taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) (07/12/90)
[ This article is reproduced with permission from Academic Computing,
January 1990, Vol. 4: No. 4, 16-19 and 45. It has garnered much
controversy; some rebuttals sent to Academic Computing will be
posted as a followup article immediately following this. -- Dave]
Student Writing: Can the Machine Maim the Message?
by
Marcia Peoples Halio
Assistant Director
The Writing Program
English Department, Delaware University
Since the advent of word processing, most writers have developed a clear
preference for one machine. Indeed, many people have an absolute
commitment to their favored computer that is in many ways as strong a
bond as marriage (maybe stronger!). As the director for one of the
University of Delaware's sites told me recently: "There are Macintosh
people, and there are IBM people. And it's nearly impossible to get
people to switch from one machine to the other!" But the machines
differ radically in their user-interface designs and operating systems.
Some (those following the IBM-PC model) are verbally-oriented, requiring
writers to type commands, and to remember words or letters to access the
features of DOS or of a particular word processing program. Others
(those following the Macintosh model) are graphics-oriented, requiring
writers to move around through their systems by using icons and
menu-driven software. Many composition/computer researchers have noted
the general effects that using computers have on students' writing,
(more revisions and a better attitude towards writing); but, in view of
the radically different designs of the most popular machines, perhaps we
should look at the possible effects that using a particular machine may
have.
The Flashy "Looker"
Computers shape text and our response to that text in many ways.
Indeed, most of us prize our word processors because of the ease they
afford us to move text around, delete, insert, correct, and revise, and
they produce multiple versions of essays effortlessly. And some of us
love to play with formatting features, experimenting with the shape of a
document until we find the one that is most aesthetically pleasing or
the one that seems easiest to read. Some of us wait in line to use the
laser printer rather than the dot matrix printer: the words we have
produced remain the same, regardless of the printer, but somehow they
look much more impressive when produced with the high-contrast clarity
of the laser printer than with the fuzziness of cheaper machines.
But what is all of this emphasis on appearance doing to the quality of
the prose that we and our students labor over?
In the not-too-distant past, the "given" around most high schools and
college campuses was that a typed paper would produce a higher grade
than a hand-written one. Many students even hired typists to make their
prose look polished, sometimes asking them to correct errors in spelling
and punctuation as they typed. Now, most students on campuses across
the country are learning to use word processors, eliminating the need
for paid typists. The site director at one University of Delaware lab
said recently: "Even football players are learning to type because it's
not macho to use a typewriter, but it's okay to use a computer!"
Indeed, a revolution of sorts is sweeping the college composition scene:
freshmen everywhere are learning to use the new technology to write
their papers. But if computers can have powerful effects on the
appearance of student writing, can they also have significant effects on
the content of their writing? Isn't it time to ask some difficult
questions? For example, are the products produced by students writing
on one machine (say Macintosh as compared to IBM) different from those
written on another? And does the choice of hardware and word processing
software in any way influence the stages in the writing process as well
as the content and style of the finished products?
At the University of Delaware, we have had a rather unusual opportunity
to compare students' writing on IBM and Macintosh computers. Since
1985, we have offered sections of freshman composition where students
can use either of these machines to do their essays. Sections are
identified as either Mac or IBM in the course selection catalog, and
students freely choose which type of technology they wish to use by
enrolling in a particular section. Therefore, students are a
self-selected group; but, because their SAT scores as well as the
results of a placement essay have put them in the medium writing-ability
range (they did not qualify for the Honors Program, nor were they placed
in the remedial sections), all students in the computer sections have
roughly comparable levels of writing ability.
Students enrolled in these sections receive word processing training at
our public computer sites (sites available to students in all classes in
the University). Students in both IBM and Macintosh sections receive
equal amounts of training on the computer: after approximately one and
one-half hours of formal instruction, they then work to improve their
computer skills from self-paced handouts prepared by our Academic
Computing Support services. They use the public sites on their own time
to write their papers.
