Opening: Mrs. Peterson and Network Sense

More than three decades ago, Richard Lloyd-Jones (1978) recognized the pressures that accompany an accumulating record of scholarship when he noted in the first Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) address that "[k]eeping up with new work is getting harder all of the time" (p. 28). He expressed concern for challenges that come with growth and expansion in any disciplinary domain; "keeping up with new work" is a contemporary exigency facing many established disciplines (also emerging interdisciplines, fields, or subfields). In partial response to these challenges, Lloyd-Jones' address, "A View from the Center," also sought an adequate metaphor for making sense of who we are—as time-spanning audiences and as those identifying by proxy with a more or less shared domain of knowledge and practice. Lloyd-Jones deliberated on several metaphors in his address—mechanical, political, and anatomical—before settling on a network metaphor, although he never referred to it directly as network-based. The metaphor's exemplar was Mrs. Peterson, a small town telephone operator otherwise known as "central," who acted as a hub for connecting, filtering, and relaying all as a function of her work. Remaining connected and tied-in with current, accumulating conversations was the value Lloyd-Jones identified with Mrs. Peterson in response to "keeping up with new work."

The interconnected image of Mrs. Peterson may serve us well today as we continue to face challenges anticipated and described by Lloyd-Jones. There is conceptual alignment in his trope, the ideal of being centrally connected, in network-theoretic worldviews, and in abstract visual models that can provide different perspectives on changing disciplinary formations. The word clouds offered here are designed using distant reading methods to reduce and intensify patterns in one slice of a growing collection of materials: the CCCC Chairs' addresses delivered over the last 35 years. With this treatment, the addresses become visibly interconnected, an assemblage whose vocabularies fold unevenly forward through each subsequent address. Their rolling, semantic contiguities productively foreground an evolving disciplinary lexis associated with rhetoric and composition¹. As the scholarly record grows there is an escalating value in realizing connections. This is exceedingly important for newcomers to the field who must make inroads however they can, by conversation and conventional reading and writing, of course, but also by pattern-finding, by nomadically exploring conceptual interplay across abstracts and abstractive variations, and by finding and tracing linkages among materials and ideas, new and old.

In effect, I contend there is a value in network sense: an aptitude enriched by this tracing of linkages across an assortment of people, places, things, and moments. Network sense finds perspective and knowledge in actively inquiring into associative patterns among disparate resources. How we pursue network sense will vary, but abstractive instruments (e.g., models) can systematically turn our attention toward disciplinary pattern-finding and alert us to nuances and overlaps among the many subfields in rhetoric and composition. Such models can also help us grasp with improved precision how terms, figures, and schools of thought emerge and age. Similarly, network sense may illuminate or intensify pathways woven across other fields, rendering different theoretical and methodological allegiances more vividly, as well. Grasping both network topologies—one spanning shared disciplinary resources and another spanning extradisciplinary influences—will prove invaluable for junior and senior scholars alike. In fact, I would argue that network sense provides a generating principle both for graduate education and for "keeping up with new work." The tracing of lines among words, figures, affinities, and scenes—in other words, the pursuit of network sense—may be enhanced with our gazes occasionally turned toward clouds.²

Views from a Distance

Views from a Distance is a series of word clouds rendered from 35 chairs' addresses delivered at CCCC conventions from 1977 to 2011. The digital installation invites explorations of word-level patterns and anomalies within this widely recognized collection of speeches. The installation itself is underpinned with the assumption that distinctive forms of knowledge are mobilized through visualization techniques. Applied in this way, such visualizations enact "distant reading," a methodology advanced by literary scholar Franco Moretti (2000) to apprehend patterns in larger-scale collections of texts than readers customarily engage with at once:

Distant reading: where distance, let me repeat it, is a condition of knowledge: it allows you to focus on units that are much smaller or much larger than the text: devices, themes, tropes—or genres and systems. And if, between the very small and the very large, the text itself disappears, well, it is one of those cases when one can justifiably say, Less is more. (p. 57)

