Research Bibliography #8

01-02

Computers and Composition:

           

The art of ALT: toward a more accessible Web
John M. Slatin
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.1 2001 pp. 73-81

Continuing innovations in pedagogical uses of the Web are consistent with our discipline’s long-standing commitment to the expansion of literacy. Surging interest in multimedia and visual rhetoric emphasizes the importance of the 1999 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as a tool for instructors seeking to make their Web documents accessible to learners and colleagues who have disabilities. Text-only variants of media-rich sites are not sufficient; on the Web, as on our campuses, separate is not and cannot be equal. Changes in the way we approach designing class Web sites may be necessary to enable all learners to participate equally in the learning community. Accessibility is not a property of the document: It is situated in specific contexts and distributed across multiple agents and artifacts. A Web experience designed to be rich and meaningful for people with disabilities is likely to be rich and meaningful for those without disabilities as well; however, the reverse is not necessarily true.

Digital literacy and rhetoric: a selected bibliography
Carolyn Handa
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.2 2001 Pp. 195-202     

The perils of creating a class Web site: it was the best of times, it was the …
Greg WIckliff, Kathleen Blake Yancey
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.2 2001 pp. 177-186

This article explains the visual and computing demands of Web-site authoring in a junior level, undergraduate honors course at a large public university. We argue that the students in this course—highly literate and skilled in the production of conventional printed academic writing—performed much like basic writers when challenged with acquiring a broad set of new visual and computer literacy skills. We argue for the value of the illustrated essay as a halfway point for connecting our expectations of Web site authoring to students’ previous experiences with the production of printed academic discourse.

Part 2: toward an integrated composition pedagogy in hypertext
Sean D. Williams
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.2 2001 pp. 123-135

Because digital technology increases student access to a diversity of expressive media, we as composition instructors must model our engagement with the multiple forms of literacy that constitute students’ lives. We must reimagine composition, therefore, as a discipline that teaches a composite literacy that integrates verbal and visual media within hypertext. To help students develop the skills necessary to compose and to critique new media compositions, I argue that composition instruction should be based upon a design model mirroring composition’s process-based pedagogy, by asking students to plan, transform evaluate and revise media-rich, hypertextual documents. I also comment on a sample assignment that demonstrates how an integrated composition might be constructed using the design model and conclude by arguing that, in addition to helping students acquire skill with a new literacy, this pedagogy encourages students to recognize that multiple perspectives always attend any issue under discussion.

Emerging pedagogy: teaching digital hypertexts in social contexts
Kip Strasma
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.3 2001 Pp. 257-274

Fluid texts such as digital texts and hyperfictions present users with both individual and social challenges. In the classroom, particularly, teachers should take advantage of the multiple aspects of narrative time constructed through hypertextual duration, frequency, and order. These challenges, or disjunctures, invite teachers and students into transformative moments, or rejunctures, within the context of the classroom. Based upon an ethnographic study of two college courses, I illustrate several of these opportunities as they subvert the dominant orders of textuality totalized by print-based culture and form an emergent pedagogy.

Note: Vol. 18.4 : Special Issue about distance learning

How near and yet how far? Theorizing distance teaching
Susan Miller
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.4 2001 pp. 321-328

This article theoretically maps out the larger principles that we must consider when thinking about distance learning. I explore the ways in which students’ and teachers’ identities must shift in these new contexts. Pointing to the changes that will or could occur when we move writing courses online, I make the overarching argument that Composition Studies needs “a theorized preparation for shifts in pedagogy that distance courses make visible.”

