All Journals
1435 articlesSeptember 2003
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Abstract
Jasper Neel, Reclaiming Our Theoretical Heritage C. Jan Swearingen, and as a Coherent Intellectual Discipline Gary A. Olson, The Death of as an Intellectual Discipline Charles Bazerman, The Case for as a Major Discipline Susan Miller, Writing as a Mode of Inquiry Susan Wells, Claiming the Archive for and Composition Susan C. Jarratt, New Dispositions for Historical in Rhetoric Gary A. Olson, Ideological Critique in and Composition Tom Fox, Working Against the State Lynn Worsham, Coming to Terms Keith Gilyard, Holdin' It Down Steven Mailloux, From Segregated Schools to Dimpled Chads Thomas Kent, Paralogic Rhetoric Barbara Couture, Writing and Truth Victor J. Vitanza, Seeing in Third Sophistic Ways Sharon Crowley, Body in and Composition John Trimbur, Delivering the Message Cynthia L. Selfe and Richard J. Selfe, The Intelligent Work of Computers and Studies William A. Covino, The Eternal Return of Magic-Rhetoric
August 2003
July 2003
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Using New Technology to Assess the Academic Writing Styles of Male and Female Pairs and Individuals ↗
Abstract
Background: Previous research suggests that there are advantages to writing in groups or in pairs compared with writing individually, and that men write differently from women. However, as far as we know, no one has yet used new technology to assess published academic articles written in these different modes. Method: We assembled 80 papers from recent issues of the Journal of Educational Psychology as follows: 21 authored by individual men, 21 by individual women, 19 by pairs of men, and 19 by pairs of women. We then used two computer-based measures to assess various textual features of the Abstracts, the Introductions, and the Discussion sections of these 80 papers. Results: Several differences were found between these various parts of the journal articles (e.g., the Discussions were more readable than the Introductions and these in turn were more readable than the Abstracts). However, there were few differences between the writing of pairs or individuals, or between that of men and women. Conclusions: There was no real evidence to support the notion that writing in pairs would lead to better quality articles or that there would be differences between the readability of papers produced by men and women. Such differences may occur, however, before peer review.
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The Development of a Virtual Community of Practices Using Electronic Mail and Communicative Genres ↗
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This article uses the notion of genre repertoire to examine electronic-mail communication exchanged in a period of three years by an interorganizational community of software developers (727 e-mail messages in total). It analyzes the development of this virtual work community by considering the use of communicative genres with respect to (1) the resources offered by the electronic-mail system, (2) the temporal development of the project in which the participants were engaged, and (3) the developing relationship between community members. The study shows that the community organized its communicative interactions mainly as informal exchanges between peers rather than as formal exchanges that followed the structure of an interorganizational project. The messages were strongly affected by the use of a system of electronic mail and changed as the community members' relationships developed.
June 2003
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Action research: Lessons learned from a multi-iteration study of computer-mediated communication in groups ↗
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Action research has been presented as a promising approach for academic inquiry because of its focus on real world problems and its ability to provide researchers with a rich body of field data for knowledge building. Published examples of action research, however, are hard to find in business communication literature. What are the reasons for this? I try to provide a basis for answering this question as well as helping other business communication researchers-particularly those interested in computer-mediated communication issues-to decide whether and when to employ action research. I offer a first-person, confessional tale-like account of an action research study of computer-mediated communication in groups. In order to focus on the lessons learned, my focus is on the process of conducting action research and not on empirical results. Some of the situations and related lessons discussed are somewhat surprising and illustrate the complex nature of action research. The doctoral research, conducted over four years in Brazil and New Zealand, highlights the challenges associated with action research's dual goal of serving practitioners and the research community.
