Thanks to Stephen Downes, I now know the word fisking, the analysis of an argument point by point, with comments interspersed among the main text. It helps me contextualize the way we often respond to emails, taking out the bits we want to respond to, and commenting inline.
The argument is over whether such a technique is good or bad, and of course, it is both. Fisking involves dividing someone’s argument into bits. And usually, such an argument was constructed in prose for a reason, to lead the reader from one point to another through meaningful transitions. So in a sense, fisking pulls points out of context, which is bad. But it also can highlight inaccuracies and faulty reasoning that can affect the whole argument, so that’s good.
It’s like a form of public glossing, but instead of writing the note to yourself in the margin, you’re writing it to your email correspondent or, if you’re doing it on a blog, to the internet public.