Working in the Metaverse and the Academy:
Composing a Game Studies Dissertation Online
Chris Ritter
Washington State University
Cjritter.com
cjritter@wsu.edu

DIGIRHET
[W]riting is in the midst of a massive paradigm shift: from an older view
of writing as alphabetic text on paper, intended for print distribution, to
an emergent view of writing as weaving digital media for distribution
across networked spaces, for various audiences engaged in different
types of reading.
DigiRhet. “Old+Old+Old=New: A Copyright Manifesto for the Digital World.” Kairos 12.3 (2008). 4
Mar 2009 <http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/12.3/topoi/digirhet/index.html>.

JAY BOLTER
\"What we need is a hybrid, a fusion of the critical stance of cultural theory
with the constructive attitude of the visual designer\" (30).
Bolter, Jay. “Theory and Practice in New Media Studies.” Digital Media Revisited. Ed. Gunnar Liestol,
Andrew Morrison, & Terje Rasmussen. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. 15-34.

CHERYL BALL
[T]he keynote presenter at the 2004 CELJ award ceremony referred to
Kairos as a \"journal of low-rung academic fields [e.g., composition
studies] whose claims to scholarly legitimacy would in any case be
disputed\" and that our \"preference for 'webtexts' over conventional
articles is liable to being read as tacit capitulation to the weakness of
[our] field rather than as a sign of exceptional inventiveness.
Ball, Cheryl. “Kairos FTW!.” Kairos 13.2 (2009). 3 Mar 2009
<http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.2/loggingon/loggingon.html>.

PROQUEST/UMI
Access to and Distribution of Multimedia
Distribution of dissertations and theses with multimedia is restricted
to print formats that allow us to include a CD or DVD with the
additional materials. At this time, we do not make supplementary
multimedia available online, though we plan to support that in the
future.
Proquest/UMI. “Supplementary Materials Guide.” UMI ETD Administrator 2008. 10 Mar 2009
<http://www.etdadmin.com/UMI_SupplementaryMaterialsGuide.pdf>.

What should we do?
1. Proquest/UMI needs to broaden their list of acceptable formats for
digital works.
2. Universities who contract with UMI need to do more than just defer to
them.
3. Scholars who are invested in digital scholarship need to turn their
attention not only upwards, to their own publications and tenures, but
also downwards, to the major gate of entry into the profession.
4. To the graduate students in the audience who are interested in
composing digital theses or dissertations: DON’T GIVE UP!