Distant reading methods rely upon computational processes and data visualization to alter dramatically the scales at which readers encounter texts (Mueller, 2009). These methods assume different insights are available at non-standard (e.g., aerial) magnitudes of engagement. The series of clouds functions as a nephological model, a horizon-mindful (i.e., both future and past oriented) recognition of shapes, patterns, forms, and resemblances. Moretti's models include the three types indicated in the title of his well-known book, Graphs, Maps, and Trees (2005). I consider word clouds a promising addition to this family of model-types because they function similarly by associating the texts and showing how they drift across one another, as if they are parts of a continuing collective address-ecology. About maps, Moretti wrote, "With a little luck, [they] will be more than the sum of their parts: they will possess 'emerging' qualities, which were not visible at the lower level" (p. 53). Word clouds are similar; they alight as an example of the chronotope Moretti questioned at the outset of his chapter on maps (p. 35), providing a string of word formations sized and weighted with meaningful visual cues, somewhat like a lexical heat map. Indeed, like maps, clouds are more than neutral descriptions; they are constructs with properties that deliberately bring forward selected qualities of texts while downplaying others.

Independent of one another, clouds may elicit wonder- or memory-encounters useful for reconsidering disciplinary narratives at scales that exceed, and therefore augment, personal and anecdotal accounts. Together, by this treatment, we can see the deepening hues in particular terms. The darker hues indicate elements of a shared vocabulary materializing over time. Lighter hues, conversely, report the opposite, a condition of recency relative to the collection of addresses. Like the literary texts Moretti analyzed, the larger collection of materials becomes interlaced. Subject to distant reading methods the addresses disappear and are replaced by substitutive, or tropical abstractions: a series of word clouds, in this case. Paradoxically, the addresses resurface in a severely abridged light as they are simultaneously remade, staged again, and resent into circulation (agitated, delivered). That the full text of a given address gets pushed aside proves temporarily necessary, precarious though this will surely appear when held up against prevailing sensibilities about alphabetic literacy and functional-normative assumptions about reading (see Schulz, 2011; Waters, 2007).

Moretti used distant reading to comment upon broader cultural patterns illuminated by the transformation of the large collection into its variously purposed reductions. Likewise, the nephological model—as distant reading—provides an account of the intellectual culture of CCCC. For example, predominant topoi cycle through the series, each surfacing in turn: pedagogy; students; technology and writing; culture and writing; publics, institutions, and curricula. Also, a preponderance of darker terms suggests discursive inertia operating on the genre of the address: Over time it becomes more challenging to diverge radically from the remarks made by previous chairs. The clouds present unmistakable echoes recurring across the series. And yet the echoes can be understood as discourse customs that gradually and implicitly withdraw from the unexpected, jarring, or unconventional gesture. The visibility of such patterns yields related openings for inquiry and speculation: Can we imagine a primarily light-hued cloud in years to come? Or an address to the field absent such constants as students, writing, composition, college, university, or literacy? I raise these questions cautiously aware that they may appear critical of convention; however, I am foremost interested in pointing out that heuristic openings created by the clouds are as important as the report they offer on the culture of CCCC. That is, I maintain that the model's conceptual counterpart, network sense, functions both as a perspective on the culture of the organization and a catalyst for action concerning the shape of the field to come.

To navigate the installation, move the CCC sunburst icon³ to the left or right either by clicking and dragging it or by clicking on it and subsequently pressing the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard. Moving the slider will display in turn each cloud in the series.

Themes, Patterns, Trends

Established studies of the CCCC chairs' addresses offer examples of how scholars have surveyed themes, patterns, and trends in this same collection. Ellen Barton (1999) located two broad classes of "evocative gestures" spanning eighteen addresses⁴, from Richard Lloyd-Jones' in 1977 to Nell Ann Pickett's in 1997. First, Barton identified gestures articulating the teaching and service of composition, and, second, she found gestures articulating composition as a research field. After differentiating between these classes and grounding each type of gesture in examples selected from addresses, Barton explained that "[t]he major areas of consensus and conflict reflected in the body of CCCC Chairs' addresses ultimately revolve around professionalism—the relationship between research, teaching, and service in an academic field" (p. 249). The addresses cumulatively reflect a synthetic, integrated view of professionalism: "work here involves research, but emphatically includes teaching and service as well" (p. 249). In his MA thesis, Rory Lee (2009) updated and extended Barton's analysis by examining eleven addresses (1998–2008) in-depth. Lee identified three patterns beyond the two in Barton's study: "(1) literacy, (2) our stake in writing, and (3) diversity" (p. 71). Although the themes are pronounced in the addresses he studied, Lee noted that they "do not receive the same amount of attention over the last eleven years" (p. 86). Nevertheless, Lee predicted that we can expect similar gestures to resurface in the future (p. 97). Lee's analysis also considered the smaller gestures in the eleven addresses he studied, which appeared as "building blocks to a larger gesture" (p. 72)—an insight that also proves useful for thinking about the implications of word clouds for pattern-tracing.

