Consider the Structure

Let’s start with a possible question: 

What is the status of the thesis statement? 

Does it still exist almost exactly in the first paragraph, offering the paper’s bound conclusions before the composition itself has begun? Are its at once initial and final premises still the markers by which we gauge such concerns as “development,” “focus,” or “coherence”?   Is the thesis still our “navigational” (Hayles) guide—the guide by which we “experience” (Hayles) texts in a way that assures us of our connection to our analog past?

We suggest that thesis, just as it serves as both first step and destination, may also be a marker for gauging our digital progress.  To what extent are we still bound by its vocabulary? To what extent might we hope that this vocabulary is chanced by the vocabulary of digitalness?

Our experience suggests that the analog (as opposed to digital)  thesis is as present, or nearly as present, as ever. As such, its control over its attendant conventions is for the moment all-too secure. Rhetoric’s position in the midst of the changing paradigms of literacy would suggest that that security become somewhat more flexible.

So what sorts of indicators might suggest progress, or flexibility, in digital consideration?

Perhaps seeing thesis as best arrived upon only via the reader’s retrospection.

Perhaps seeing thesis as a non-singular thing—as those areas which the composition explores, with or without arrival; with or without “coherence;” with or without a focus.

Perhaps seeing thesis as an analog term that ultimately does not translate into a digital paradigm.

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