At least since Fred Robinson's 1980 analysis of the metrical envoi in B, scholars of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts have gone ‘back’ to the manuscripts to examine whether the layout of the page – the use of capitals, display script, rubrication and spacing – can provide more information about texts, scribes and the uses of manuscripts than is provided by modern editions. While Paul Saenger's Silent Reading traces the complex relationship between silent reading and oral performance via word spacing and punctuation, Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe's Visible Song demonstrates the ways in which differences between punctuation practices in Latin and vernacular texts reflect the ‘transitional literacy’ of the scribes, and their relationship with Old English poetry. Other scribal and readerly practices, such as glossing and annotation, have long been studied, not only for evidence of the state of learning in Anglo-Saxon England and of the development of Old English as a literary language, but also for evidence as to manuscript relations, source studies and the contents of libraries in early England. Combined, a study of the layout and the signs of use in a manuscript, including punctuation, annotation and glossing, can provide important information on the uses of that manuscript, the degree of respect in which it was held and whether the uses or degree of respect changed over time.