In the introductionn to A View from the Center, Duane Roen (2006) adopted a similar approach by clustering themes and topics traceable across the series of addresses. Roen located and grouped by subheadings concerns for "effective teaching," "scholarly teaching," "the scholarship of teaching and learning," "giving voice to marginalized voices," views of CCCC as an organization, and "vexing issues." Roen's collection reached well beyond the addresses to historicize the role of the conference chairs since the start of the CCCC organization in 1949. Like Lee's turn to prediction, A View from the Center not only reprinted the 29 addresses delivered from 1977 to 2005, it also included with each reprint an updated reflective comment from the contributor, which lent another layer to the evocative quality Barton emphasized among the annual epideictic oratory at the start of each year's convention. Barton, Lee, and Roen each exceeded historical searches for patterns and oriented their findings toward the present and future.

Do the word clouds presented in this installation corroborate the trends Barton, Lee, and Roen identified? To a considerable degree, yes. At a rapid glance, terms like "teaching," "composition," "students," and "writing" confirm frequent references to pedagogical considerations among the addresses, while other terms, such as "CCCC," "education," "faculty," "statement," and "convention," suggest thematic variations tied to the profession. Smaller clusters of concerns, such as the technological literacy theme Lee discussed across addresses by Selfe (1999), Yancey (2004), and Wootten (2006) (p. 43), also appear in the word clouds, although this pattern suggests a limitation of the model, too. That is, the clouds alone cannot eclipse the analytical and explanatory subtlety evident in these three studies of the addresses, but they can powerfully corroborate these observations and complement similar theme-tracing in the future.

Even though the clouds themselves do not duplicate the subtlety we find in other theme-tracing studies, they do work differently to elicit insights and evoke questions across multiple scales. Notice, for instance, how large, light-hued terms enter into the series, particularly in the mid- to late 1990s. See, for example, Ann Ruggles Gere and "extracurriculum" in 1993, Jacqueline Jones Royster and "voice" in 1995, Lester Faigley and "internet" in 1996, Cynthia Selfe and "computers" in 1998, and Victor Villanueva and "ethnicity" in 1999. Light hues indicate the moments when a potentially consequential idea was delivered broadly to the field. Although these entry points may be smaller than turns or paradigm shifts, they stand as "subsidiary gestures" (Lee, 2009, p. 72) that nevertheless mark important shifts in an evolving disciplinary vocabulary. Such gestural build-ups, micro-turns, and anomalies to the larger patterns are spotlighted in word clouds, and these secondary patterns warrant different degrees of noticing whether for long-timers, for those who attended one of these addresses, for newcomers unfamiliar with the scholarly oeuvre of any of these figures, or for future chairs of the conference.

Several more curious subtexts surface across these 35 word clouds: references to animals (e.g., Wootten's "horse" in 2006, Anoyke's "termite" and "chicken" in 2007), varying scenic orientations (e.g., classroom, convention hall, institution), and interdisciplinary inflections (e.g., D'Angelo's "arts" and "science" in 1980 and Odell's "psychology" in 1986). Thus, the clouds report more than predominant patterns (like those substantiated by Barton, 1999; Lee, 2009; and Roen, 2006); they also hint at fleeting concerns, prominent metaphors and allegories, and rotations in attention (e.g., that concerns for people, scenes, and tools take turns in the collection). In a series of clouds, there are plural exigencies for plural audiences: Looking upon them we may notice different shapes that will provoke other itinerate or exploratory searches toward an enriched network sense of the field.