When we began our program, we had no idea that using the Mac or the IBM
could have any effect on students' writing; but experience seems to
demonstrate otherwise.
First Glimmerings
In the spring of 1987, for the first time, I taught a section of
freshman composition using the Macintosh computer. Since I had been
teaching composition for several semesters using IBM PCs, I was little
prepared for the surprises that lay in wait.
Surprise number one came with the first batch of essays: never before
in twelve years of teaching had I seen such a sloppy bunch of papers.
Words were misspelled; commas were placed haphazardly; semicolons were
virtually nonexistent or placed by means of "breath" punctuation rules;
and such fine points as quotation marks, apostrophes, and question marks
were treated with gay abandon.
One student wrote in her essay on "American Eaters" (quotations are
verbatim, including original spelling and punctuation): "Eating habits
have changed also in this fitness craze. Americans have become concious
about what they are putting into their mouths. They are eating healthy
food instead of the fast food junk; low calorie, high protien, low
cholesteral and sodium. Even the fast food chains are changing so they
don't lose buisness and to accomodate the society. They have salad bars,
calorie counts, and still the eternal battle between a fryed or flame
brioled hamburger, who will ever know which is better?" My response was
typically authoritarian: "Take this stuff back. Proofread it, and
correct it! Then, and only then, will I grade it!" I expostulated with
student after student. This was a step in the teaching-writing process
that I had not encountered with my IBMers, but I decided to dismiss it as
a fluke -- an early symptom of spring fever and nothing more.
As the semester went on, I became aware that not only was there a
continuing problem with mechanics, but there was also a difference in
style and content in these essays from those I was accustomed to seeing
from freshmen.
As to style: paragraphs were brief, resulting in a lack of development
of thought; and sentences, too, were short, obviating the need for
complex punctuation. Word choice tended to be simple, spiced with slang
and colloquialisms, accentuating the simplistic and generalized nature
of the thought. As I looked closer at the writing, I became aware that
many of the students were affecting a sort of pop-style of the kind
found in advertising or in the mass media. One student wrote in his
essay on "Graffiti -- the Answer to World Peace," that "Graffiti is a
form of communication and communication will solve all the worlds
problems. Graffiti can be the answer to world peace. Graffiti spreads
a message to everyone; sayings like `Peace' and `Love all Mankind' help
promote a feeling of good will and brotherhood. Many graffiti artists
want peace and this is their way to protest what they think is wrong in
the world and communicate their message to their fellow man."
Another wrote (on "American Eaters" again): "Pizza, spaghetti,
twinkies, and hotdogs, these are just some of the foods that bring
Americans to their knees. But we show many contradictory attitudes
towards the food we eat. In my travels, I have become aquainted with
many peoople who fit distinctive categories of eaters such as, the `I am
on a diet' eater, the fast food junkie, the gluttons or `Fat Slobs,' and
the health food addict."
Although students in all sections had been given the same writing
suggestions (e.g., to write a cause and effect or classification essay
on some social phenomenon), Mac students chose to write about such
topics as fast food, dating, bars, television, rock music, sports,
relationships, and phenomena such as the foam "popcorn" chips that come
in so many packages. These topics struck me as very different in a
fundamental way from the essays on capital punishment, teenage
pregnancy, nuclear war, and drunk driving that I was accustomed to
receiving from the IBMers.
But, on the other hand, the papers that the Mac class turned in were
often very creatively illustrated, as the students quickly became
fascinated by the ease with which they could do graphics using MacPaint
and Macdraw. Indeed, it was difficult to separate text from "gilding"
when I made an attempt to evaluate the quality of the writing.
The semester ended, and somehow students did seem to learn something
about writing in the course, but I was still troubled by the experiences
I had while working with young writers who were using the Mac with its
nifty "mouse," large-print screen, and cute icons. I wondered just how
much the quality of their writing had been influenced by using this
"super friendly" pal as their amanuensis.
