[Air-L] Writing and iPads

[Tilton, Shane]

First, let me respond to the original prompt that was looking for research about how the change of form factor (an iPad or really any tablet computer) effects the style and context of a writer, as I failed to answer that part. There were three pieces of research that I found semi-related to this:

1.)  Lauren Waugh's "Constructing an Argument in the Age of Social Media: Explorations of Visual Thinking Within the Writing Process" (http://lawaugh.squarespace.com/storage/pdf/final_lores.pdf) is a good analysis of the usability of form factor with a theoretical framework built on visual communication/graphic design research.

2.) James Hahn's "Rapid use study of the iPad on a campus bus" (Poster is at https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/25041/hahn_rapid.pdf?sequence=2) was a good ethnographic study of using the form factor in a mobile environment.

3.) "Laptops and Inspired Writing" (http://www.jstor.org/pss/40961529) is a good overall article dealing with pedagogical issues associating with writing in the different form factors.

To answer Charles' question; since I previously used netbooks to write, the size wasn't an issue. The iPad2 case is a little bit bigger and for me it is easy to use. It's a little smaller than the Apple Bluetooth keyboard. If you can use that with no issues, you should have very few issue with the Zagg case.

I am considering writing an auto-ethnographic article about replacing my laptop with an iPad as a main mobile work environment. I bought the first iPad day one and the iPad 2 day one and really sought to simplify my writing experience with this tool.




On Jan 14, 2012, at 12:37 PM, Jeremy hunsinger wrote:

There are two different angles that I see here, there is the angle of
Paleography or the study of handwriting, and thus digital paleography,
which has been discussed on the Humanist list which is an old digital
humanities list that is still quite popular.  I only know of one or
two people doing this work actively.

then there is the question of studies of rhetoric, composition,
research practices, etc. etc. that go into the modes of productions of
the work, and those are huge well established fields that have been
around since the 1950's.   Though the modes of research is less
popular by far than the other two, there is a book every few years
that considered aspects of that.

so Ipads... I don't actually write on mine, i do compose music
sometimes, but I don't even use it to answer email unless it is my
only option.   I'm as such wondering about what is really changing and
where with respects to pad culture, whether ipad, or not, and
'writing' .

I used google scholar in the humanities and social science side and
put in ipad and composition, and found.... quite a bit...  too bad i
have to go back and finish like 8 other projects before i can allow
myself to get curious about another:)
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