- They can illustrate
- Namely, maps can allow the reader to understand the relation between people or events and places in a text. The reader can say, "Ah, now I see," and move on with reading.
- They can be integral
- Maps can be an essential part of the text—an important part of proving an argument or convincing the reader of a fact.
- They can be tools for new knowledge and discovery
- Maps can be open (perhaps the same way a text can be open) allowing readers to add their own knowledge and experience to the structured information that the maps contain and generate new information and knowledge.
- They can be entry points
- Instead of being secondary, or supplemental, maps could potentially be the way one enters a text. Much like someone wandering the streets of a city who comes across a plaque marking an historical event, the geogrpahic location is the trigger or starting point for the investigation
- The obvious point to add is that with portable networked devices, the map becomes the abstraction of a real physical place one may be standing, and the entry point to an online text.
Does then the text become different. One suddenly sees the text not as the primary entity (the ground and starting point) but as the annotation, as it were to the physical place. In what way could or should the text be reconfigured to represent this changed hierarchy, or should it be?
