Juxta Commons
Overview
Juxta Commons is an online tool that lets users view textual differences between multiple versions of the same work. It comes with a range of openly available sample texts, as well as an easy to use environment for uploading and viewing different versions of a text. Juxta Commons is a highly accessible tool for online collation that is useful for a broad range of student and research focused applications.
Documentation
Take a tour of Juxta Commons.
Read the Juxta Commons User Guide.
Suggested Activities
Frankenstein
Julia Bninski’s assignment asks students to compare textual differences between the 1818 and 1831 editions of Frankenstein using Juxta Commons. This assignment invites students to pay close attention to diction and puntuation, arguing from textual evidence (rather than summarizing), and exploring differences in characterization. In addition to an assignment sheet, Bninski also includes examples of student findings, suggestions for improvement, and thoughts on generalizing the assignment.
Read the assignment by Julia Bninski and view Frankenstein on Juxta Commons.
Visualizing textual difference in Juxta and Mandala
This exercise, delivered by Stephen Ross and Matt Huculak at the 2013 Digital Humanities Summer Institute, asks students to collate texts using Juxta Commons and Visualize the difference between those texts in the Mandala Browser. This exercise invites students to radpidly compare mutliple versions of the text and use visualization tools to sort and compare different types of textual change. The worksheet also includes questions and suggestions for grou discussion on the future of online collation and versioning.
Download the worksheet by Stephen Ross and Matt Huculak.
Collation and Writing Pedagogy
Brandon Walsh’s assignment invites students to visualize and refine their composition and revision process via Juxta Commons. Ask students to compose a piece of draft writing and revise it through several iterations. The students may then collate the multiple versions of their writing using Juxta Commons, examining sources of strength and difficulty (such as transitions, logic, etc.). Walsh’s post comes with a student produced example of the assignment, as well as a broad examination of collation and writing pedagogy.
Read the post by Brandon Walsh.
Texts for teaching on Juxta Commons
Andrew Stauffer and Dana Wheeles offer a great selection of online texts suitable for classroom activities with Juxta. Available via the Juxta Commons site, this list includes Alice in Wonderland, Quarto 4 of Hamlet, articles on Wikipedia and the New York Times, and much more.
Explore the selection of collated texts for classroom use in “Using Juxta in the Classroom: Scholar’s Lab Presentation.”
Viewing editorial changes to online articles
This exercise asks students to view editorial changes to online documents, including news media, editorials, terms of service agreements, and more. Ask students to collate two versions of an edited online text to see changes made after its initial publication. Students may consider how elements including audience, tone, and purpose influence editorial changes, as well as discussing the impact of electronic distribution and revision on editorial practices.
This exercise is inspired by Andrew Stauffer and Dana Wheeles’s Scholarslab presentation “Using Juxta in the Classroom,” shared as a Scholarslab Podcast. It may be used with texts collated on Juxta, such as the New York Times article on Health Care and the Instagram Terms of Service.
Juxta Editions
“Juxta Editions is a professional editing suite for the creation of digital scholarly editions. It provides assistance during the entire process of preparing a digital edition, from transcribing texts to editing and annotating them, to publishing online.” Access Juxta Editions.
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