Mapping Velocity: Using Technology as a Supplement for Literature

By Binnur Erbil, Mapping Velocity Team

Using technology to enhance a chosen piece of literature is a difficult task. The complexity of texts is similar to the variety of options that can be chosen to reflect the writing. The people responsible for the project must ensure that their representation of the text will educate others while at the same time not destroying the work through the manipulation involved when approaching the text with such a different method. Not only must it appeal to the literary, but it must also incorporate people who love technology. There is a barrier between literature and technology, that may be difficult to remove, but using both literature and technology in an intertwined method creates results beyond the traditional close reading. For this reason, to include a large target audience, mapping and text analysis was the most logical approach. It reached anyone who had interest in literature as well as technology but still kept literature above technology. Literature is what helps create these lines of thoughts, while the technology on the side is important to reach such conclusions, to keep the book as something more prominent, it allowed a better approach, and created the motion for future mapping with text analysis. While using Dave Eggers You Shall Know Our Velocity, the programs Google Earth, the LIWC, and Wordle to draw readers of the book away from the text, showing a different perspective of the novel. ..

            The project begins with a stream of ideas, and it is difficult to narrow it down to something of which can be approached and completed in one quarter. The main goal with the group for this project was not to destroy the text. Numerous ideas can distance readers from the writing, but the projects focus is to distance the reader yet through this different perspective the goal is to attempt to reach a new layer of depth with such a project. The problems with just reading text versus gaining a different understanding of how the story is represented as a whole by mapping or text analysis. To reach conclusions by attempting a distanced approach can sometimes be over exaggerated and ruin the purposes of reading the story. The Mapping Velocity team wanted to ensure that the text was the focus, and the technology was used a supplement to it. The results were interesting though, and showed that although it was considered a supplement, much was extracted through mapping and text analysis...

You Shall Know Our Velocity is a great example of a work that has become undermined because of peoples’ constant comparison with Eggers’ memoir The Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius. Since his memoir touched so many people, after reading something that seemed at times to lack seriousness, they do not know if there is any depth to it, because it could have been something put together quickly just to satisfy himself as a writer. Although the comparison makes it unappealing to go into a deeper level with, this is what made it so appealing. The Mapping Velocity project enabled the group to go further and use the distinct differences and the comparisons within the novel, with the visual...

This novel met the perfect criteria for such a project. It was lengthy, had numerous layers (although at times it made it difficult to narrow down the project), and it a significant amount of traveling. You Shall Know Our Velocity became the perfect option for the Mapping Velocity project. One idea could have been to map the paths they had not taken, and then compare them to their final choice. Another mapping idea would be to map where they had distributed the money, but it was so random, that it would have been difficult to show each location and add the amount of money they gave. It would take an even closer reading to see this, and due to time restraints it was an option that was not used. Eventually the project formed through the process of logical elimination, to ensure that there would be an appealing project with depth, but also to make sure that everything would be complete that had the core elements of the project..

In You Shall Know Our Velocity! Will and Hand planned to give away $32,000 in a week. They initially started out with $38,000, but the rest of the money went to their travel expenses. You Shall Know Our Velocity! was originally published as the Sacrament by McSweeney’s, Dave Eggers’ own publishing company. It was later published by Vintage Books. Will decides to give away all of the money, because of his friends death, after being in a car crash. Will would have been willing to go on the trip longer, but Hand only was able to take seven days off of work. The novel is a quick read, in the sense that it flows so well. The way the text is written is just like the movement in their journey. Their trips are quick, but the novel does have length, since it is over three hundred pages. Knowing that there was a lot that could be covered, it was difficult to narrow it down. There were various trips Will and Hand planned to take, but ended up changing their minds, not only because they disagreed with each other, but also problems such as weather and visas. These problems created many directions to go with, but at times also made it difficult to limit the project at the same time...

            Mapping has been done for many other works. The website “Google Lit Trips” is solely devoted to literature mapped out on Google Earth, but no one had considered You Shall Know Our Velocity! nor have they approached their work with additional analysis. The tools helped visualize the events that had occurred beyond just the map. Will and Hand’s rapid journey is a perfect path to observe with precision. When using Google Earth to visualize the journey, it made it so that it enhanced the imagination of the reader, as opposed to just shutting out what they visualized. Observing the map of each country they went to and then even getting further into each country made it more interesting to view..

            Since the project included text analysis and mapping, it was important to organize the information on a website that was easy to navigate, but included everything necessary for the text analysis. The Mapping Velocity project needed to be easy to understand as well, so organization is a key element to make it clear for people interested in understanding how the project was designed, and how the conclusions were reached. First of all, the home page had the main thesis of the project, and the dialogues are placed on the left side. Since the number of links on the left side were limited to twenty, there was another website created and the team linked these two sites so that navigation remained easy, and it was not too obvious that two separate websites were in use...