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This study explored strengths and limitations of table formatting choices by engaging twenty-eight participants in information searches in online tables, presented on a small-screen interface (Palm IIIc). Table length across conditions was held constant at three screens long (24 rows total) but varied from one to three screens wide (approximately 35, 70, and 105 characters per line). Target information was positioned in either the upper left, lower left, upper right, or lower right quadrants. Data collected were time on task, error rate, and level of participants' confidence in their answers. Experimenters found that increased horizontal scrolling imposed the heaviest burden on information search. This study supports restricting table widths to one screen on handheld computers. If necessary, however, tables can go to two screens wide without critical detriment to usability. While ruled line formatting is slightly better than interface character in providing visual support for the burden of horizontal scrolling, neither formatting option adequately compensates for the added burden.
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This essay illustrates key features of visual rhetoric as they operate in two professional academic hypertexts and student work designed for the World Wide Web. By looking at features like audience stance, transparency, and hybridity, writing teachers can teach visual rhetoric as a transformative process of design. Critiquing and producing writing in digital environments offers a welcome return to rhetorical principles and an important pedagogy of writing as design.
April 2003
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Technical Communication and Clinical Health Care: Improving Rural Emergency Trauma Care through Synchronous Videoconferencing ↗
Abstract
While debates continue over the effectiveness of innovative communication technologies to bring information and services to populations that have been underserved by such new technologies, a federally-funded program at the University of Vermont and Fletcher Allen Health Care (FAHC), Burlington, Vermont, has enabled trauma specialists to link with rural emergency room health care providers through a synchronous videoconferencing (telemedicine) network. Analysis of patient histories and surveys completed by the participating physicians after each use of the computer conferencing system as well as interviews and observations indicate that the FAHC consulting trauma specialists and the remotely located physicians felt the linkups do not interfere with standard ER procedures, that communication was at least adequate for all consultations, and that the consults improved the quality of care, for over half of the cases. Furthermore, interviews with rural ER physicians indicated that they saw the program operating as the first stage of FAHC's management of a patient to be transferred to that facility.
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This article examines employee sentiments concerning the use of e-mail. An exploratory study at one state agency was used to create a survey of employee perceptions of e-mail use. The survey was then administered to a second state agency. The survey findings show that although most employees found e-mail to be highly useful, they also complained of information overload. The findings also suggest that employees perceive peer misuse and lack of peer training to be culprits of e-mail overload. The article discusses the theoretical implications of the study and makes recommendations for improving e-mail training.
March 2003
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Considers how although students’ frustration level may rise with the inclusion of computer technology in writing classes, so too do the number of "wow moments" – those times when students finally achieve something for which they have long struggled. Examines the efficacy of including technology in first–year writing courses. Finds that a sizable majority of students indicated that the use of computers had some positive effect on their writing.
2003
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Abstract
It will come as no surprise, perhaps, to say that writing centers have long been grounded in -some would say "bounded by" -the conventions of printed text. True, writing centers, like most of the rest of the world, have been influenced by advances in computer technology, most recently through the explosive growth of Online Writing Labs (OWLs) and computer-mediated conferencing with students, but fundamentally, most of the interactions between students and tutors still center on the handwritten or printed texts that are placed on a table between them or, perhaps, shared in a wordprocessed file. These texts are structured linearly and hierarchically, moving along a single path from beginning to end, following well-known and universally taught discourse forms that have emerged from a print -based rhetorical tradition.
December 2002
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The contribution of electronic communication media to the design process: communicative and cultural implications ↗
Abstract
Innovation in a company's design process is increasingly a matter of cooperation between the company and its customers. New information and communication technology (ICT) possibilities such as electronic communication (EC) media generate even more opportunities for companies to collaborate with customers during the early stages of research and development. This exploratory study examined the design process of five Dutch firms and the cultural and communicative implications of cooperation in the design process between the supplier and the customer using EC media. We found that the selected use of EC media for communication between R&D and customers has a positive effect on the design process. We also discovered that the characteristics of the most suitable EC media depend on the design activity and that the corporate and professional cultures of both the company and its customers involved in the cooperation seem to affect the communication media used. Finally, the future use of new ICT in the design area is discussed.
