1. TABLE OF CONTENTS
2. CAREERS, PERHAPS?
If we look at old ideas in new ways, the writing and research process can be fun and productive. For instance ... In Lester's Writing Research Papers, Chapter 4 focuses on topics like "Finding the Best Source Materials" and "Responding to the Sources." You are challenged to select a mix of primary and secondary sources, and instructed how to prepare both an annotated bibliography and a literature review. You might be tempted to believe that the many multimedia resources available on the World-Wide Web take care of all these steps for you. After all, using a popular search engine like Snap or a directory like Yahoo! provides annotated links to hundreds of primary and secondary sources, right? In fact, finding and reading the "best sources" for your writing assignments might seem to be a whole lot easier than it used to be; why trudge over to the library and wander the stacks of books and periodicals, when a quick trip to any of the hundreds of search engines available online is bound to provide hundreds, even thousands, of links to information about the keywords you enter? Basically, aren't these engines and directories performing a literature review for you? But how do you know which link to follow? How do you judge the material you see on a Web page? If you make that trip to the library, you are pretty well assured that anything you find on its shelves, be it a book, magazine, or newspaper, has been approved by some critical eyes: an editor, a publisher, and the library itself. But who's to say that great-looking Web site about forestry in the Pacific Northwest wasn't written by a seventh-grader in Seattle? Or that the online pages you're considering citing in a report on the Holocaust weren't published by a neo-Nazi group? On the Web, anyone can be a writer/publisher, and that changes our responsibilities as readers and researchers. Betsy Richmond (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) has developed a Web page called Ten C's For Evaluating Internet Sources, a simple and comprehensive list of questions and problems you need to consider when incorporating Web-based material into your research. Briefly, these "Ten C's" are:
Be sure to visit Richmond's site for the complete list of questions and comments relating to each "C" on the list. Meanwhile, here are two more "C's" to think about ... Currency: While this is mentioned briefly in the "Content" section, the explosion of the Web's growth in the last few years -- there are now more than a billion identifiable Web pages online! -- means this deserves even more attention. How recently was the information published? If there is no date listed, can you verify a timeframe in some way? Is there more current information available somewhere else? Most professional sites have a "copyright" page (see #4 above) that will address currency issues as well. Coolness: Back when the Web was "young" -- as recently as 1996-97 -- the most common word used to describe new sites was "cool." Many prominent online search and evaluation sources, such as Netscape.com, still have entire sections called "What's Cool." But what does that mean? When evaluating content in your research, don't be fooled by "bells and whistles" like sound, motion, and video ... unless those things specifically affect what you are planning to write about! If you're Careful (hey, there's another "C"!) to evaluate your resources using these "12 C's," the writing you do will inevitably be more accurate and believeable.
Try This Activity:
Check Out This Site!
3. FIVE QUESTIONS
Paladin Professor of Literature, Texas Woman's University Professor of Writing, Southern Methodist University Home: http://www.eaze.net/~jfbarber/frontpage.html E-mail: jfbarber@eaze.net Perhaps all you need to know about John Barber is contained in this single paragraph, which concludes the "Biography" section of his Web page: "I am a dynamic figure. I manage time efficiently, pay my bills on time, and am often acclaimed for my ability to prepare extraordinary four course meals using only yogurt and granola. I have navigated the Mississippi River, been caller number nine, and spoken to Elvis. I've yet to learn how to dance the Macarena." In a more academic vein, Dr. Barber is a co-chair of the Computers and Writing 2000 Conference scheduled for May 25-28 in Fort Worth, Texas. "C&W" is an annual international conference for teachers, students, and researchers on the use of computer technology to facilitate the teaching and learning of literacy and language. He is also a co-editor (with his wife, Dr. Dene Grigar) of the forthcoming book New Worlds, New Words: Exploring Pathways for Writing about and in Electronic Environments and the creator of Dr. John's Eazy-Peazy Guides, an evolving