Introductory

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A complex system

By nature, a browser edition, as described in the section on Principles, is not immediately transparent as to how it can be read and studied, and even more as to how it can be written. This difficulty is due to the complexity of the system, particularly with regard to the aspect of interplanarity.

But this complexity is precisely what makes the system powerful. Thus it is my contention that it is worth recalibrating our mental templates with regard to this new potential that digitality offers us. It is a challenge, on the level of what was encountered by the first speakers when language began to take shape, or by the first scribes when writing was first introduced.

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An epistemic system

It is more than a practical matter. It requires an explicit confrontation with a new and distinctive epistemic system, i. e., a system that serves to first analyze and articulate knowledge, and then to convey it, in a way that differs structurally from the current standards. This epistemic angle must be made clear, building on the Principles we have outlined, but also showing how the finished product reconfigures the scholarly discourse.

The goal is to show the difference between a a digital book built on interplanarity and the two alternative “epistemic systems” that are in current use: a standard website on the one hand and a printed publication on the other.

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Reading

Building on this, we may look at what is entailed in the act of reading as the confrontation with an interplanar system. The challenge is multiple:

1. The whole(s). – It is critical to have a sense of the single digital book as a whole, and where several digital books are integrated into an overall system, to have a sense of the individual wholes and how they relate to the larger shole. This is perhaps the most difficult moment in the entite process, for two reasons: (a) this is not the rule in current websites, which expect instead the reader to focus exclusively on the immediate; and (b) there are, as a consequence, no procedures to make it possible for the reader to develop such an awareness for the whole. We will show below how this is essential to a proper reading of the website, and how it can be implemented in practice
   awareness (of overall argument and of parallel planes) remains with the reader during the whole process
2. The interplanar dimension. –
3. Narrative. – the narrative style as the channel for “reading”
4. Inspectional reading. – Adler; see two narratives narrative, discursive narrative
5. Critical reading. – deep reading, Wolf
6. Access to detail. –

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The audientce

reading is open to all who access the websites on the world wide web,

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Writing

Writing is a restricted event, and it proceeds in both directions at the same time.

1. A perception of the whole(s) while working on the parts. –
2. Full control of the details. –
3. Adherence to the grammar. –

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The authors

staff

others who want to apply the system