            The website linked the text with the results. This way, it made it easy for the person investigating the project to see where the text came from, what was stated in the text, and it reflects the conclusions that came from the project. After viewing the text, there is a link that states, “see results,” so then one that is clicked on, it shows the results that were reached using text analysis. .

The first results for is the comprehensive Wordle results. Wordle is a free program that enables users to place a text in it, then it makes an interesting artistic display of the results. The more common the word is used in the text, the larger it is on the Wordle results. The less frequent the word is used, the smaller it appears. The user can also change the colors and the shape as well as the text format for Wordle. Wordle also allows users to use the results however they choose to. So these results were posted to the website. In the first dialogue between Will, Hand, and Annette, the words most commonly used were: world, fourth, Senegal, different and good. The conversation refers to Annette’s mother’s idea of the fourth world. Annette states, “the fourth world is voluntary. It is quick small steps from the other worlds. Everyone is sleeping and we are here, in the sea. That is the fourth world. The fourth world is present and available….The fourth world is half thought, half actual. It’s a staging ground (138). Their conversation about the fourth world and the idea of it as a “staging ground” can even be a reference to Senegal as a “staging ground” although it is stated otherwise. ..

The concept of choice is important in this dialogue, but it also remains a theme throughout the entire book. Their choices, as random as they may seem, have results that may not be as random. They chose to go on their trip and although they were directed to other places, they chose to follow those misdirection’s. In the Mapping Velocity project, the main focus were the larger words, as opposed to the smaller ones, since the dialogues were not always large enough to make significant comparisons. Another word that is quite large is: momentum. The word “momentum” also plays a significant theme throughout the novel. Overall, these small dialogues, conversations, and the final extract have great significance, even when just looking at how frequent words were used. The reason Wordle was not split up by speaker as well, was because there was enough dialogue to reach conclusions. The text was short, so there was not enough significance to compare the relationships of the frequency of the words....

The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count shows the results of what text is considered positive and what is considered negative. It also includes how many self references there are, the amount of social words, cognitive words, articles, and big words. Then it also includes the overall amount of words that were used in total. For this, the Mapping Velocity team used different speakers, and compared their relationships to each other. In the first dialogue for example, Will’s positive and negative emotions are equivalent at 3.12. He also has 9.3 self references. Anette has 6.69 self references, and she is not as positive as Will, with 2.23 positive emotions, nor is she as negative as Will  with 1.11 negative emotions. Hand does not have any self references in his dialogue, and he does not have any negative emotions. On the other hand, he has the most positive emotions with a score of 3.85. The LIWC uses four steps to ensure that its results are accurate. The website states the steps are: word collection, judges’ rating phases, psychometric evaluation, and updates and expansions (LIWC). This process of making sure everything is done perfectly, shows that it is an accurate text analysis tool, and the results can be used for the Mapping Velocity project...

            Another issue with technology is the accuracy of the sources which were being used. Some were just to good to be true. At times, there were also cases where there was a heavy reliability towards a program, but the program ended up being a lost cause. There is a program called The Regressive Image Dictionary, and it seemed perfect with the amount of text analysis that is had. There was high hopes that this program could perform, but after hours of downloading, testing, and researching, there was no way to get this program to function the way the team had hoped. So it was imperative another tool needed to replace the initial program, The Regressive Image Dictionary, which is why the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count was used. The only problem is that the project felt a little bare, although much was covered with the Google Earth trip, as well as the LIWC, Wordle was the perfect addition to the duo, creating a wonderful experience. .

            To make the project professional, the team also created a proposal. The proposal’s purpose was to show the project in a business format. Although proposal’s are generally longer, the Mapping Velocity team narrowed it down to one page. There were various ways to write a proposal, but the main reoccurring themes were “the five w’s.” The proposal needs to explain the goals of the project further, and allow a quick explanation of the project as a whole, with the idea of others becoming interested in it, but not having the time to go through every detail.  During the presentation of the project, there was also a way to include the people watching by having them make suggestions of what they would like to include for mapping and text analysis. This allowed them to relate the project with what they had read before, and thus making them understand how important this method can be when reading a novel or something which uses so much imagination, and helping simplify it by mapping the project.

            Overall, the idea that there was constant movement in the text, yet the mentalities of the characters, primarily Will, were stuck in the past. Although towards the end, the fact that Will has two months to live, further answers his reminiscing nature, there was still a concern as to why they traveled so much. What was hidden in the text was the traveling was a way to see the world, but to also come to the realization that he can spread his wealth, his knowledge to other places. As much as Will and Hand traveled, there were still constantly went back in time mentally and through their conversations. The project opened many doors that would have been locked away with traditional close reading, instead of basic assumptions, this showed more detailed results with evidence. Merging technology and literature together, and still keeping literature as the key source, makes such a dynamic connection,  and allows many future projects to begin.