series of guides on effective writing, creative writing ideas, research writing, HTML, and English Literature. Here, Dr. Barber addresses questions relating to the writing classroom. What do you think of his answers? Longman: Why should writing teachers care about this year's "Computers & Writing" Conference which you're helping to organize? Barber: Why should teachers of writing care about this conference? I believe it will provide them with information sharing and knowledge development opportunities focused directly on their expressed needs and desires in ways that cannot be matched in other contexts [...] as they seek to make connections between their use of computer technology [...] and what kinds of literacy expectations and skills their students will encounter in the world beyond their classrooms. For example, we are including a special, full-day, special event in the program focusing exclusively on grade school and middle school teachers and administrators. This "Teachers and Administrators Day" will feature special workshops, demonstrations, and discussions geared to the needs and desires of teachers and administrators who want to implement computer technology into their curriculum. As a measure of the perceived importance of this event I should mention that the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has agreed to sponsor it -- that's a first in the 16-year history of the Computers & Writing Conference. Longman: Your new book about writing in electronic environments is called New Words, New Worlds. Why choose that title? Barber: New Words, New Worlds is an edited volume of essays written by prominent teachers, students, writers, and editors exploring what writing "will have become" as it situates itself between oral, print, and electronic cultures [...] these contributors are seeking new avenues for creating work that addresses all these environments effectively. The contributors to this book are all actively engaged in teaching and learning writing in various electronic spaces. They are all committed to observing how these environments can change writing, written forms, writing's functions, even writers themselves. They are interested in the changes writing, filtered through the context of electronic spaces will bring ... [to] a larger surrounding cultural reality. Indeed, they are all interested in fostering and encouraging these changes. As such, they are "author-explorers" investigating "new worlds" of writing and finding, or inventing, "new words" with which to discuss what they are learning and thinking about what writing will have become in these electronic online environments. As the trails these explorers are pioneering are fast becoming routes traveled by other scholars, researchers, and practitioners in the field, it is time to investigate the new worlds they are discovering and the new words (or new ways of using old words) they are using to describe and position their notions of writing [...] So, in short, we chose the title purposefully to telegraph the "rhetorical stance" of the book. That and the desire for a catchy title, one that will attract attention, prompt people to pick it up, browse the contents, take it home, read it, and respond. Longman: What is the most creative paper (or Web site) topic a student has ever come up with for a class you've taught? Barber: The most creative Web site submitted by students for a computers and composition class I taught is entitled The Q Zone and is described by its authors as "a myriad of information portals where you can explore various realms of cyberspace." They go on, providing additional context, as well as, I think, a very clever invitation to delve deeper into the site by saying, "We cater to the data hungry in us. Explorers and cyberpunks alike have bled through the corridors of The Q zone and found their own perceptions of heaven. Be the next to find the answers you have so painfully searched for all your life. Let the Q zone bring the universe to you." Longman: What's one Web site you visit every day? Barber: I visit the Computers and Writing 2000 Conference Web site every day. As information architect and content strategist for this site I'm always looking for ways to update and innovate the site. I usually make daily additions or updates, sometimes several times daily. Longman: Conan O'Brien's famous "In The Year 2000" comedy schtick has fun with futuristic predictions. So finish this sentence, directed at students and teachers in the writing classroom: "In the year 2000 ... " Barber: I don't know his routine so my completion of the sentence may not be in character, but ... " ... writing will still require lots of work. The only way to become a more effective writer will be to write, and write, and write, and write. Right?"
