What are the key ethical issues involved in conducting archival research? Based on examination of cases and interviews with leading archival researchers in composition,this article discusses several ethical questions and offers a heuristic to guide ethical decision making. Key to this process is recognizing the person-ness of archival materials.

The study of writers and writing in digital environments raises distinct and complex ethical issues for researchers. Rhetoric theory and casuistic ethics, working in tandem, provide a theoretical framework for addressing such issues. A casuistic heuristic grounded in rhetorical principles can help digital writing researchers critically interrogate their research designs, carefully examine their relationships with research participants, and make sound ethical judgments.

This article discusses the Napster phenomenon and its cultural significance, traces some of the threads of the current “copyright crisis,” and connects these cultural and legal dynamics to show how the current filesharing context of digital environments pertains to issues affecting writing teachers. The article (1) urges writing teachers to view the Napster moment—and the writing practice at the center of it, filesharing—in terms of the rhetorical and economic dynamics of digital publishing and in the context of public battles about copyright and intellectual property and (2) argues that digital filesharing forms the basis for an emergent ethic of digital delivery, an ethic that should lead composition teachers to rethink pedagogical approaches and to revise plagiarism policies to recognize the value of filesharing and to acknowledge Fair Use as an ethic for digital composition.

We offer institutional critique as an activist methodology for changing institutions. Since institutions are rhetorical entities, rhetoric can be deployed to change them. In its effort to counter oppressive institutional structures, the field of rhetoric and com-position has focused its attention chiefly on the composition classroom, on the de-partment of English, and on disciplinary forms of critique. Our focus shifts the scene of action and argument to professional writing and to public discourse, using spatial methods adapted from postmodern geography and critical theory.

Academic Literacy and the Nature of Expertise: Reading, Writing, and Knowing in Academic Philosophy. Cheryl Geisler. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994. 354 pp. Computer Ethics: Cautionary Tales and Ethical Dilemmas in Computing. 2nd ed. Tom Forester and Perry Morrison. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. 347 pp. A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. Joseph S. Dumas and Janice C. Redish. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1993. 412 pp. Managing Your Documentation Projects. JoAnn T. Hackos. New York: Wiley, 1994. 629 pp. Hypertext in Hypertext. George P. Landow. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. 242 pp. Available in either MS Windows or Apple Macintosh versions on two 3.5 inch diskettes.

Most discussions of disciplinarity start by claiming an emerging group as constituting a discipline or a profession and authorizing that group by locating appropriate research foci, programs for graduate education and undergraduate certification, professional societies, and central professional meetings. Our discussion examines the field of professional writing, focusing not so much on defining it as a discipline as on working out its curricular geography, an activity that will affect its status in both academy and industry. To that end, we explore the status of professional writing within the department of English by (a) briefly examining the problem of defining professional writing; (b) reviewing several theoretical positions within English that have provided a status for professional writing—literature, rhetoric/composition, business and technical writing—to expose the competition for control of the term and to surface the implications of accepting these various groups on their own terms; and (c) considering the curricular status to which professional writing might aspire by sketching a geography that positions professional writing in a new space within English.

A Rhetoric of Doing: Essays on Written Discourse in Honor of James L. Kinneavy. Ed. Stephen P. Witte, Neil Nakadate, and Roger D. Cherry. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1992. 376 pp. Professional Communication: The Social Perspective. Ed. Nancy Roundy Blyler and Charlotte Thralls. Newbury Park: Sage, 1993. 292 pp. Business & Managerial Communication: New Perspectives. Linda Driskill, with June Ferrill and Marda Steffey. Fort Worth: Dryden, 1992. 810 pp. Business and Administrative Communication. 2nd ed. Kitty O. Locker. Homewood: Irwin, 1992. 775 pp. Contemporary Business Communication: From Thought to Expression. Joan Vesper and Vincent Ryan Ruggiero. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. 565 pp. Impact: A Guide to Business Communication. Ann Fischer and Margot Northey. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice‐Hall, 1993. 247 pp. Teaching Technical Writing: A Pragmatic Approach. Rev. ed. John S. Harris, St. Paul: ATTW Anthology Series, 1992. 191 pp.

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(1990). Divisio as em‐/de‐powering topic: A basis for argument in rhetoric and composition. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 191-205.

(1986). Intertextuality and the discourse community. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 34-47.