"If this stuff matters, why isn't it being shared?" : citations, hyperlinks, and potential public futures of online writing in rhetoric and composition.

Abstract

DEDICATIONTo the seventeen generous writers and editors who let me poke their writing, pick their brains, and eke a dissertation out of it.iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Without Mary P. Sheridan's unflagging confidence that I would emerge victorious, with interesting findings, from the methodological mess of this project, I would doubtless have put much of it aside long ago. If this dissertation at any point seems to evidence internal coherence or an argument for its disciplinary stakes, know that you have seen Mary P.'s hand. Thanks, too, to the rest of my committee: Bronwyn Williams's healthy skepticism pushed me to rethink assumptions; Brenda Brueggemann's fiery candor mentored me through my middle years in Louisville; Carolyn R. Miller's meticulous attention to terms helped me work past many a conflation; and Olfa Nasraoui's guidance at the head of this project gave it shape. Without my writing group, and their patience and enthusiasm and support, this dissertation would have moldered in the anxious recesses of my mind-so deep thanks to those four brilliant women, each of whom I am sure will soon make me proud to say, "I knew her when": Rachel Gramer, Megan Faver Hartline, Keri Mathis, and Laura Tetreault. Their emotional support, alongside support from good friends including Jamila Kareem, helped me see light not just at the end of the tunnel but right there in the middle of it.My motley crew of parental figures and other family members has led the cheer from the left coast: Thanks to my dad, Brandt, whose successful dissertating when I was in grade school inspired me to one day submit myself to similar madness (and whose knowledgeable advice along the way proved invaluable). Thanks to my mom, Cyndi, who taught me early that brilliant, career-driven, and family-oriented were not exclusive categories. And thanks to my stepmom, Patti; stepsister, Camryn; and my parents-in-law, Kathy and Steve, all four of whom have championed and helped me believe in my potential for success. Yet no one has been more my champion than my brother, Etienne, whose daily phone calls ground me when I am otherwise floundering and whose devotion to his own dreams inspires conviction.And I could never adequately thank my husband, Sterling, who has let me drag him north and east and deep into the south, following my academic dreams. Who said, "I'll stay up with you," through nearly every night of writing or revising. Who said, "Talk me through it," any time I complained of feeling stuck. Whose love and stability and humor and intelligence have been the defining features of home through four dwellings, in three states, over nearly a decade. This dissertation addresses two deceptively discrete questions: (1) how academics might reach wider public audiences, and (2) how and why people cite the way they do. It takes citation practices as a telling though often tacit practice, one through which it is possible trace the contours of a larger story about how writing is changing as it moves online. That story: Writers increasingly reflect goals of provoca...