Suspicions Confirmed
The following fall (1988), as Assistant Director of the Writing Program
at the University of Delaware, I assigned several instructors and TAs to
teach over twenty-five computer sections of freshman composition; five
were assigned to both IBM and Macintosh sections. Near the end of the
semester, I decided to query the teachers who had taught groups using
both types of microcomputers. In order not to influence their comments
in any way, I merely put a note in their mailboxes asking them only if
they had noticed any differences in the writing of the IBM and Mac
students in style, structure, and mechanics.
Quickly, four of the five instructors responded. Two showed up in my
office saying, "Marcia, it just dawned on us that the sections we have
been complaining about all semester because of the sloppy writing and
the fluffiness of the topics are Macintosh sections. We don't have the
same complaint about the IBM sections. Is that what you were thinking
of?"
Two instructors responded in writing, one saying: "Students write
differently on the Mac -- frankly, I think their writing is worse, and I
don't think it is because they are essentially worse writers. There's
something about the large print and big margins on the Mac that seems to
encourage a simple sentence structure and childish vocabulary. I also
find that my students love to play with the various kinds of type faces
(fonts) on the Mac; consequently, students in my Mac section end up
unnecessarily emphasizing ten or twenty words in each of their papers
because they like to use the different kinds of type!"
The fourth instructor's note said simply that although he was sure there
was a difference, he wasn't sure exactly what it was. He made it
unanimous among the respondents that there is some sort of effect on
students' writing when they use a Mac, different from when they use an
IBM.
To test my perceptions about the childishness of the Macwriters' prose
compared to the IBMers, I decided to run twenty essays randomly selected
from both Mac and IBM sections through the Writers' Workbench Text
Analysis programs on the VAX mainframe. The results obtained from the
printout of the Style program confirmed my initial impressions: The Mac
students were writing far fewer complex sentences than the IBMers (30
percent compared to 49.5 percent). They were also using many more "to
be" verbs (32 percent compared to 23 percent), a sign according to
composition theorists of weak and lifeless prose. Readability scores
(as judged by the Kincaid scale) averaged 12.1 (college level) for the
IBM students, but the Mac users obtained a score of only 7.95 (slightly
less than 8th grade). Closely tied to the readability scores was the
measure of sentence length: an average of 16.3 words for the Mac
students and 22.6 for the IBM students. And the Mac students -- much
more than the IBM students -- used the subject of their sentences as the
sentence opener (80 percent Mac; 66.5 percent IBM). Teachers know that
weak writers generally rely on subject openers, while more sophisticated
writers employ more varied openings. It is also significant that none
of the Mac students used subordinating conjunctions as sentence openers,
while nine percent of the IBM sentences employed subordination as a link
between ideas. Finally, the Mac students were noticeably poorer proofreaders
than the IBMers, averaging fifteen misspellings per essay, compared to
four for the IBMers.
Researchers Say
During my subsequent research in the literature on computers and
writing, I found several suggestions that may help explain some of the
reasons that students write differently on the Mac. While many
researchers commented on the ease of using the Mac and on the enthusiasm
of their students, I found that no one seemed to be investigating
whether students' writing was different on this machine than on others.
I did, however, find some comments about the effects of using technology
to write that seemed particularly applicable to the contrast I saw
between the Mac students' prose and the IBMers'.
For example, Daiute, in Writing and Computers, mentions a phenomenon she
calls, "Talky Writing." She says that "People write differently on the
computer than they do when they are slowed down by the pencil or
typewriter, and they may not leave time for their internal sensors to
check or rethink what they have said." She further states that this
type of writing is "loosely constructed," resulting in more compound and
fewer complex sentences. I think that this tendency to loose,
conversational construction may be intensified by using the Macintosh,
because students interviewed in our lab said they tend to think of the
Mac as a sort of a toy. It reminds them of the games they play at home;
the mouse even seems like a sort of joystick to them, and they have
nicknamed the printers in the lab Happy, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, and
Bashful, reminders of childhood friends. Students may find the Mac so
"friendly," they "talk" to it easily, resulting in more of the kind of
writing that Daiute mentions in her book.
In contrast, there are no nicknames for the hardware in the IBM lab.
