Woodmansee's Author Effect

Woodmansee—On the Author Effect I

Martha Woodmansee in her essay titled “On the Author Effect: Recovering Collectivity” the idea of the author is discussed as a concept that is not solitary, even though popular culture has defined it as such, but is in fact collaborative. Woodmanse asserts that the concept of the author does not reflect the modern writing process. As mentioned in the introduction, writing today is collaborative and was described as such by the research of Andrea Lunsford and Lisa Ede in their study regarding the writing processes and practices of composition students. Regardless, the singular notion of the author has become prevalent and a common teaching tool in a writing classroom where many of us teach writing as a solitary activity and where students sometimes only use sources as a way to back up arguments instead of creating a conversation with those source materials.

Woodmansee determined through her research on the author effect that in the past authors were seen as just one of the craftsman of many in the construction of a book. At the same time, the writer was considered a specialized craftsman because he or she had composed that material. For example, in at 1815 essay that Woodmansee quotes from, it was determined that a author held some mysterious genius, which I would argue is still a common myth held by some of my students today. Just like there is one answer for a work of literature, which is an idea that comes out of New Criticism, an author is simply a born writer. One did not learn to write well, instead that person, that author, was born with that special ability as if a higher being had designed that person in such way. I always have to show how incorrect this myth is to my students and promote the idea that good writing comes from practice, good reading, and even more practice in writing.

To better illustrate how writing is and always has been collaborative, Woodmansee turns to the work of Samuel Johnson, a prolific writer himself, but one who often wrote for others. Woodmansee remarks how Johnson’s collaboration with others served as a motivating factor for him writing. It seems as if that Johnson would not have been as prolific of a writer if not for the fact he wrote sermons and other genres for others to purchase from him. After the writing had been purchased, Johnson considered himself as having no rights to that writing. But even with his behind the scenes collaboration, Johnson also did help to create the myth of the singular author into existence.

This discussion reminded me of an article I had read in The Chronicle about two years ago or so where an individual had written an article about how he worked for a company that sold ready made essays to students. (You can read the article here: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/ ) Johnson’s practices seem somewhat familiar to what that individual had discussed in his expose of the essay selling business in the sense each gave up his authorial rights for profit and considered it an exchange of goods. Furthermore, the internet has changed our conception of the author through things like hypertext and twitter where a number of individuals are creating and responding to a piece of writing. Thus, writing remains and will continue to remain a heavily collaborative activity.

Questions:

The idea of Johnson’s collaboration with others as a “motivating” factor of his writing was intriguing to me. So my question is that do you think that students are more motivated if they work on a piece of writing collaboratively as opposed to alone? Even as someone who would rather work alone, I do believe there is some truth in collaboration creates more motivation.

Bolter (qtd in Woodmansee on page 25) calls the notion of copyright in a digital age “absurd.” Do you agree or disagree and why? For instance, electronic communication blurs the boundaries of what is mine or yours through things like hyptertext and comments to articles and videos.

To continue with this question, I also notice that students are sometimes more interested in comments to articles than they are interested in the articles themselves, which is an interesting activity, I think, and perhaps the comments help students feel more engaged with the article since they can see similar opinions (or different ones) being shared. Do you think that the commenting function on many websites helps “motivate” students to critique, write, and share ideas?

Going back to the idea of motivation and collaboration, do you feel that incorporating more collaborative writing curb instances of plagiarism? Or have you done a lot of collaborative assignments in the classroom and noticed how it has curbed plagiarism, whether intentional or unintentional?