Cheryl Geisler

IText: Future Directions for Research on the Relationship between Information Technology and Writing.

Most people who use information technology (IT) every day use IT in text-centered interactions. In e-mail, we compose and read texts. On the Web, we read (and often compose) texts. And when we crea...Most people who use information technology (IT) every day use IT in text-centered interactions. In e-mail, we compose and read texts. On the Web, we read (and often compose) texts. And when we create and refer to the appointments and notes in our personal digital assistants, we use texts. Texts are deeply embedded in cultural, cognitive, and material arrangements that go back thousands of years. Information technologies with texts at their core are, by contrast, a relatively recent development. To participate with other information researchers in shaping the evolution of these ITexts, researchers and scholars must build on a knowledge base and articulate issues, a task undertaken in this article. The authors begin by reviewing the existing foundations for a research program in IText and then scope out issues for research over the next five to seven years. They direct particular attention to the evolving character of ITexts and to their impact on society. By undertaking this research, the authors urge the continuing evolution of technologies of text.

Novelty in Academic Writing

Authorial newness or innovation has become a subject of growing interest in the sociology of science. We review some of this literature and elaborate constituents of a theory of authorial novelty. We also discuss some parameters that account for the changing assumptions of novelty across disciplinary communities. Finally, we show that many of the insights required in a parameterized theory of newness have not yet made their way into theories of rhetoric or written composition.

How ought we to understand the concept of rhetorical agency? Report from the ARS

Abstract One of the primary discussions at last falls meeting of the Alliance of Rhetoric Societies addressed the question, “How ought we to understand the concept of rhetorical agency?” Several developments are worthy of note. First, although concern with agency began as a rear guard action against the post‐modern critique, the discussion appears to have shifted to more productive investigations into the consciousness and conditions of agency. Second, a growing number of scholars acknowledge that rhetoric as an interpretive theory describes a variety of rhetorical positions, some with more and some with less rhetorical agency. Rhetoric still faces the issue, however, of incorporating this knowledge into rhetorics mission as a productive art.

Textual Objects: Accounting for the Role of Texts in the Everyday Life of Complex Organizations

Texts function as both means and motive for human activity in the same way that other technological objects function: They move from private mediational means to public motive as part of the shifting consciousness that sustains the everyday life of complex organizations. In complex organizations, the status of text, the condition of public visibility, is an achievement rather than a given. Seeing texts as objects calls our attention to a range of textual phenomena associated with the advent of information technologies. In infomated environments, the virtual states of textual objects are becoming ever more ubiquitous and consequential. A sample analysis of the texts produced and used in the context of the new technology of personal digital assistants (PDAs) suggests, for example, that such “ITexts” may facilitate the migration of the documentary reality of the workplace into the home.

Going Public: Collaborative Systems Design for Multidisciplinary Conversations

The driving idea behind our work has been the concept of going public with the goal of supporting the emerging work practices of multidisciplinary teams. In this chapter, we outline the theoretical basis for going public, describe the underlying architecture of a public collaborative system and introduce two embodiments, the Design Conference RoomTM and the Collaborative ClassroomTM. The underlying architecture of a public collaborative system, overlaid with lines of view, sight, and control, provides system-sharing functionality via the Reconfigurable Collaboration NetworkTM, supporting fully collaborative conversations, with their trajectory of work processes from private, to public, and back again. Innovations are described in the disciplinary domains of architecture, computer science, and communication.

Disciplining Discourse Discourse Practice in the Affiliated Professions of Software Engineering Design

The authors report an investigation of the discourse practices of the “affiliated professions” of software engineering design. Lists of design issues generated by students in computer science and technical communication were compared to lists produced by experts affiliated with software engineering and by students entering an unaffiliated profession. The results suggest that (a) the affiliated experts addressed a more balanced set of issues, (b) the students in computer science looked more like the affiliated experts in their attention to technical issues and more like the unaffiliated students in their attention to human issues, and (c) the students in technical communication looked more like the affiliated experts in their attention to the human issues and more like the unaffiliated students in their attention to the technical issues. The results are discussed in terms of a landscape of highly clustered, fractured, and stratified affiliated professions over which students travel during their educational and professional careers.

Teaching the post‐modern rhetor continuing the conversation on rhetorical agency

In responding to Gunn and Lundbergs critique of her report on rhetorical agency, Geisler uses their Ouija Board metaphor to undertake an analysis of what it might mean to teach the post‐modern rhetor. In particular, once the autonomous agent has been denaturalized, members of the profession of rhetoric have plenty to do in helping students first to engage with and then to participate in a more appropriately theorized rhetoric. Like the Ouija Board player, we may not be able to know how the results of our classroom teaching are related to our intentions. But—like every other rhetor—we need to recognize the costs of walking away from the game.

Teaming together apart: emergent patterns of media use in collaboration at a distance

We examine the emergent patterns of media use in collaboration at a distance. Two teams working at a distance to complete a software specifications project were observed using a mix of email, Web archiving, synchronous chat and applications sharing. Extending media richness theory, we describe the multiplicity of communication situations these teams faced in terms of group management, interpersonal work, task work and tools/media issues. We suggest that despite differences between the teams in both performance, communication and situation, common patterns emerged in which each media type appeared to afford a distinct characteristic mix of communication. For both teams, email was dominated by exchanges on topics of group management; application-sharing/chat environments were dominated by exchanges over task work. Based on these results concerning emergent patterns of media use, we offer predictions concerning media use in collaboration at a distance and suggest some practical guidelines for those interested in supporting such work effectively.

Textual genre analysis and identification

This chapter reports on a research program that investigates language and text from a rhetorical point of view. By rhetorical, we mean an approach that features the relationship between the speaker and the audience or between the writer and the reader. Fundamental to a rhetorical approach to language is an interest in linguistic and textual agency, how speakers and writers manage to use language strategically to affect audiences; and how audiences and readers, agents in their own right, manage, or not, to pick up on, register, and respond to a speaker or writers bids. Historical and cultural factors play a central role in how speakers and writer settle into agent roles vis-a-vis listeners and readers. It is therefore no surprise that rhetorical approaches to language treat language, culture, and history as deeply permeable with one another. Rhetorical approaches to language have, since ancient Greece, been the dominant approach for educating language-users in the western educational curriculum [1].

A collaborative learning environment for intellectual teamwork across the curriculum

While the solitary genius inventor remains a romantic icon, the modern workplace is dominated by collaborative activity. As products and services grow in complexity, collaborative design is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary and conducted by large teams of specialists (often including clients or client surrogates). Consequently, universities must prepare students for collaborative work. This paper describes an experimental facility in which new pedagogical opportunities have been created for teaching teamwork in each discipline and across disciplines.