Interfacing email tutoring: Shaping an emergent literate practice
Dana Anderson
Computers and Composition Vol. 19.1 2002 pp. 71-87

A growing consensus within writing center literature regards the various modes of computer-mediated collaboration as discrete literate practices with literate aims different than those of face-to-face collaboration. My descriptive analysis of 29 online writing lab (OWL) sites for email tutoring—currently the most popular mode of computer-mediated collaboration—considers how email tutoring site interfaces represent the literate practice of email tutoring, shaping expectations and experiences consistent with its literate aims. The analysis suggests that email tutoring interfaces articulate what can be taxonomized as first- and second-level representations of their services. Within these levels of representation, interfaces gather information from collaborative participants through means that can be characterized as simple, intermediate, and extensive. In addition, how individual OWLs represent the tutors who participate in email tutoring can be placed along a continuum from functional to personal emphases. In conclusion, I assert that an important aspect of theorizing the future of technology and literacy in the writing center is current attention toward how the actual OWL interfaces allowing for online collaboration shape emergent computer-mediated literate practices such as email tutoring.

“It wasn’t me, was it?” Plagiarism and the Web
Danielle DeVoss, Annette C. Rosati
Computers and Composition Vol. 19.2 2002 pp. 191-203

Issues of plagiarism are complex, and made all the more complicated by students’ increasing use of the World Wide Web as a research space. In this article, we describe several situations we faced as teachers in writing-intensive classrooms—experiences common to most teachers of writing. We share these examples to explore how issues related to plagiarism and its effects are both reproduced and change in new research spaces. We also share these stories to discuss how we can best handle plagiarism in first-year writing classrooms and how we can best equip students with the tools necessary to do appropriate research—both online and offline.

Note: Vol. 19.3 has a lot of articles about gender (female) and identity. 

Power, language, and identity: Voices from an online course
L.E.Sujo de Montes, Sally M. Oran, Elizabeth M. Willis
Computers and Composition Vol. 19.3 2002 pp. 251-271

Distance learning, especially in computer-mediated environments, is the new trend in education. Universities fear that they will be left behind or even become extinct if they do not offer online courses (). Very little is known about effective pedagogy in online environments, much less the power, authority, and control relationships that occur when conversations are not face-to-face. The course described in this article is a bilingual education course in which participants were involved in extensive writing and publishing of their ideas on the Web. Through bulletin board postings, power relationships between majority and minority students became evident during the semester. Students described their struggles with living and working in a society that, in many cases, institutionalizes racism. Included in this article is a discussion of how the race factor is usually turned “off” () or is in its “default,” White mode () in online environments. Finally, the authors offer implications for interactions between instructors and students and student peers in online

The politics of the program: ms word as the invisible grammarian
Tim McGee, Patricia Ericsson
Computers and Composition Vol. 19.4 2002 pp. 453-470

Because of its widespread availability to writing students, the grammar and style checker in ms word deserves a thorough critique. Although recent scholarship has addressed general issues surrounding grammar and style checkers, we investigate this particular program in depth, focusing on its theoretical underpinnings. We contrast the approaches to grammar and style embodied in the software with those found in current composition pedagogy and conclude with suggestions that go beyond customizing the Grammar Checker to advocating more thorough discussions of the very notions of stylistic and grammatical correctness.

Annotation technologies: A software and research review
Joanna Wolfe
Computers and Composition Vol. 19.4 2002 pp. 471-497

This article describes a range of currently available and developing technologies for creating and presenting annotations, glosses, and other comments on digital documents. The potential applications of these tools for providing feedback to student writers, supporting extended group discussions around digital texts, and facilitating research and reading-to-write tasks are discussed. Different software programs are compared and evaluated and composition researchers are urged to engage in research that will influence the design of future annotation technologies.

Note: Some stuff on technologies/software/grammar/word

PEDAGOGY 01-02

This Page Is under Construction": Reading Women Shaping On-line Identities
Danielle N. DeVoss, Cynthia L. Selfe
Pedagogy
Volume 2, Issue 1, Winter 2002 pp. 31-48 

“Increasing numbers of English studies teachers, recognizing the importance of on-line literacy practices, incorporate assignments into their classes that require students to design and publish home pages on the World Wide Web. In addition, increasing numbers of students design such pages on their own to showcase their interests, indicate their electronic literacy skills to prospective employers, and create on-line spaces for themselves. Our understandings of identity, subjectivity, agency, and literacy are reshaped in virtual realms, where the task of composing evolves. As a profession, however, we have paid little attention to the ways that individuals establish their identities on-line on and through home pages.”