Finally, amidst the subtler trends in the addresses themselves an honorific pattern has emerged in which chairs refer to the addresses of their predecessors—both by direct reference and by echoing past concerns. Such gestures have become increasingly common in recent years, which shows both through direct citation and through the deepening hues across the series of clouds. Since 2001, 8 addresses out of 11 (73%) have referred directly to an earlier address, but in the first 24 addresses, from 1977 to 2000, chairs referred to predecessors just 6 times (25%). Reminders like these beckon the opening general assembly audience to realize history as continuous, to remember as thickly interconnected and entangled with a tradition both the current address and addresses from previous years. These surveying gestures, however, will only prove more difficult to convey within the limited time available for an address. It is impossible to predict whether there will be an increased tendency to directly cite past addresses, but as the thirty-sixth address approaches, the expanding record will require that this practice become more selective. As this history extends and shared memory strains, to reiterate Lloyd-Jones' concern for "keeping up," surveying gestures cannot easily or comprehensively account for addresses delivered by predecessors, though ancillary, distant reading installations may contribute something in the way of a solution to this problem.

Abstracts and Abstracting Practices

Readers of College Composition and Communication likely noticed that with the editorial transition from Joseph Harris to Marilyn Cooper, the journal underwent changes in size, cover design, and page layout. Cooper's first issue in February 2000 (51.3) also included article abstracts for the first time. Keith Gilyard's 2000 keynote, "Literacy, Identity, Imagination, Flight," was the first address published in CCC with an abstract:

This article examines issues of literacy and identity relative to the development of a critical pedagogy and a critical democracy. An earlier version was delivered as the Chair's Address at the Fifty-first Annual CCCC Convention on April 13, 2000.

The cloud for Gilyard's talk accords with the published abstract considering its presentation of "students," "discourse," "value," "identity," "cultural," and "dance," among others. Three more addresses—by Wendy Bishop (2001), John Lovas (2002), and Shirley Wilson Logan (2003)—also appeared with article abstracts when each was published in the journal. Yet with the publication of Kathleen Blake Yancey's 2004 address (notably in the final issue of Cooper's editorship), abstracts no longer prefaced the published version of the annual address. Selected subsequent addresses (Wootten, 2006; Anokye, 2007; Bazerman, 2009; Valentino, 2010; and Pough, 2011) were published with an editor's note indicating the date and location of the address, but not with anything like a summative abstract. During this time, other articles published in CCC continued to include conventional abstracts without interruption or marked variation.

This uneven publishing practice, whatever its causes, raises questions about whether abstracts serve a vital function for published CCCC chairs' addresses. Generally, article abstracts provide a synopsis adequate for readers to remember or, when they are encountering an article for the first time, to decide whether to proceed with reading. By fitting the full article onto the head of a pin, that is by reducing it to a summative paragraph, article abstracts operate according to distant reading logics: The text itself vanishes and an effective, suggestive surrogate stands in its place. I maintain that the word clouds in this digital installation function similarly, and, as a result, that they contribute a serialized abstracting function that is not otherwise available currently. Although they are not written with the goals of coherence and summary in quite the same way as paragraph-like article abstracts are, the loosely thematic assemblage of terms drifts and billows, as a system of paratactic, rather than syntactic, address abstracts. Word clouds like these provide synoptic doubles or counterparts to conventional summary abstracts, and this is particularly useful when no other abstracts are available.⁵ "Views from a Distance" is designed as a series of alternative abstracts meant to prompt memories and heuristic association and re-association within and beyond the collection.

Tagline Infrastructure

As a type of distant reading, word clouds turn to data-mining processes to draw the most frequently used terms from full-text versions of the addresses. A radical reduction occurs in this meronymous amalgamation. Selected parts stand out from the thick, ecologically entangled whole. Yet this reduction is only temporary: The clouds elicit wonder or memory encounters without urging permanent annihilation of the full text. These, like all word clouds, yield a heuristic if in looking at them we find provocations to tease and shape further inquiry.

