This "editorial" is written as a traditional research essay -- in
initial form, it has the look and feel of standard scholarship. Once
transformed into the electronic environment, it undergoes changes, some
small, others more radical, which changes the manner in which it is read.
How something is written, the conventions to which it adheres, is as much
a part of how it is understood and evaluated as what it actually says.
Whether one calls on Foucault's sense of discursive formations, or
Bakhtin's perspective on genres, the principle holds: writing conventions
both constrain and facilitate expression. Indeed, we hold with Ong's
(1982) sentiment that writing is itself a technology that restructures
thought. E-publishing is no exception to this rule. That it should be
evaluated within the standard guidelines for promotion and tenure, as
Janice R. Walker notes, "just does not make sense" ("Fanning the Flames: Tenure and Promotion and Other Role Playing Games").