Forwarding on the Verge

Joseph Harris’s chapter “Forwarding” in his book Rewriting emphasizes the theory that forwarding a text makes it more public. Forwarding a text often responds to an audience that does not strictly pertain to the writer of the text. Thereby, it acquaints more people to the text whether it is only an additional reader or several more. This idea, as Harris explains, can be found in the concept of emailing. In the process of emailing, the reply key (<-) gives one the option to directly respond to the author of the email whereas the forward key (->) allows one to share the contents of the email with other parties. One can illustrate, authorize, borrow, and/or extend the ideas from a text in the act of forwarding.

An example of forwarding can be found on Amanda Todd’s blog post on the Verge titled “Apple is ‘experimenting’ with curved glass smartwatch, say NYT and WSJ.” This post (found at this link http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/10/3973364/apple-rumored-to-be-developing-ios-based-smartwatch) uses the New York Time and Wall Street Journal for authorization of the contents Todd publishes in the post. When Todd writes, The Wall Street Journal is corroborating with the Times report, citing sources that also say Apple is experimenting with designs for a smartwatch,” she is forwarding information from the New York Time and Wall Street Journal by crediting them for the purpose of authorizing the information. According to Harris, this post “invokes the expertise or status of [the NYT and WSJ] to support [its] thinking” (Harris, 39). The information from NYT and WSJ therefore is only forwarded onto the Verge’s blog, not changed.