Describes how the Prep Editor can be used to support online collaborative editing. Discusses and illustrates how the Prep Editor interface allows student teams to extract the claimed and unclaimed work of each member and how this information can support a team's further decision making. (RS)

Suggests that, although the benefits of word processing are widely acknowledged, writing is still perceived as a difficult activity. Considers the degree to which particular features of word processing might constitute new and significant impediments to individual writers. Discusses this issue with writers who expressed concerns that their…

Notes that literacy today involves more than the three R's. Uses a semiotic approach to present a rhetorical model of multimedia communication and its elements. Includes an analysis of the multimedia composition process and its rhetorical features. (RS)

Notes that the process of electronic conferencing can result in activity not readily apparent as leading to productive writing behaviors, which reintroduces the tension between process and product into composition studies. Argues for a broader notion of writing and urges attention to the transformative power of electronic conferencing to enable…

Surveys British academics. Reveals a divide between writers who favor a word processor as their main writing tool and those who favor the pen or pencil. Finds that word processors are both indirect and delayed. Suggests that educators may need to legitimate handwritten drafts or reversion to handwriting for some word-processor users. (RS)

Examines critically the claim that computers give rise to nonlinear writing. Presents a new computer-based research tool, "S-Notation," that can automatically trace a writer's revisions to a text in their natural order. Presents an ongoing study that applies this method to assess the effect of the writing task on the linearity of text production.…

Suggests that writing is a rhythmic activity. Claims that the combined effect of rapidly switching between composing and revising is to set up complex cycles of engagement and reflection that may disrupt the flow of composition. Describes "Writer's Assistant," a writing environment designed to study computer support for writing processes. Proposes…

Notes new Internet writing environments differ significantly from print forms: they allow texts to evolve--to change their purpose and audience over time. Suggests they allow for new forms of collaboration--texts organize themselves without an omniscient editor shaping them. Concludes that, as a profession, composition instructors need to…

Reviews videotapes of three professional writers composing several essays from start to finish, both by hand and by computer. Discusses similarities and differences among the completed essays. Finds that writing appears to be governed by deep cognitive models that are little influenced by the mode of text production or by the writer's preference…

Explores the differences between e-mail and paper mail, focusing on audience, interface, and rhythm of response. Argues that technological change triggers other changes in a system, creating discomfort, and that this discomfort should not prevent English and writing teachers from studying and accepting e-mail as a legitimate site for writing. (RS)

Suggests that when first-year students composed on screen, they developed a tendency to expand their writing processes; and that when upper-level students did, they tended to collapse their processes. Suggests that first-year and upper-level students interacting with a computer can learn and adopt different types of writing strategies. (SR)

Analyzes the role of computers in supporting the writing process in a large-scale, multisite action research study into use of computers as tools for learning. Notes that the computers and desktop publishing significantly affected the conduct of the action research as well as the collaborative relationship between teacher-researchers and the…

Assesses how three basic writers adapted word processing to their writing. Finds that basic writers who were given little guidance in integrating the computer into their composing processes generated little material on the screen and in other ways made far less than full use of the word processor. (RS)

Theorizes that three features of electronic texts have changed writing and writing instruction: the creation of a seamless flow of text, word publishing as a rhetorical act, and hypertextual writing and thinking. Discusses implications for how teachers read, respond to, and evaluate student writing. Stresses importance of linking writing…

Claims that participants in computer-mediated "chat" (CMC) produce a kind of hybrid text. Stresses the importance of investigating the individual texts and writing practices of each participant in CMC studies to better understand what occurs when language users bring individual cognitive, social, and contextual factors with them to a…