The PHP-based algorithm sifts text from the published addresses through a predetermined list of stop words, or commonplace words (see Appx: Stop Words). Next, the script stems words with common roots, assembles a list, and bunches the lists into approximate cloud-forms. A greater font size indicates a high-occurring word; smaller font sizes reflect comparably low-occurring terms, although relative to the comprehensive list, small-type words are far more common than others. Consider the cloud associated with Marilyn Valentino's 2010 address. Font sizes effectively map comparative word frequencies to reflect that students, college, writing, and communication were the most often-used words in her address.

Developed by programmer Chirag Mehta, the tagline infrastructure also assigns hues according to the persistence of a word in the dataset up to that point. Words with deeper hues reflect a longer persistence preceding addresses than do lighter hues. Lighter words have not been used as often in earlier addresses. This distinction grows more pronounced over time. For example, almost every term in Richard Lloyd-Jones's 1977 address appears in a similar hue; whereas, a later address, such as Kathleen Blake Yancey's 2004 keynote, reflects a comparably smaller number of newly used terms. Looking at the 2004 word cloud, terms that had not been used often in other addresses stand out in a light hue: arrangement, circulation, genres, screen.

Prominent technology-related terms surface in the word clouds associated with addresses by Faigley (1997), in which "internet" appears as the leading term in large type and light hue, by Selfe (1999), in which "technology," "literacy," and "computers" are cast in large type, and by Wootten (2006), in which "multimodal" shows up in a mid-sized type and light hue. "Technology" grows darker in the decade spanning these three addresses, which suggests recurrence, but the perspectives expressed in each address are distinctive (e.g., Selfe's offered a call for attention to emerging technologies whereas Wootten expressed skepticism).

"Views from a Distance" was built with the set of PHP scripts developed by Mehta and a Javascript-based scrolling device written by Erik Arvidsson. Mehta showcased the integrated infrastructure in his 2006 installation, "US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud." His tagline infrastructure has been adapted in a variety of projects, including Thoughtmesh (Ippolito & Dietrich, 2007), an American Studies "Visual Historiography" (Lester, 2007), and a company history of Microsoft (Bishop, 2006).⁶

Summary, List, Excess

I have suggested similarities between the word clouds in this installation and the conventional, summary-motivated abstracts accompanying scholarly articles in CCC, but these two variations of distant reading must not be understood as strict equivalents. Their abstractive orientations are different in subtle but significant ways. Conventional abstracts, as I have said, adhere to distant reading logics because they reduce and select, standing in as substitutes for an article that is not otherwise in full view. However, the descriptive acuity typically pursued in an article abstract is not nearly as binding or as disciplined for the word cloud. I call the word cloud series a nephological model in part to articulate an emanative quality. That is, because the clouds operate as paratactic lists, they remain open to excess, much in the way Umberto Eco (2009) explained in his illustrated essay, The Infinity of Lists. Eco historicized a tension between lists and summaries:

On the one hand, it seems that in the Baroque period people strove to find definitions by essence that were less rigid than those of medieval logic, but on the other hand the taste for the marvelous led to the transformation of every taxonomy into lists, every tree into a labyrinth. In reality, however, lists were already being used during the Renaissance to strike the first blows at the world order sanctioned by the great medieval summae. (p. 245)

Summary abstracts order the world in ways lists do not. Thus, if we understand word clouds to be paratactic lists, stringing them together in the way this installation does produces a nephological model that advances their potential expansiveness across multiple scales. Such models assume an unusual, resourceful ontology that is at once powerfully grounded in the published article while remaining open to poetic recombination in contextual excess of the article (this bears resemblance to I.A. Richards' [1955] notion of the wandering resourcefulness of words). Each cloud billows with vaporous paralogic; its terms inviting associations within the cloud (or within a set of clouds, as in this case), but also beyond the cloud. Herein lies one of the most promising properties of word clouds. They are summary-like without surrendering to a reductive logic of coherence and completeness. Notably, this resourceful ontology typically goes unacknowledged in much of the casual production of word and tag clouds on the Web, perhaps because it has not been sufficiently theorized or articulated in the environments supporting their creation. Yet this is why, in addition to conventional abstracts, word clouds are due for more widespread and more rigorous development and circulation. We should create more of them in the service of network sense (e.g., applicable to award-winning articles, such as the Braddock Award in College Composition and Communication or the James L. Kinneavy Award in JAC, or to entire journal archives) and, moreover, adapt them for pedagogy focally concerned with summary and source use, as well as rhetorical invention.