Researching in the New Public Access
Brian P. Hudson
Pedagogy
Volume 2, Issue 2, Spring 2002 pp. 257-261

Excerpt: “Whenever I think of public access television, I think of Ask Me Anything, a call-in show on a Detroit public access cable station some years back. It featured a puffy, mustachioed host who called himself Professor Quagmire and did each show in a graduation cap and gown. Local viewers would call in with questions—anything from "Why is the sky blue?" to "What does E = mc really mean?"—and Professor Quagmire would answer them. Sometimes his answers were well informed, even academic. Other times he would take a few basic facts and pair them with ad-lib jokes and half-truths, firing scattershot for the right answer or at least for a cheap laugh. Occasionally his responses were on target. Often they were far off the mark or downright ridiculous. The Internet is much like Professor Quagmire: sometimes full of information, at other times merely full of it. With the same easy-access, anything-goes mentality that has long dominated the public access airwaves, the Internet has become the new epitome of free expression and unfettered information. For student researchers, this can be both a blessing and a curse.”

Click Here to Organize
Marcia. Dickson
Pedagogy
Volume 2, Issue 2, Spring 2002 pp. 253-257

Issues with access

Critical Work in First-Year Composition: Computers, Pedagogy, and Research
Barbara B. Duffelmeyer
Pedagogy
Volume 2, Issue 3, Fall 2002 pp. 357-374

“Constructing forms of agency . . . relies on individuals' abilities to see culture as "leaky" by mobilizing the multiplicity they bring to any cultural production. . . . Rather than a predetermined discursive or ideological production, the subject becomes a site of cultural negotiation herself, individuated in her relationship to ideology. —Donna LeCourt (1998: 285) For those who work in postsecondary composition and believe in a critical pedagogical approach to that work, simple, dichotomous positionings relative to writing technology (either-or, hegemonic, or oppositional) are problematic. Indeed, our discipline's scholarship is moving away from reductive, unrealistic ways of thinking about teaching and learning in computer-enhanced composition classrooms (Braun 2001: 129).”

Written Communication

http://wcx.sagepub.com/content/18/1/26.abstract

Comparing E-Mail and Synchronous Conferencing in Online Peer Response
Lee Honeycutt
Written Communication January 2001 18: 26-60

“This article details study results comparing e-mail and synchronous conferencing as vehicles for online peer response. The study draws on Clark and Brennan's theory of communicative “grounding,” which predicts that participants use different techniques for achieving mutual knowledge depending on the type of media being used. Content analysis of transcripts from both types of response sessions showed that when using e-mail, students made significantly greater reference to documents, their contents, and rhetorical contexts than when using synchronous conferencing. Students made greater reference to both writing and response tasks using synchronous chats than when using e-mail. Students' individual media preferences showed no significant differences in terms of message formulation, reception, and usefulness of comments in aiding revision. However, in a forced comparison scale, students rated e-mail more serious and helpful than chats, which were then rated more playful than e-mail. Implications of the study's results and areas for future research are also discussed.

Technical Communication Quarterly

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15427625tcq1103_3

Thinking Critically about Technological Literacy: Developing a Framework to Guide Computer Pedagogy in Technical Communication
Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch
Technical Communication Quarterly Vol. 11.3 2002 pp. 267-288

Issues related to technological literacy can provide a useful frame for thinking critically about computer-based instruction in technical communication. This article identifies issues of technological literacy related to performance, contextual factors, and linguistic activities. When considered collectively, these issues provide technical communication students with a mechanism to identify and analyze a range of perspectives associated with technology and communication.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15427625tcq1103_4

Integrating Intercultural Online Learning Experiences into the Computer Classroom
Kirk St. Amant
Technical Communication Quarterly Vol. 11.3 2002 pp. 289-315

