4/8 - Computers and Writing

"The gap between the manuscript and the printed page is closing. Through the technology, first through the development of the desktop publishing software and now, increasingly, through the standard word-processing package, the writer is entering an era where the published page is more directly under her or his control. This innovation has profound implications for writers, for writing, and the teaching of writing with computers, and for theories of electronic writing. Thus, weighing the consequencesof "taking control of the page" needs to be placed on our agenda for the nineties." (Sullivan 44)

"Despite these limitations, our project indicates that combining synchronous and asynchronous computer-mediated communication did help our students improve as writers. Frequent contact with an actual audience, frequent practice in writing, and a more enjoyable writing environment helped students become more competent, comfortable writers....If one of the purposes of education is to help students become not only more complex thinkers and writers, but also more tolerant, accepting people, computer-mediated exchanges can be used to foster that humanistic goal." (Harris and Wambeam 370)

Sullivan, Patricia. “Taking Control of the Page: Electronic Writing and Word Publishing.” Evolving Perspectives on Computers and Composition Studies: Questions for the 1990s. Eds. Cindy Selfe and Gail Hawisher. NCTE, 1991. 43-64.

• What was the "problem" with computers and writing research circa 1980s, early 1990s? 
• What are ways that desktop publishing affects theories of the writing process? 
• What does Sullivan propose as possible explanatory theories for electronic writing?  

Harris, Leslie D., and Cynthia Wambeam. “The Internet-Based Composition Classroom: A Study in Pedagogy.” Computers and Composition 13 (1996): 353-371.

• What were the goals of their "Internet based [first year composition] discourse community"?
• What pedagogical methods were used to achieve this community?
• What research methods were used to assess the pilot?

Tim McGee and Patricia Ericsson. “The Politics of the Program: MS Word as the Invisible Grammarian.” Computers and Composition 19 (December 2002): 453-70.

• MSGC reinforces current-traditional practice, assumptions
• MSGC inhibits writing process (i.e., novice writers too focused on surface-level corrections)
• Writing teachers should be aware of role of grammar checkers, computer tools on writing process, development of writing process

Mueller, Derek N. “Digital Underlife in the Networked Writing Classroom.” Computers and Composition 26 (2009) 240–50.

• What is "digital underlife," which is based on Robert Brooke's (1988) "Underlife in the Writing Classroom"?
• What recomendations does Mueller offer for "enriching our understanding of digital underlife"?

OPTIONAL

• Sullivan, Laura L. “Wired Women Writing: Towards a Feminist Theorization of Hypertext.”
• Grabill, Jeffrey T. “On Divides and Interfaces: Access, Class, and Computers.”
• Slattery, Shaun. “Un-distributing Work through Writing: How Technical Writers Manage Texts in Complex Information Environments.”
• Howard, Rebecca Moore. “Understanding ‘Internet Plagiarism.’”
• Amy Diehl, Jeffrey T. Grabill, and William Hart-Davidson. “Grassroots: Supporting the Knowledge Work of Everyday Life.”
• Purdy, James P. “Anxiety and the Archive: Understanding Plagiarism Detection Services as Digital Archives.”