Notes

¹ Or, because naming has become so fraught, CIP 23.13, as I am increasingly accustomed to calling rhetoric and composition, is a "Classification of Instructional Programs" code assigned by the National Research Council to categorize scholarship under the heading of "Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies." For more, see Phelps and Ackerman (2010).

² References to lines and tracing are influenced by Tim Ingold's Lines (2007), in which he distinguishes between traces and dot-to-dot connectors. As a pragmatic function of network sense, tracing in this context concerns "the trails along which [disciplinary] life is lived" (p. 81) as contrasted with a more segmented, teleological conception of tracing. The point is that word clouds may powerfully augment the tracing practices that are tacitly understood and enacted by developing scholars. Word clouds may aid us, that is, in re-assessing how we practice and teach semantic-conceptual tracing.

³ The sunburst was created by San Francisco-based designer Arnold N. Fujita (Macrorie, 1962).

⁴ Addresses delivered by James Hill (1982), Donald Stewart (1983), and Rosentene Purnell (1984) were not included in Barton's study because they had not been published previously in College Composition and Communication.

⁵ Although it is not the primary focus of this project, word clouds rendered from texts (whether collections of writing or selections from readings) provide excellent support for writing summaries, abstracts, or reflections. The cloud's paratactic formation can provide just enough information about themes in readings or in one's own writing (as would be useful when reflecting on a portfolio) without offering fully formed sentences. Word clouds, in certain cases, can be put to good use as inventional heuristics for summary and reflection. To explore, visit tagcrowd.com.

⁶ Lester and Bishop's projects were hosted as recently as 2008, but at the time of this publication, they do not appear to be available online.

Acknowledgements

Comments from Laurie Gries and John Dunn, Jr. were invaluable to this project's early development. Adam Nannini generously assisted with troubleshooting a few key CSS snippets. I am grateful, too, for thoughtful, substantive comments from two anonymous reviewers and from Kairos editors who sharpened this project in many ways.

Appendix: Comparison

Using the vertical navigation bar in this space, you can view two clouds at once. This provides an alternative way to compare selected clouds.

Appendix: Stop Words

A list of "stop words" limits frequently occuring terms from appearing in the clouds. The list can be adjusted to produce slightly different results in the clouds. A stop list functions to reduce mundane recurrences. The following 429 stop words applied in the making of "Views from a Distance" will not appear in the clouds at the left.

about above across after again against all almost alone along already also although always among an and another any anybody anyone anything anywhere are area areas around as ask asked asking asks at away back backed backing backs be became because become becomes been before began behind being beings best better between big both but by came can cannot case cases certain certainly clear clearly come could did differ different differently do does done down down downed downing downs during each early either end ended ending ends enough even evenly ever every everybody everyone everything everywhere face faces fact facts far felt few find finds first for four from full fully further furthered furthering furthers gave general generally get gets give given gives go going good goods got great greater greatest group grouped grouping groups had has have having he her here herself high higher highest him himself his how however if important in interest interested interesting interests into is it its itself just keep keeps kind knew know known knows large largely last later latest least less let lets like likely long longer longest made make making man many may me member members men might more most mostly mr mrs much must my myself necessary need needed needing needs never new newer newest next no nobody non noone not nothing now nowhere number numbers of off often old older oldest on once one only open opened opening opens or order ordered ordering orders other others our out over part parted parting parts per perhaps place places point pointed pointing points possible present presented presenting presents problem problems put puts quite rather really right right room rooms said same saw say says second seconds see seem seemed seeming seems sees several shall she should show showed showing shows side sides since small smaller smallest so some somebody someone something somewhere state states still such sure take taken than that the their them then there therefore these they thing things think thinks this those though thought thoughts three through thus to today together too took toward turn turned turning turns two under until up upon us use used uses very want wanted wanting wants was way ways we well wells went were what when where whether which while who whole whose why will with within without work worked working works would year years yet you young younger youngest your yours

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