Class Activity #1: Draft an e-mail message to Dr. Barber responding to his answers. Are there specific comments with which you disagree? Do not actually send the mail to Dr. Barber unless your instructor contacts him and receives written permssion for the class to do so! Class Activity #2: Visit "The Q Zone" Web site and draft an e-mail containing a critique of the site. Which information portal did you find most useful in your cyberspace explorations? Do not actually send the mail to The Q Zone unless your instructor receives written permssion for the class to do so! For Discussion: In Dr. Barber's "Eazy-Peazy Guide to Effective Writing," he states, "Effective writing is essentially good thinking and good thinking derives from the ability to perceive critically, to discriminate between important details and unimportant details, to be sensitive to subtleties, to recognize relationships." What do you think of this assertion? How closely related are effective writing and "good thinking"? What is "good thinking" anyway? 4. THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
HYPERTEXTNOW: hypertext narrative and baseball by Mark Bernstein, Eastgate Systems Most people agree that writing on the Web is somehow "different" than writing in traditional print media. One of the types of publication enabled by the Web is "hypertext" -- writing that is not bound to a specific linear presentation (like a book), but is presented as a series of options to the reader/user. Some Web users liken hypertext to the "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels popular with children and young adults. A statement on Eastgate's Web site claims, "While the Web as a whole is a hypertext, most Web sites are not especially hypertextual." So what is hypertext? Mr. Bernstein, one of the leading hypertext experts in the world, artfully compares the reading of a hypertext to watching a baseball game. Since this is spring and, as the saying goes, "In spring, a young man's fancy turns to ... baseball" (that is how it goes, isn't it?), what could be a more appropriate way to think outside the (batter's) box about what hypertext is? Read Bernstein's Web essay and consider the following: For Discussion: See Also: 5. ELSEWEB
For instance, it's never too early to start prrofreading -- er, proofreading -- your writing. There are different ways to approach "proofing" your copy, depending on whether or not you're looking at it on a screen or on paper, what stage of the writing process you're in, and much more. Here are several sites to help you get started in the painstaking, but very important, task of proofreading your own work!
Proofreading Strategies
The Principles of Proofreading
Proofreading
Proofreading Symbols and Abbreviations
6. CLASSROOM SPOTLIGHT
Department of English Clemson University Home: http://www.nutball.com/ E-mail: cboese@clemson.edu Walk into your writing classroom on the first day of a new semester, and you probably can’t help but wonder to yourself, "What makes this teacher qualified to teach me how to write, anyway?" You look around the classroom at the computers and further wonder "And if this is an English class, what are we doing in the computer lab?" You want a teacher qualified to teach writing -- and to teach multimedia writing on the computer, no less? Meet Chris Boese. The dynamic young Clemson University professor has worked as a graphic designer, news photographer, and writer/reporter; helped to create the Electronic Media Arts & Communication degree at a major engineering school; taught classes in journalism, photojournalism, critical thinking, fiction writing, creative writing, composition, technical writing, writing for electronic media, and writing to the World Wide Web; won awards for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography, teaching, and design; her art has appeared on covers of best-selling Internet books and in academic journals. Oh, and did we mention that she was a varsity basketball player in high school? Don't try to get her to talk about her qualifications, though; she'd rather talk about the kind of fun everyone can have in the writing classroom. "I had a lot of fun recently with a science and technology focus in the first-year writing class, specifically with an engineering honors program," says the Arkansas native. "We collaborated with the first-year engineering course, which created a Web site of significant events in the 'timelines' of various engineering disciplines. My students selected ethical issues relating to events in these timelines and explored those issues in-depth. Their writing also was put on the Web and linked to the timelines." This kind of interdisciplinary collaboration is key to Boese's approach to teaching; in part, she says, "because it is getting students away from all those 'canned' research paper topics out there." While Boese says she has "yet to be knocked out" by a research paper topic in any of her classes, she is confident the day is coming, enabled in part by the technology of the Web: "One thing I have definitely been working on is what happens when students hypertextually 'Web' argumentative papers, and then make crosslinks in the connections between their own papers and their classmates' papers." In fact, Boese has been incorporating technology into her writing classroom for a full decade, dating back to before the popular rise of the Internet in American culture. "I've been using computer-assisted pedagogies since 1990," she says. "I like to split my class time 50/50 between electronic work and face-to-face discussion space. I also take classtime for computer work days, where I 'float' the room, having mini-conferences with each student on their writing-in-progress. I feel this kind of feedback is more effective and immediate than unending red marks in the margins of papers." There are drawbacks to teaching in a computer-based writing classroom however. As Boese says, "Proofreading is not usually as careful with electronic texts. And the technology for commenting directly on