ajoutition

Ajoutition is a term used to describe the practice of adding supplementary content to existing texts or objects within digital and analog contexts. It emphasizes addition rather than alteration of the original material.

Etymology: from the French ajout, meaning addition, and the -ition suffix, the term is used in scholarly discourse to denote a process of expanding or extending a source with new material.

Scope includes marginalia, annotations, addenda, glosses, appendices, and user-contributed edits on collaborative platforms such as wikis and annotated editions. It can occur in manuscripts, printed works, digital databases, or multimedia artifacts.

Ajoutition is typically distinguished from revision, which reshapes or replaces parts of the original, and from annotation when notes are primarily interpretive. Additions may be factual, contextual, or clarificatory, and can be reactive to ambiguity or proactive to broaden understanding.

Mechanisms are mediated by platforms with version histories and moderation, with emphasis on attribution, provenance, and accountability. Practices vary by field and platform, ranging from formal editorial addenda to crowd-sourced notes.

Applications are found in scholarly editions that publish corrigenda and context notes; in digital repositories that permit user-added metadata; and in collaborative writing where readers contribute expansions to the main text.

The concept raises questions about authorship, intellectual property, and the integrity of the source material, as additions can alter interpretation or historical record if not properly attributed and governed.

See also: annotation, marginalia, addendum, version control, collaborative editing.