“Composing _The New Work of Composing_”

citation
Ball, Cheryl E. (2009). Composing The New Work of Composing: A Born-Digital Afterword Reflecting on Digital Scholarship for a Born-Digital Book. NEH 2009 Summer Stipend. $6,000. [Not funded]

abstract
The Modern Language Association reports that over 52% of humanities department chairs have no experience evaluating digital books for tenure/promotion, including “born-digital” books (i.e., a book that exists only in a digital format, with no possible print or analog counterpart). I intend to edit the first born-digital scholarly book in English studies, The New Work of Composing. This book will add to humanities’ understanding of writing in a digital age by providing an example of born-digital scholarship that will help us consider the new intellectual work of the “book.” The deliverables for this NEH summer stipend include designing the book’s interface and composing the afterword, a media-rich assessment of digital scholarship with an emphasis on the process of writing, designing, and editing the field’s first born-digital, scholarly book. Computers and Composition Digital Press—the humanities’ first digital-only, open-access, academic press—has asked for a prospectus in Spring 2009.

accompanying materials

• proposal narrative