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With the development of new technologies, and particularly information and communication technologies (ICTs), teams have evolved to encompass new forms of interaction and collaboration. By focusing on the communicative dimensions of global virtual teams, this paper demonstrates that e-collaboration is more than a technological substitution for traditional face-to face collaboration. It places special emphasis on the importance of structuring activities for balancing electronic communication during e-collaboration (i.e., videoconference, email, chat session, distributed use of group support system) to bridge cultural and stereotypical gaps, to increase profitable role repartition between the participants, and to prevent and solve conflicts. During the past four years, the authors have developed a project involving hundreds of participants from different national cultures working together for six weeks on a specific project. In this paper, we present our experiences and draw conclusions, giving special attention to the structure of the electronic communication required to support efficient virtual teaming in education and industry.
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E-mail peer response teaches students about audience and text more effectively than synchronous peer response.
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Instructional Note: The Paperless Classroom: E-filing and E-valuating Students’ Work in English Composition ↗
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This article explores the possibilities of the paperless classroom achieved through e-mail strategies and the use of Blackboard, an e-learning software platform.
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With the help of recent research on teaching with digital technologies, this article critically reflects upon the changes in instruction and identity that occur in computer classrooms, online course supplements, and Internet classes.
October 2002
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Research Article| October 01 2002 Reading, Writing, and Teaching Creative Hypertext: A Genre-Based Pedagogy Kevin Brooks Kevin Brooks Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Pedagogy (2002) 2 (3): 337–356. https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-2-3-337 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Kevin Brooks; Reading, Writing, and Teaching Creative Hypertext: A Genre-Based Pedagogy. Pedagogy 1 October 2002; 2 (3): 337–356. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-2-3-337 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsPedagogy Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2002 Duke University Press2002 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
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Research Article| October 01 2002 Critical Work in First-Year Composition: Computers, Pedagogy, and Research Barbara B. Duffelmeyer Barbara B. Duffelmeyer Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Pedagogy (2002) 2 (3): 357–374. https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-2-3-357 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Barbara B. Duffelmeyer; Critical Work in First-Year Composition: Computers, Pedagogy, and Research. Pedagogy 1 October 2002; 2 (3): 357–374. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-2-3-357 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsPedagogy Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2002 Duke University Press2002 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
September 2002
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Abstract
Web-based training has been both acclaimed as a self-paced, consistent, stand-alone alternative to traditional instructor-led training and disparaged for its high development costs and dearth of qualified trainers. Critics especially question its effectiveness. This case study tests the effectiveness of a stand-alone Web-based training program and compares the results to that of an identical instructor-led course. The course provides highly task-oriented instruction for a computer software package and was developed using a proven instructional design methodology. The data from this study show that Web-based training is as effective as instructor-led training for stand-alone software application training in a corporation.
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Reviews four books: Listening Up: Reinventing Ourselves as Teachers and Students, by Rachel Martin; Disturbing the Peace, by Nancy Newman; Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural Diversity, and the Prospects of Ecological Sustainability, by C. A. Bowers; Assessing the Portfolio: Principles for Practice, Theory, and Research, by Liz Hamp-Lyons and William Condon.
August 2002
July 2002
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A Historical Look at Electronic Literacy: Implications for the Education of Technical Communicators ↗
Abstract
This article investigates the ways in which a subset of technical communicators acquired electronic literacy from 1978 to 2000, a period during which personal computers became increasingly ubiquitous in the United States in educational settings, homes, communities, and workplaces. It describes the literacy autobiographies gathered from 55 professional communicators participating on the Techwr-l listserv, focusing on the large-scale trends that these autobiographies reveal. To supplement the findings from these autobiographies, the authors conducted face-to-face interviews with four case-study participants: a faculty member, a professional communicator, and two students of different backgrounds majoring in technical communication. The article concludes with observations about the development of technical communication instruction in the twenty-first century.
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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.
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Abstract 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.
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Thinking Critically about Technological Literacy: Developing a Framework to Guide Computer Pedagogy in Technical Communication ↗
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Abstract 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.