e-texts is unavailable at any school at which I have taught. That means that as a teacher, I don't comment, [in writing] in as much detail on student work delivered electronically. I also have to admit to being overwhelmed with e-mail and student homework in electronic files. The workload in some ways increases and becomes more difficult to manage effectively." But Boese's own experience in delivering work electronically undoubtedly helps her understand and manage the overwhelming electronic communications with her students. As a grad student, she wrote the first "hypertext dissertation" to be accepted at her university, a project available on the Web entitled The Ballad of the Internet Nutball, which she describes as an "analysis of the 'Xenaverse' Web culture devoted to the syndicated television series, Xena: Warrior Princess." As you might guess from her dissertation topic, Boese is something of a science fiction fanatic; in fact, she was recently featured in The New York Times commenting on the original Star Trek series ("I didn't like it -- it was all about men and posturing") and Sci/Fi television in general. "I like sorting through the wacky theories," she told The Times, "and deciding for myself which part is utterly whacked and whether a kernel of truth might be buried in the dung." Tongue ever planted firmly in cheek, Boese says, "Hey, it isn't every day I get to say 'dung' in The New York Times!" This sharp wit and love of popular culture make her popular with her students; she frequently names class e-mail lists and Web pages for characters in the classic TV sitcom Gilligan's Island ("Skipper" and "Ginger," for instance) and encourages writing about topics like the cult movie hit Blade Runner. But for a peek into what really makes Boese tick as a Web/writing teacher, read her own personal Web site and the syllabi she has online from past courses. A bold statement on the portion of her Web site where visitors can leave their own written comments ("Don't call this a guestbook -- guestbooks are boring!" she says) manages to reference the Robin Williams movie Dead Poets Society, The X-Files, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and (of course) Xena: Warrior Princess, as it reads in part:
See this space on the right? This is my Grafitti Wall. Sewage space. Imagine it as a walk-thru storm culvert, a place where kids hang out and smoke and spray paint as cleverly as they are able. If that space is blank then you have a job to do, now snap to it! Talk back, mouth off, embed links, contribute art, give me a piece of your mind (but not your last one!), tell me if you knew me in a past life, or if you would like to know me in this one. This space is reserved for a funny remark, an original sound effect [...] Conspiracy Theories, Alien Landings. Into it ride Warrior Princesses and their sidekicks.In this hidden corner of the Xenaverse the Holodeck is always on, so come on [...] I want you to write my world! And while her fun, accessible writing style remains in course presentation, a look at the syllabus from her first Writing for Electronic Media course suggests she is deadly serious about helping students become better communicators.
Remember that writing exists in a context, and your classmates are your audience. Practice communicating with each other. I will not intrude on your discussions as a Teacher-Authority-figure. You will have to lure me in with lively topics. This approach to the classroom is driven by Boese's own research interests, which she lists as "Internet communications and cultures, multimedia and hypertext design and theory, the rhetorical effects of polemic ['the art of dispute'], and constructions of power and authority in online cultures ... not necessarily in that order!" As for helping students learn and develop their own research interests, Boese is, as you might expect, not exactly a traditionalist. "I'm not convinced that it is important to 'teach the research paper,'" she says. "In so many ways it has become the cliched 'school exercise,' like the five paragraph essay in high school, only longer." "Many student research papers have no real world counterpart or context," she complains, "so they simply exist in space, unconnected from a real audience. Within the restrictions of existing programs and requirements, I try to put more of a real world spin on the research." From the "real world" to the "Xenaverse," Boese seems to take the same approach to teaching the writing and research process as she does to watching science fiction on television ... helping students decide for themselves "which part is utterly whacked and whether a kernel of truth might be buried in the dung." And that, as much as anything, makes her "qualified" to teach writing in the age of the Web.
For Discussion:
7. NEWSLETTER FAQ
Q: Why did I get this mail?
Q. How can I find out more about the information discussed in this
newsletter?
Q. Why doesn't this newsletter talk about Web design or HTML?
Q: Can I comment on this newsletter? contribute to it? As for contributing -- if you have written something you believe is appropriate for this venue of publication, or if your class would be interested in guest-editing an entire issue of this newsletter, send e-mail to the address above and include your submission or proposal. Be sure to include all appropriate contact information! 8. LEGAL STUFF
Newsletter concept and design by Mick Doherty and Sandye Thompson. All content this issue written by Mick Doherty. Readers are invited to submit material for this newsletter as listed above; classes may apply to edit and compile an issue of this newsletter once per academic year; such applications must be received at least eight weeks prior to the projected date of publication. © 2000 by Mick Doherty for Addison Wesley Longman. All rights reserved worldwide. Material in this newsletter may be excerpted and quoted without permission when appropriate citation information is provided. Published via e-mail.
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