| Inside Inkshed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| M-L Craven | What's New | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| R. Graves | Computers for the Professional Writing Classroom: A Bibliographic Essay | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| H. Hubert, S. Dueck, G. Deer, M. Procter | Post-Secondary Composition as a Liberal Study | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Consulting Editors | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Phyllis Artiss Memorial University Neil Besner University of Winnipeg Russell A. Hunt St. Thomas University Wayne Lucey Assumption Catholic High School Burlington, ON Susan Drain Mount Saint Vincent University | Richard M. Coe Simon Fraser University Lester Faigley University of Texas James A. Reither St. Thomas University Judy Segal University of British University Graham Smart Bank of Canada | |||||||||||||||||||||||
computers have changed editing practice to some extent, but more in the area of responsibilities than procedures. Editors who use computers have more responsibility for the visual aspects of the text and for managerial tasks. However, the procedure of editing remainsessentially the same whether the editor uses the computer or hard copy only. (342)Some special editing problems, however, may be next to impossible to use effectively without computerized help. Thomas et al. report on a study of students learning to use "simplified English." Simplified or basic English is as it sounds, a variety of English reduced to 1,500 words and about 40 writing rules for grammar and syntax. Companies such as Caterpillar Tractor Company, the Douglas Aircraft Company, and the Association Europeene des Constructeurs de Material Aerospatial have all developed their own versions of basic English. The impulse behind these varieties of English is the need to provide understandable communications for both native speakers of English (assembly instructions, insurance policies) and non-native speakers of English. Thomas et al describe SEAN, a computerized Simplified English Analyzer. The program is an "authoring aid" that checks writing samples against a simplified English dictionary and suggests replacement words from a simplified English thesaurus. The software cuts rewrite times by 21% and cuts down on disallowed words by 15%. This kind of program would make it feasible to focus our students' attention on editing for international, multilingual audiences.
[S]tudents learned several important "real world" skills in the course. They had mastered a corporate electronic publishing system; they also had at least two documents to add to their portfolios. Most importantly, they learned how to adapt to a new piece of software while in the process of working on a project. (54)In the Spring '95 quarter, a group of five students in my graduate technical writing course participated in such a project. They wrote copy and designed a procedures manual and a brochure for a multi-generational housing project called Laboure House in Chicago. Clearly, this is an approach with much promise for both our students and for the organizations they write for.
| Task definition | E-Mail Discussion/Interest groups |
| Information seeking strategies | Electronic libraries WAIS, Gopher, E- mail, Discussion/Interest groups |
| Location and Access | Archie, Veronica, WAIS, Gopher Telnet, Remote login, ftp |
| Use of Information | Download and file transfer, ftp |
| Synthesis | E-mail, listservs, newsgroups, Electronic journals, ftp, Gopher sites |
| Evaluation | E-mail, listservs, newsgroups |
Cognitive rhetoric, then, in its refusal of the ideological question leaves itself open to association with the reification of technocratic science characteristic of late capitalism. . . . The existent, the good, and the possible are inscribed in the very nature of things as indisputable scientific facts, rather than being seen as humanly devised social construction always remaining open to discussion. (484)Berlin's reluctance to close the door on discussion reflects the liberal mentality. Within the ideology of a liberal curriculum, the purpose of writing is to foster thinking rather than doing. In this, it follows analysis of liberal culture in the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who holds that "working-class people expect every image to explicitly perform a function, if only that of a sign, and the judgements make reference, often explicitly, to the norms of morality or agreeableness" (4). Especially post-secondary liberal education, however, "sets an increasingly high value 'on general' culture and increasingly refuses 'scholastic' measurements of culture (such as direct, closed questions on authors, dates and events) as one moves towards the highest levels of the system" (23). The goal of a liberal education is a refined sensibility, not physical production. This concern for the aesthetic extends beyond art. "Although art obviously offers the greatest scope to the aesthetic disposition, there is no area of practice in which the aim of purifying, refining and sublimating primary needs and impulses cannot assert itself, no area in which the stylization of life, that is, the primacy of forms over function, of manner over matter, does not produce the same effects" (5).
Writing is thinking made tangible, thinking that can be examined because it is on the page and not in the head, invisible, floating around. Writing is thinking that can be stopped an tinkered with. It is a way of holding thought still long enough to examine its structures, it possibilities, its flaws. The road to a clearer understanding is travelled on paper. It is through an attempt to find words for ourselves in which to express related ideas that we often discover what we think. (Tierney et al. 136)Reviewing a study in which beginning nursing students wrote weekly reactions to clinical experience, including an analysis of the experience relative to the past week's goals and the coming week's goals, Carol Sedlack notes that writing logs helped students to:
Stephanie, a bright, conscientious student, had trouble with physics in the beginning of the year. Her work improved dramatically, however, when she changed the way in which she kept and used her log. At first . . . she just 'copied problems from the board' into her log. But after a first, terrible quiz, her log writings began to change. She began to use her log writings to write notes to herself, to raise questions about things she did not understand. (326)Grumbacher notes humorously the description of one student's comments on how writing helps objectify the learning experience: "One of my students told me, 'I enjoy finding out what's in my brain, what comes out, because sometimes I don't know what it's doing or thinking'" (329). In reviewing her own experience in teaching through writing, Grumbacher notes that personal reflection aids student learning: