As mentioned in the core text, cultural-historical activity theory takes mediated activity as the base unit of analysis. For this study, then, I began by asking writers how they use computers to accomplish their rhetorical work. In analyzing my research data, I have come to find the theories of distributed cognition to be particularly useful in illuminating the activity I have recorded.

Edwin Hutchins is regarded as one of the main developers of distributed cognition theory, and his 1995 book, Cognition in the Wild, has been cited in disciplines as diverse as Human-Computer Interaction and Education. Hutchins recorded detailed accounts of navigation at sea and uses those accounts to argue that focusing on systems, rather than individuals, results in more accurate representations of cognition, avoiding many of the problems involved with trying to access the internal cognitive activity of an individual. Furthermore, he argued that a distributed cognition approach "reveals how systems that are larger than an individual may have cognitive properties in their own right that cannot be reduced to the cognitive properties of individual persons" (1995b, p.266). In other words, even an accurate picture of each person's cognition on a naval cruiser wouldn't provide a full understanding of the system as a whole, a system that includes tools and artifacts.

His theories of distributed cognition are most often associated with accounts of navigation, but Hutchins' (1995b) article on airplane cockpits is more relevant for my purposes here. Depictions of navigation at sea show distribution of cognition not just among many tools and devices, but among people across time and space. Cockpits, with their complexity and relatively few users, more closely resemble my research situation—writers working with computers. In addition, Hutchins, in this article specifically focused on memory, describing how the cockpit system remembers the different speeds required during different stages of flight (e.g., takeoff, cruising, descent, etc.).

The first step in analyzing the cockpit system's memory in terms of distributed cognition is listing all the media available for recording representations—all the places where "memories" can be stored. Rather than listing only the artifacts or devices, such as the laminated board and grease pencil, paper, electronics, and others, Hutchins added the human brain as a form of media. In other words, the brain with its abilities and limitations is part of the system, not standing outside externally directing the other components.

Hutchins illustrated this perspective by describing the operation of "speed bugs," a set of indicators placed on the speedometer dial that can be adjusted to point at the desired range of speeds that allow for safe maneuverability during landing. These speed bugs could be seen as "memory aids," leading pilots to recall the necessary speeds from their minds. Arguing against this view, Hutchins said that speed bugs changes the activity of memory altogether. Pilots, instead of recalling the speed by looking at the bug, judge the spatial difference between the bug and the speedometer needle—if the needle is between the bugs the speed is safe, and if not, depending on which side the needle is on, the speed needs to be increased or decreased. To use the language from Cognition in the Wild, "a conceptual judgment is implemented as a simple perceptual inference" (1995a, p.171). Pilots do not need to look at the speedometer, recall the range of safe speeds, then judge whether the current speed is safe; they need only infer safety from the position of the needle between the bugs. In Hutchins' words, "Speed bugs do not help pilots remember speeds; rather, they are part of the process by which the cockpit system remembers speeds" (1995b, p. 283).

I began my study to discover whether computer technology, like speed bugs, change the activities associated with memory work, and by extension, change the activity of writing. A writer's notes are usually seen as memory aids, triggering "recall of the reading or experience recorded" (Blair, 2004, p. 103) as historian Ann Blair described in her survey of the practice. Following Hutchins' theories, though, it's possible to see the ways different note-taking tools and practices produce different activities. Instead of using the software to recall an idea already entered into a database, users might program the database to retrieve information from the internet according to certain rules, which would then be re-presented to the user who is not "recalling" an item entered at an earlier time so much as calling forth information from an external memory system. Steven Johnson (2005) provided a detailed description of similar practices in the New York Times.