Students seem to associate "The Big Blue" with seriousness of purpose
and adult-type activities. Signing on to a PC seems to connote
work-time (maybe even three-piece suits), not play-time.
Daiute also mentions a phenomenon she calls "Graphic Writing." She says
that "Rather than reducing language to smaller word forms, computer
writers may eventually begin using images...If graphic communication
becomes fast and easy to understand, it could supplement or replace
writing for certain purposes." Because of the emphasis it places on
easy production of graphics, the Mac may appeal to writers who find it
easier to express themselves in images than in words. Indeed, many
students in the Macintosh sections created highly
expressive images which they used as gilding for their papers. But do
we want to change the traditional goals of freshman comp, which have
always been to help students to express themselves in words? Care must
be taken as we include the technology in our programs to define clearly
(or redefine) what we consider to be acceptable expository prose to be.
Indeed, even some students seem to be concerned about the direction that
writing is taking. In his article on "Classical Rhetoric and
Computer-Assisted Composition: Extra-Textual Features as Delivery,"
Reynolds says that features such as headers, footers, paragraph markers,
inset windows, illustrations, and font, pitch, and type layout
manipulations can be a way for students to make use of devices that
orators used to use to help an audience with memory and delivery.
Acknowledging that some sort of fundamental change is going on in the
production of texts, he even speaks of "the western world's shift in
progress from writing dominance to word processing dominance." Later in
the same article, Reynolds says that several students have asked him "if
[he] thinks computers will change the way writers revise their work once
they start spending more time on their 'look' than on their 'sound'."
Obviously, the students themselves realize that something fundamental is
happening to their writing with all the emphasis on extra-textual and
graphics features. (For another discussion of this issue, see also
Cynthia Selfe: "Redefining Literacy: The Multilayered Grammars of
Computers").
And what about proofreading? In "Graphic Writing" Daiute comments on
students' problems with proofreading word processed text: she says,
"The neat appearance of word processed text can fool writers who do not
read their writing carefully." And she talks about a student who said,
"My adviser was absolutely right. The writing was really a mess. I
guess I didn't notice it because the printouts looked so good."
Macintosh produced text can easily look wonderful because of the
graphics capability and multiple fonts available, so students may need
to be taught to reread their work to see whether their writing is
impressive merely because of surface appearance, or whether their
thoughts are well-defined and structured.
Another point Daiute makes is that "...the writing instrument itself can
affect the cognitive process." And so, I ask, is that effect different
if the instrument is designed to appeal to different levels of maturity
and sophistication? The lab assistants who work in a site on our campus
that has both Macs and IBMs contributed some interesting thoughts on
this subject. They said that their experience has shown that it is
harder to learn to operate the IBMs than the Macs; but, as one assistant
stated, "Students (and other humans) tend to get sloppy if something is
too easy." I wonder: Can a technology be too easy, too playful for
young, immature writers to use? Can such a technology arrest their
writing at a less mature stage of development?
In an earlier essay, "The Computer as Stylus and Audience," Daiute
mentions the "computer's demand for precision." She says: "Typically,
commands must appear in only one form. A program rejects a wrong
command, including an extra space or comma. In such cases, writers must
scrutinize every word of text and the commands they use." She
continues, "Although this causes beginning users some frustration, it
eventually encourages a closer self-monitoring. As writers work with an
instrument that responds `unrecognized command,' they become sensitive
to other types of unclear wording." But because the Mac, unlike the
IBM, does not ask students to type commands -- indeed the only thing
they must type is their papers -- this "training effect" which Daiute
cites as a positive attribute of writing on computers, is lost.
Halpern and Liggett in Computers and Composing suggest that teachers
need to alert students "to the full range of reviewing, revising, and
editing strategies they can use for different occasions, rather than to
emphasize only those which seem most appropriate to professional
writers." They talk about Martin Joos' concept of multiple audiences in
The Five Clocks and the spontaneous dialogic style in contrast to the
formal style in which the speaker depends heavily on advance planning.