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Abstract This article brings to light a topic that surfaces regularly among technical writing practitioners and theorists but is rarely addressed in the literature of the field. Stuart Selber deals with it in his 1997 essay "Hypertext Spheres of Influence" (see especially page 30), but a check of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) Bibliography for the last two years produced only one recent article obviously devoted to it (see Mitra). The topic centers around this question: Is teaching technology problematic for technical writing instructors? Voices are heard here of 64 ATTW members who were queried on their roles as teachers of technical writing in relation to the demands made upon them to also be teachers of technology skills. Answers are presented and examined in terms of "teacher lore," the informal sharing of teacher experiences and opinion/feeling about those experiences. The article concludes with a call for more research to clarify the roles teachers of technical writing should be playing in an age where technological determinism—shown by a tendency to turn a technical communication course into a software tools course—can be seen as a threat to effective teaching of complex workplace rhetoric.
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Abstract 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.
May 2002
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Discusses how an online environment enhances the effectiveness of peer critique. Describes experiences with peer critiquing by computer. Notes that students responded favorably to online critiquing. Concludes that the results were critiques that were lively and personable—not matter-of-fact and dull like many handwritten ones.
April 2002
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When Cultures and Computers Collide: Rethinking Computer-Mediated Communication according to International and Intercultural Communication Expectations ↗
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Online communication technology makes intercultural communication faster and more direct than was ever before possible, but, in doing so, it may also amplify cultural rhetorical differences. Communication scholars, therefore, need to begin examining potential areas of conflict in international cyberspace to anticipate and to resolve potential cross-cultural misunderstandings related to online exchanges. This commentary proposes that researchers need to compare the communication patterns noted in the computermediated communication (CMC) literature and in the intercultural communication literature to see where these communication patterns collide.
March 2002
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Abstract
Thought, in the modern technical sense, is rather like travel. To travel without the aid of tools (cars, buses, and planes), that is, to walk, barely means travel at all in the modern sense. Likewise, to think in the modern sense means thought with tools. It is not enough to speak, or write with pen and paper, or even a typewriter. We have little choice, to be competitive, but to word-process, to send email, and to build hypertext. The thoughts we think we are having in the relative comfort of our own heads mean little, until they are written out, published to others, and subjected to natural-selection tests for validity. Beyond this, we must be keenly aware of the texts produced by others and the physical circumstances that produced them. These are simultaneously the best representation of a whole community's thought, and also the best tools that we can use to further advance our own thought.
January 2002
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Abstract
Web-based training has been both acclaimed as a self-paced, consistent, stand-alone alternative to traditional instructor-led training and disparaged for its high development costs and dearth of qualified trainers. Critics especially question its effectiveness. This case study tests the effectiveness of a stand-alone Web-based training program and compares the results to that of an identical instructor-led course. The course provides highly task-oriented instruction for a computer software package and was developed using a proven instructional design methodology. The data from this study show that Web-based training is as effective as instructor-led training for stand-alone software application training in a corporation.
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Research Article| January 01 2002 Hypertext and the Teaching of Modernist Difficulty Gail McDonald Gail McDonald Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Pedagogy (2002) 2 (1): 17–30. https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-2-1-17 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Gail McDonald; Hypertext and the Teaching of Modernist Difficulty. Pedagogy 1 January 2002; 2 (1): 17–30. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-2-1-17 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsPedagogy Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2002 Duke University Press2002 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
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This article begins with an overview of cognitive psychology research on the effects of aging on literacy and suggests the additional complications facing older adults who consume and produce text within the frame of technology, particularly on-line usage. From an overview, the text moves to patterns corporations are using to target older adults, namely as consumers and as producers. The text then explores the use of philanthropy in the corporate literacy initiatives and suggests that there are complicated issues at hand in attempting to integrate the knowledge of aging and corporate strategies into our technical writing classrooms because we enter this discussion concerned about non-traditional students, older adults who are challenged to participate in contemporary literacy initiatives, and ourselves as aging participants as well. The article ends with suggestions of possible ways of addressing concerns regarding aging.