Technical communicators of the new millennium will need to develop certain skills to succeed in international online interactions (IOls), and computer classrooms with online access can help students to develop these skills through direct interaction with materials and individuals from other cultures. This article presents exercises instructors can use to help students develop these particular skills.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15427625tcq1103_5

Critical Engagement with Technology in the Classroom
Michael J. Salvo
Technical Communication Quarterly Vol. 11.3 2002 pp. 317-337

This article proposes a model for critically engaging technology in technical communication graduate curricula. While computers and writing studies concentrates on academic writing, the development of the field provides a model for engaging technological issues in professional and classroom contexts. Technical communicators have an ethical as well as intellectual responsibility to engage the interface between technology and culture. This article describes one example, a graduate class in information architecture, as a model for engaging the nexus of literacy, technology, and culture.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15427625tcq1103_6

Why Are Partnerships Necessary for Computer Classroom Administration?
Sean D. Williams
Technical Communication Quarterly Vol. 11.3 2002 pp. 339-358

Computer classrooms (CCs) have been an important part of writing instruction since the mid 1980s, yet little scholarship concerns the roles that directors of computer classrooms play in maintaining these facilities. Based on a review of scholarship of CC administration and an informal survey of CC administrators, this article argues that CC directors walk a tightrope between the role of teacher and manager and that we need to focus on building partnerships to maintain our facilities, because we simply cannot do by ourselves everything that this complex role requires of us.

Technical Communication

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc/2001/00000048/00000001/art00004

Visual-spatial Thinking in Hypertexts
Johnson-Sheehan, Richard; Baehr, Craig
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001 , pp. 22-30(9)

This article explores what it means to think visually and spatially in hypertexts. As visual-spatial texts, hypertexts urge users to think differently than they do with paper-based (verbal-linear) texts, perceiving the hypertext in three-dimensions and imagining the possible “future paths” that might be followed in the text. Drawing from research on visual-spatial thinking from cognitive science, we explore how users react and maneuver in real and virtual three-dimensional spaces. Then we offer four principles of visual thinking that can be applied to the development of hypertexts. Illustrative uses of these principles are provided.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc/2001/00000048/00000001/art00006

Metaphorical Confusion and Spatial Mapping in an Age of Ubiquitous Computing
Gillette, David
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001 , pp. 42-48(7)

When computing moves into the shifting, spatially defined information environments that surround us every day, technical communicators need to think about how users already understand and work with the world itself as a type of walk-through, live-in information device. We need to consider how embedding computers into the world will alter the information designs we have been building for two-dimensional on-screen spaces. We need to broaden online design aesthetics and construction techniques by applying not only standard design theory derived from print, film, and television, but also by incorporating theories from the domains of commercial design, cognitive psychology, and architectural and civil design. The first place we can put some of these ideas to use is in understanding how spatial mapping functions in the search for information.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc/2001/00000048/00000001/art00008

Document (re)Presentation: Object-orientation, Visual Language, and XML
Johnsen, Lars
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001 , pp. 59-65(7)

This article demonstrates how the combination of object-orientation and Horn’s notions of visual language morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics may be used to analyze and describe the mapping of marked-up XML files onto user documents. The article also raises the question of whether—or to what extent—the coupling of object-orientation and visual language might be exploited more directly for design purposes in a document production paradigm based on XML.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc/2001/00000048/00000002/art00011

Technical Communication in an Altered Technology Landscape: What Might Be
Zimmerman, Muriel
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 2, May 2001 , pp. 200-205(6)

Technical communicators create support products that mediate between people and their computers. However, human-computer relations of the future may not require the reading of manuals or even direct manipulation of the interface. These relations may be delegated to agents, computer surrogates that possess a body of knowledge about something and about the user in relation to that something. A new class of applications may suggest information relevant to the user’s situation, proactively offering advice that the user didn’t know to ask for. Technical communicators will have continuing roles in enabling users because of their knowledge of the ways that people want to learn from machines. The skills required for technical communicators in the next computer revolution will change at least as much in the next 5 years as they have in the past 5 years.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc/2001/00000048/00000002/art00005

On Writing, Technical Communication, and Information Technology: The Core Competencies of Technical Communication
Hart-Davidson, William
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 2, May 2001 , pp. 145-155(11)

This article contributes two arguments to the disciplinary conversation of technical communication with the aim of exploring leadership opportunities our field has in the field of information technology. The arguments assert that

1. Writing is the core technology in any IT system, and all IT systems attempt to leverage the core strengths of writing to make these systems more valuable.

