking
    • Shaping mind
    • The Limits of Tools and Workflows
    • Conclusion
    • Spotlight on Markdown
  • Chapter 4. Automating Writing
    • Blogging Friction
    • SearchLink
    • Automation
    • Using SearchLink
    • “Just Write” ideology
    • Distributing Automation
    • Conclusion
    • Spotlight on Affiliate Marketing
  • Chapter 5. Writing on the Edge
    • Federico Viticci
    • Viticci’s Writing
    • Initial Constraints of iOS
    • Viticci’s workflow history
    • Initial forays into scripting
    • Writing and Scripting Together
    • Developer Relationships
    • Finding the Limits
    • Workflow Planning
    • Toward New Roles in the Field
  • Chapter 6. Mapping Workflows
    • Workflow Mapping
    • An Example
    • Workflow mapping in context
    • Mapping our workflows
    • Derek’s Workflows
    • Tim’s Workflows
    • Workflows and scholarly genres—Ways forward
    • The Software Review
    • The Workflow Narrative
    • Conclusion
  • References
  • Credits
    • Acknowledgments
    • Image and Video Credits

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Workflow map with Evernote at center

Workflow Map with Evernote at Center

From Introduction

Fig02. Workflow maps, which we introduce in chapter 6, use layered diagrams to consider how writing practices and preferences accrete over time.

Workflow map for drafting a speaker introduction

Workflow map for drafting a speaker introduction

From Chapter 6

Fig39. The workflow map helps us to see how the writer moves across a number of composing spaces and technologies as she moves toward a complete draft.

Workflow map for drafting a speaker introduction with DevonThink added.

Workflow map for drafting a speaker introduction with Devonthink added

From Chapter 6

Fig40. Here the writer adds the DevonThink database application (noted through the app’s icon of a blue nautilus shell) as a digital commonplace book. The map helps her see where the database might fit into her process, and the faded remnants of a notebook help her see how past practices inform new ones. There’s also a minor shift in the arrows marking movement across technologies. Although the database facilitates preservation and recall, the map shows how it might limit flexibility.

Workflow maps showing a Word document leading to a Google document leading to a question mark

Workflow maps showing a word document leading to a google document leading to a question mark

From Chapter 6

Fig41. In making this workflow map, the writer sees movement between MS Word and Google Docs (represented here by their application icons) but isn’t sure how to think about file management and backup.

Workflow map showing a Scrivener document leading to an advisor and back

Workflow map showing a scrivener document leading to an advisor and back

From Chapter 6

Fig42. This simple workflow map, showing the movement from a Scrivener file (represented by its app icon) to an advisor, points to challenges with the Scrivener file format. How will the writer share the document? Does the advisor use Scrivener, or will the writer need to export to a different file format? And how will the writer incorporate feedback and notes into her copy of the Scrivener document?

Workflow map showing a Scrivener document leading to Word to an advisor and back

Workflow map showing a scrivener document leading to Word to an advisor and back

From Chapter 6

Fig43. The writer has decided that she will export her Scrivener project to a Word file for advisor feedback. This solves the sharing part of her workflow, but the new map signals a possible point of friction: how will she bring the Word comments back into the Scrivener file?

Screen recording demonstrating features of several writing applications

From Chapter 6

Workflow map showing a Word document dated 2006-06-07, leading to a Word document dated 2006-06-08, leading to a folder named “my compiled dissertation”

Workflow map showing a word document dated 2006-06-07 leading to a word document dated 2006-06-07 leading to a folder named my compiled dissertation

From Chapter 6

Fig44. My first attempt at file management was creating a new file every day with a well-defined naming scheme.

Workflow map showing a computer pointing toward a set of documents that say “commit” and then a document that says “commit log.” Behind it, the previous map is visible.

Workflow map showing a computer pointing toward a set of documents that say commit and then a document that says commit log. Behind it, the previous map is visible, 1.

From Chapter 6

Fig45. Instead of saving new files every day, I moved on to using version control software. These tools let writers create a descriptive log of each meaningful change in a file and store the additions and deletions along with that log message.

Screen recording of several writing applications

From Chapter 6

Workflow map showing depicting three different options: a Word document and commit log leading to a stop icon; a Scrivener icon leading to a stop icon; and an icon for the Atom text editor, a commit log, and an image of an advisor.

Workflow map showing a computer pointing toward a set of documents that say commit and then a document that says commit log. Behind it, the previous map is visible, 2.

From Chapter 6

Fig46. This workflow map depicts the roadblocks I encountered with various combinations of tools. First, I was not able to take advantage of version control features while using Word files. Next, I was not able to collaborate with coauthors while using Scrivener. Lastly, I have found that I can use the Atom text editor, along with the Git version control system, to write with a coauthor while meeting all of my technical and affective writing requirements.

Screen recording of very old computer interfaces

From Chapter 6

Sketch of notebooks and a computer directory structure

Sketch of notebooks and a computer directory structure

From Chapter 6

Fig47. In the above map, my two interests—computing and writing—are disconnected.

Sketch of notebooks with arrows pointing to a computer screenshot

Sketch of notebooks with arrows pointing to a computer screenshot

From Chapter 6

Fig48. Ethan Schoonover’s Kinkless template for OmniOutliner helped me to see how the computer could assist with personal organization, generating a link between my interests in computing and knowledge work. In this map, I can see how my interest in the Kinkless template replaced (but was also informed by) my interests in tinkering with the file system, which is represented by faint shadows in the map.

Screen recording of typing into writing applications

From Chapter 6

Workflow map with icon for the VooDooPad application added

Workflow map with icon for the voodoopad application added

From Chapter 6

Fig49. As I started writing with VooDooPad (represented in this sketch by its app icon of a cartoonish voodoo doll on a clipboard), it linked into all of my work—texts, binders, and organizational software. The personal wiki was a place to collect everything.

Workflow map with DevonThink icon at center

Workflow map with devonthink icon at center

From Chapter 6

Fig50. When I found the personal wiki too constraining, I turned to DevonThink (represented here by its blue nautilus shell icon), which offered a much more robust personal database. It also occupied a more central place in my process. As my workflow map changes, the outlines and shadows of past choices show how they still linger in and inform my workflow.

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