I wonder if the Macintosh writers, because of their heavy predilection
for spontaneity of writing and on talking to the computer/reader, fail
to get to the more formal level that (according to the data on sentence
complexity generated by the Writer's Workbench) the IBM students have
reached? Perhaps the Mac design is well suited to the prewriting stages
of composition, where emphasis is on unblocking ideas and getting a
paper going (see Ron Fortune's article, "Visual and Verbal Thinking:
Drawing and Word Processing Software in Writing Instruction"); but it
may be less well suited to the later stages of composing when writers
need to refine and polish their product.
Unanswered Questions
Many issues require further study. For example, what effect does the
small screen on the Mac have on students' writing as compared to the
larger display on the IBM? (See Haas, Christine: "Seeing It on the
Screen Isn't Really Seeing It" for a discussion of students' problems
editing from the screen.) Some students say that the Mac's small screen
helps them focus on small issues (this, of course, is contrary to my
findings about punctuation and spelling), but they find they lose sight
of the whole paper. Peter H. Lewis, in his Personal Computer column
for The New York Times, (July 11, 1989) discusses the issue of the Mac
screen size in his "For Many Writers, a Mac Is Ideal" piece. Lewis says
that [although] "[m]any writers still hold a grudge against the early 128
kilobyte Macintosh [because] the system was slow, lacked a hard disk, had
a small screen and came with only one word processing program, MacWrite...
the `modern' Mac is a different story." He continues: "If we were
shopping for the ideal writing machine today, we would probably choose a
Macintosh IIcx with 1 megabyte of memory, a 40 megabyte hard disk drive,
and a 3.5 inch Floppy Disk High Density disk drive...list price: $5,369...
Then we would add a full-page monochrome monitor [to surmount the problems
with the small screen] and videocard, $1,099 and $599 respectively."
And what about the Mac's keyboard compared to the IBM's? Lewis said he
would upgrade his with "a 101 Mac keyboard ($194.95) from Datadesk
International, Inc. of Van Nuys, Calif...Total list price: more than
$7,000 [for the upgraded Mac package]. Street price: about $5,000."
Many students in our labs have mentioned that the feel of the "Blue's"
board is much closer to the feel of an electric typewriter than the
Mac's. Does the "feel" of the keyboard affect the accuracy of typing,
resulting in fewer misspellings and plain old typos?
Another area that needs research: does the "playful effect" wear off?
The lab assistants agreed with my finding that freshman writers tend to
play a lot with graphics and fonts on the Mac, probably to the detriment
of their writing, but they felt that the novelty of the graphics
capabilities may wear off. But if the "playful effect" lasts for the
duration of Freshman Composition (as my results indicate), what happens
to writers who may get no other formal instruction in writing, at least
until they take a second writing course in their junior or senior year?
Perhaps students who are strong writers to begin with can survive the
"playful effect," but what about the weak ones? It seems to me that
schools with only Macintosh computers may need to alert teachers to the
possible effects that using this icon-driven, super-friendly system can
have on students' writing -- especially since freshman English classes
are often taught by TAs or new teachers who may not be aware of the
capabilities of freshman level of writers.
And what about students who are word-oriented rather than
graphics-oriented? Having to "translate" the icons into words could add
an extra step to the writing process for them. (Some of us have
difficulty "translating" the icons on the international traffic signs!)
How about students who are not manually dexterous such as handicapped
users, learning disabled students, and many English majors? Is it
possible that the mouse-controlled system may actually hinder their
writing process? On the other hand, the large print and blank space on
the Mac's screen might help some dyslexic students to decipher text.
Fears and Misgivings
I am still troubled by my experience (and the experience of the
instructors mentioned above). Although many researchers have reported
that students love to use the Mac because it is so user-friendly, I
wonder if freshmen -- particularly those who do not show a high level of
verbal ability in placement tests -- should use the Mac to write. Can
we be starting them off wrong? Should teachers give students on the Mac
some sort of special list of instructions, cautioning them against the
pitfalls they may encounter? Moreover, since IBM is moving in its OS/2
operating system toward icons and menu-driven software, will possible
advantages for cognitive growth and development be lost from their
machines?