2. Technical communicators have a central role to play in IT systems consonant with our core competencies: we attend to the balance of situated as opposed to generalized strategies and the balance of appeals to identity in writing about the practical use of technology, and we are well prepared to attend to these balances in other important arenas of IT discourse.

Together, these two arguments are meant to begin or continue conversations—in workplace and academic contexts alike—that bring the issues of IT development and the future of technical communication closely together.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc/2001/00000048/00000003/art00007

Making the Most of Interactivity Online
Andrisani, Debbie; Gaal, Anna V.; Gillette, David; Steward, Sherry
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 3, August 2001 , pp. 309-323(15)

Technical communicators need to create effective online interactions to help users understand the scope, purpose, and limits of their online documents. Ideally, a well-designed online document provides an integrated data environment. It functions as the interface between the user and a system, allowing for the retrieval and assimilation of information needed to perform a task. Online information can be presented in a variety of formats, including online help systems, computer-based training (CBT) programs, and interactive electronic technical manuals (IETM). The benefits of an effective online system include the elimination of paper bulk and storage, improved document usability through interactivity, and the use of the document as a learning, training, and research aid.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc/2002/00000049/00000001/art00005

Information Design for the Small-screen Interface: An Overview of Web Design Issues for Personal Digital Assistants
Albers, Michael; Kim, Loel
Technical Communication, Volume 49, Number 1, February 2002 , pp. 45-60(16)

At the same time that increasing amounts of information are being disseminated using Web interfaces, personal digital assistants (PDAs) or handheld computing devices have proliferated. However, as the ways that we need to use information grow, and as the range of information available online continues to diversify, our basic Web design assumptions should be examined to determine how the small, low-resolution screen, predominantly text-based design, and relatively cumbersome interfaces affect information search and retrieval.

In the near future, we expect these issues to have a major impact on information design as more and more information is accessed through PDAs. This article charts a theoretical framework for understanding differences between handheld and full-sized Web environments, and identifies design issues for further research.

Technical Communication, Knowledge Management, and XML
Applen, J. D.
Technical Communication, Volume 49, Number 3, August 2002 , pp. 301-313(13)

Technical communicators can expand their roles into the realm of knowledge management by augmenting their already considerable skills with a basic understanding of XML coding and a critical understanding of how this applied tool can allow us to shape, store, and transfer knowledge. To do this, they can start by examining how the use of tools and their relationship to the materials, assumptions, and methods of the scientific community contribute to the culture of research activity and then transferring these ideas to their workplaces. Additionally, they need to understand that knowledge management systems can include tacit knowledge. In their roles as knowledge managers, they can teach organization members to help design, access, and contribute to databases; alert them to new information as it is made available in knowledge repositories; and work to facilitate an environment of trust and sharing that allows knowledge management systems to flourish.

JAC

http://jaconlinejournal.com/archives/vol21.1/braun-political.pdf

The Political Economy of Computers and Composition: “Democracy Hope” in the Era of Globalization
M.J Braun
JAC Vol. 21.1 2001 

Braun beings by identifying the long-standing trend in the discipline of composition: fostering opposition between the technology “luddites” and the “technophiles.”  Braun suggests that there is greater complexity behind both “camps” as they are currently understood and cites a few scholars whose work exemplifies the ability to go beyond the old dichotomy.  This article furthers this discussion by introducing the “critique of capital” into the discussion of the technologizing of composition.

