From Notes to Writing

How do we get from this:

PRECIS

MAJOR CLAIM: Doctorow argues in his McLuhan lecture on enshittification (2024) that platforms degrade through a three-stage process of user exploitation, business exploitation, and shareholder extraction leading to a world of digital decay known as the enshittocene.

HOW: Doctorow develops this argument through a detailed case study of Facebook, tracing the three stages of enshittification (from user surplus to business surplus to shareholder surplus) while systematically dismantling the historical constraints that once prevented such decay, and showing how the erosion of competition, regulation, self-help, and labor power enabled the collapse of digital trust.

PURPOSE: The author’s apparent purpose is to diagnose the systemic decay of digital platforms and show how it spreads across industries in order to empower users, workers, and policymakers to reverse the trend and build a more equitable, open digital world.

MEMO

INITIAL OBSERVATION: WHAT IF there’s a connection with the Bory piece; what if tech ceos believe themselves to be the hero of the journey? This’d create a cultural narrative in which enshittification is not a failure, but a necessary stage of progress. THEN this mythos might normalize the extraction of surplus from users, workers, and business partners, treating exploitation as a form of “service” or “evolution”? #to-investigate #possible-thesis

KEY: The reading matters because it reframes enshittification not as a technical process, but as a cultural one. #cultural-processes

MY CONTRIBUTION: Doctorow’s framework shows how platforms collapse through a three-stage exploitation process: user → business → shareholder. There’s a connection here with Bory’s critique, which reveals that this process is culturally enabled by a narrative in which the founder is the hero, and the platform is the vehicle of a moral mission. When founders say, “I created this to serve humanity,” they are not just describing a product; they are enacting a myth. And when that myth is accepted, enshittification becomes not just a crisis, but a natural consequence of leadership.

To This ->

(nb, I haven't actually published anything making use of the concept, so a quick google search gave me this; also, there's an irony of it being published in an Elsevier journal, as they have enshittified academic publishing in spades)

The answer is: arranging our notes into outlines that do historical work



Outlining

all you need is a piece of paper

Outlining from your research notes starts with asking yourself either:

Here is what I am trying to find out. What evidence do I have?

or

I tend to look at the world from this particular lens. What do I see when I do?

Asking Good Questions

(after Duke U Thompson Writing Centre

Why did the chicken cross the road?

How many chickens crossed the 401 in Mississauga on July 10 2024?

How did the influx of labourers on the Rideau Canal influence chicken farming in the greater Ottawa region?

Let's say you've noticed several times that there have been key women in key - but undervalued - positions in the history of the internet.

What questions might emerge from that?

Make your question better

'Why did women get pushed out of computing'

vs

'How did gender and class intersect in post-war Britain to shape the nascent computing industry?'

Which question is better?

How has gendered labour affected the design of the internet?

vs

What has been the role of women in the history of the internet?

Good historical questions

  • are open ended (why/how)
  • are concerned with cause/effect
  • are specific (who/where/when)

  • address the 'so what'

    ... and the answer considers other interpretations (are in dialogue with other historians)

Step 1. Look at your research memo/precis combos

What do you see?

What stands out to you as interesting?

What makes it interesting?

Frame that interesting thing as a formal question

Step 2. List the observations you've got that speak to the interesting thing you've observed

pg 1 precis 2 I say about Driscoll...

pg 1 precis 1 I say about Bory

pg 3 memo 4 I say about Bush...

pg 5 precis I say about Light...

pg 6 memo I observed...

You can do this in point form; it can help to have all of your material in a single book where you've numbered the pages. But some system for referencing/surfacing your good thoughts is a good idea.

Step 3. On a new page, rearrange those observations so that they form a thread of an idea

...

  • pg 5 item
  • pg 6 memo observation
  • pg 1 precis 1 item
  • pg 3 memo 4 item

  • pg 1 precis 2 item

    ...

    On paper I do this by numbering my observations in step 2, and then just writing down the sequence of numbers, rather than the whole item.

Step 4. Consider what is missing from the gaps?

  • research question here
  • pg 5 item
  • here I need to find out more about x to make it clear how pg 5 item gives rise to pg 6 memo observation
  • pg 6 memo observation

  • here I can show how precis 1 item is drawing on similar ideas to pg 6 memo

    ...and continue

Step 5. Sketch out what the conclusion might say: ie, the answer to the question.

and note what else you might need to do this fully: this guides you as you dive back into the sources you're drawing on.

You might find that you need to tweak, tighten, or otherwise modify your original question

And that might send you back to the reading step, too.

Step 6. Compile into Academic English

  • Write out the connective tissue;
  • Copy out the important bits from your notes such that it reads well;
  • Write your conclusion
  • Then, AND ONLY THEN, do you write your introduction/research question/interesting main observation from step 1

Remember

You May Need To Iterate

If you've got your notes electronically, there are many software solutions that can help you outline. Here's a tool that I built. I used it for some of the illustrations today. You don't have to use it. There are fancier options. But sometimes, a piece of paper is all you really need.

To answer the question I will set for the exam, you need to draw on all of your materials, your lecture notes, your precis/memo combos, from all four modules

.

I will be looking for evidence of your engagement with the materials and your own unique insight.

.

The question I will set for you is a kind of 'meta'-question. You might need to fine-tune your focus.

You might want to spend some time now going through your notes and looking for the interesting questions you might answer using them.