Is our experience unique, or have others observed this same set of
phenomena? Presently, I am in the midst of conducting a more controlled
experiment, but other researchers may want to pursue lines of inquiry,
too, especially since so many questions remain unanswered.
In an age when, as Marshal McLuhan said, "The medium is the message," it
is vital that teachers, computer designers, and those responsible for
planning writing labs pay close attention to the effects of technology
on writing -- especially if one effect is a drastic change from the type
of discourse that has long been valued in the academic world.
Note: Special thanks to Lab Assistants at the Morris Library
Macintosh/IBM site: Rich Reuling, Bashar Hantouli, and Mohammed
Soliman. Their comments were very valuable.
REFERENCES
Beach, Richard and Lillian Bridwell. Eds. New Directions in
Composition Research. NY: Guilford Press (1984).
Bitter, Gary. "Computers in Freshman Composition Courses," Classroom
Computer Learning. (May/June 1989) 13-17.
Bolt, Richard A. The Human Interface: Where People and Computers Meet.
Belmont, CA: Lifetime Learning Publications (1984).
Burch, John L. Ed. Computers, the Non-Technological (Human) Factors:
A Recommended Reading List on Computer Ergonomics and User Friendly
Design. Lawrence, KA: Report Store. (1984).
Collins, J. and E. A. Sommers. Eds. Writing On-Line: Using
Computers in the Teaching of Writing. Upper Montclair, NJ:
Boynton/Cook (1985).
Cooper, Charles R. and Lee Odell. Research on Composing: Points of
Departure. Urbana, IL: NCTE (1978).
Daiute, Colette. "The Computer as Stylus and Audience." CCC vol. 34
(1983) 134-45.
Daiute, Colette. Writing and Computers. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley
(1985).
Fortune, Ron. "Visual and Verbal Thinking: Drawing and Word-Processing
Software in Writing Instruction," in Critical Perspectives on Computers
and Composition Instruction. Eds. Selfe and Hawisher. NY: Teachers
College, Columbia University (1989) 145-161.
Halpern, Jeanne W. and Sarah Liggett. Computers and Composing: How
the New Technologies are Changing Writing. Carbondale: Southern
Illinois Press (1984).
Haas, Christine. "Seeing It on the Screen Isn't Really Seeing It:
Computer Writers' Reading Problems." in Critical Perspectives on
Computers and Composition Instruction. NY: Teachers College, Columbia
University (1989) 16-29.
Johassen, David H., ed. The Technology of Text: Principles for
Structuring, Designing, and Displaying Text. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Education Technology Publications (1982).
Joos, Martin. The Five Clocks. NY: Harcourt, (1961).
Lewis, Peter H. "For Many Writers, a Mac Is Ideal." The New York
Times. (July 11, 1989) C7.
McWilliams, P. A. The Word Processing Book: A Short Course in
Computer Literacy. Los Angeles: Prelude Press (1982).
Nancarrow, Paula Reed. Word Processors and the Writing Process: An
Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press (1984).
Peterson, Bruce, Cynthia Selfe, and Billie Wahlstrom. "CAI and the
Writing Process: Questions for Research and Evaluation." CCC 35: 1
(1984) 98-101.
Reynolds, John Frederick. "Classical Rhetoric and Computer-Assisted
Composition: Extra Textual Features as Delivery." Computer-Assisted
Composition Journal. 3: 3 (1989) 101-107.
Rodrigues, Dawn and Raymond Rodrigues. Teaching Writing with a Word
Processor. NY: Holt (1985). Schwartz, Helen and
Lillian Bridwell. "A Selected Bibliography on Computers in
Composition." CCC 35: 1 (1984) 71-77.
Selfe, Cynthia. "Redefining Literacy: The Multilayered Grammars of
Computers." in Critical Perspectives on Computers and Composition
Instruction. Eds. Selfe and Hawisher. NY: Teachers College, Columbia
(1989) 3-15. University.