Note: (got lost in the debate between Marback and Blakeslee)

http://jaconlinejournal.com/archives/vol22.2/williams-process.pdf

Process-Product Ambiguity: Theorizing a Perspective on World Wide Web Argumentation
Sean D. Williams
JAC 22.2 2002

“It is the purpose of this article to examine this paradox, to theorize what might characterize World Wide Web argumentation, and specifically to give an account of the "process-product ambiguity" that enables Web-based argument. In what follows, I ground the notion of process-product ambiguity in a combination of Toulmin's model of argumentation and webtextuality because both rely on motion (process) and reasoning within constrained contexts (product). I conclude with a summary that draws together the discussions of process-product ambiguity, proposing a new perspective on argumentation specifically suited for the Web.”

KAIROS

http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/6.2/binder.html?features/hewett/index.html

Generating New Theory for Online Writing Instruction (OWI)
Beth L. Hewett
Kairos 6:2 2001

“In this webtext, I argue that educators, scholars, and researchers with interests in online writing instruction (OWI) should adopt a theory-generating stance regarding the online environment, technological platforms, pedagogies, and guiding philosophies encapsulated within OWI. I use online writing instruction or OWI as an umbrella term that includes all educational uses of computer or Internet technologies for teaching or coaching writing. Under OWI, I place computer-mediated communication (CMC) for classroom and writing/peer group situations, computer-based literary study, as well as individualized writing instruction such as that found in online writing lab (OWL) tutorials.”

http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/6.1/binder.html?coverweb/whelan/index.html

What Writing Students Get From the Net: Using Synchronous Communication to Develop Writerly Skills
Lara Baker Whelan
Kairos 6:1 2001

The author provides her own experiences with teaching technology as a reaction to those around her who claimed that technology will provide nothing new for the composition classroom and is, essentially, a waste of time.  Whelan states, “Ironically, however, the detractors of teaching technology encouraged me to continue to teach online in order to find ways to prove them wrong.  I began to look more deliberately for ways that students could get something valuable and unique from being online as part of their writing instruction. I stumbled across a somewhat oversimplified "formula" for incorporating online technology into composition, and used this formula to put synchronous communication to work for me and my students.”

http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/7.2/binder.html?sectionone/brooks/INDEX.HTM

Communication as the Foundation for Distance Education
Robert F. Brooks
Kairos 7:2 2002

“My purpose in this chapter is to build a theoretical framework for designing web-based distance learning courses that goes beyond a simple transmission model of communication.  The goal is to provide a model to guide the development of online teaching and learning practices that will elevate students to becoming more interactive and thoughtful citizens in our democratic society.  By necessity, the construction of this model relies upon theoretical insights from communication, information studies, education, and psychology.  I approach the task by (a) providing an introduction to distance learning, (b) addressing the link between communication and information, (c) relating learning to interaction with material information and other people, and (d) building the framework for practical application of the model.  I close with a recommendation for building communities of learning.”

http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/7.2/binder.html?sectionone/wilferth

Private Literacies, Popular Culture, and Going Public: Teachers and Students as Authors of the Electronic Portfolio
Joe Wilferth
Kairos 7:2 2002

College English

http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/stable/378891

What Happens When Machines Read Our Students Writing?
Anne Harrington, Charles Moran
College English Vol. 63.4 March 2001

Upholding the “teacher as reader,” Harrington and Moran provide a non-technophobic critique of emergent assessment technologies.  This article first provides a history of composition’s attitude toward assessment technologies and focuses on two particular ETS technologies: WritePlacer Plus and Intelligent Essay Assessor. 

Note: (Electronic dissertations?)

CCC

http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/stable/359078

Conversation and Carrying-On: Play, Conflict, and Serio-Ludic Discourse in Synchronous Computer Conferencing
Albert Rouzie
College Composition and Communication Vol. 53.2 Dec. 2001

“This essay examines a series of interchange transcripts to demonstrate how discourse that combines serious and playful purposes works to provoke and mediate conflict. Students use serio-ludic discourse to critique and to negotiate power relations and gendered subject positions with both positive and negative results.”