Selfe, Cynthia. Computer-Assisted Instruction in Composition: Create
Your Own! Urbana, IL: NCTE (1986).
Sharples, Mike. Cognition, Computers, and Creative Writing. West
Sussex, England: Ellis Horwood, Ltd (1985).
Sheingold, K., Kane, J. and Endreweit, M. "Microcomputer Use in
Schools: Developing a Research Agenda." Harvard Educational Review.
53: 4 (1983) 412-32.
Solomon, Gwen. Teaching Writing with Computers: the Power Process.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. (1986).
Wresch, William, Ed. The Computer in Composition Instruction. Urbana,
IL: NCTE (1984).
Further articles on Technology and Writing from Academic Computing
"English Department Turns on Computers to Enhance Writing Instruction",
Stuart E. Ohmans and Tom George, University of Central Florida,
December 1987/January 1988, Vol. 2: No. 4,36-37 and 62-66.
"Redefining the Book: Some Preliminary Problems", Gregory Crane,
Harvard University, February 1988, Vol 2: No. 5, 6-11 and 36-41.
"Softcopy and Hardcopy: Wordprocessing and Writing Process", Diane
Pelkus Balestri, Princeton University, February 1988, Vol. 2: No. 5,
14-17 and 41-45.
"The ENFI Project: A Networked Classroom Approach to Writing
Instruction", Trent Batson, Gallaudet University, February 1988, Vol.
2: No. 5, 32-33 and 55-56.
"Writing, Technology and Secondary Orality", James S. Noblitt, Cornell
University, February 1988, Vol. 2: No. 5, 34-35 and 56-57.
"Siren Shapes: Exploratory and Constructive Hypertexts", Michael Joyce,
Jackson (MI) Community College, November 1988, Vol. 3: No. 4, 10-14
and 37-42.
"The Future of the Scholarly Journal", Lauren H. Seiler,
Queens College, CUNY, September 1989, Vol. 4: No. 1, 14-16 and 66-69.
-20-krweiss@ucdavis.edu (Ken Weiss) (07/13/90)
> Can a technology be too easy, too playful for young, immature writers > to use? Can such a technology arrest their writing at a less mature > stage of development? Good Lord, yes! We'd better start confiscating pencils. They're just too goddam easy to use... Is it possible that the students' choice of Mac or PC is non-random? It seems like the Mac sections would be loaded with individuals with NO previous computer experience, plus those with previous experience on Macintosh. The PC sections would probably contain a preponderance of students already computer literate. I have no problem with the proposition that computer literacy is a predictor of literacy in general. I can't believe that a GUI makes people less inclined to run a spelling checker. Ken Weiss
ac08@vaxb.acs.unt.edu (C. Irby) (07/13/90)
Ken Weiss asks:
> Is it possible that the students' choice of Mac or PC is non-random?
A better question:
Did the Mac word processor used in the classes have a spelling checker?
Or did the "computer literate" teachers just hand the Mac users an early
version of MacWrite, not realizing that there was no integral spell checker?
Another question:
"Does the MS-DOS format inhibit the critical thinking facilities of
college instructors?"
It is reasonably obvious that this paper was not critiqued before release,
or if it was, it was by people with a leaning towards DOS...
C Irbyjessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher) (07/19/90)
Ken Weiss asks: > It is reasonably obvious that this paper was not critiqued before > release, or if it was, it was by people with a leaning towards DOS... It is also obvious that those that use Macs are greatly offended and not willing to look at the article very objectively. No where in the article did the author suggest that the study was scientific in any way or that it should be taken as gospel. The entire article was written to ask the questions so that people could at least consider the notions behind how user interfaces affect the writing ability of those that use them. I thought the article was very interesting and thought provoking - exactly what it was intended for. I did see inconsistancies, but once again it was not a formal study with proper controls or proper consideration of other causes of this supposed difference in writing ability between those that use Macs and those that use PCs. For those of you that are so shaken up by this article - stop complaining and prove her wrong. Jesse Asher