From the Editors (pp. 115)

Interview

- Technological Literacy and the Humanities:  A Conversation with Cynthia Selfe.  [pp. 118-130]

Abstract:  Cynthia Selfe is Professor of Composition and Communication at Michigan Technical University in Houghton, Michigan. Author and co-author of numerous books, articles, essay collections, and textbooks, co-editor with Gail Hawisher of Computers and Composition Press and the journal Computers and Composition, and past chair of the CCCC (1997-98), Selfe is a leader in the effort to understand the relationships between technology, literacy, and communication. Her work in books such as Technological Literacy in the Twenty-First Century: The Perils of Not Paying Attention have helped many teachers and students address changes in technology by providing thoughtful insights and theoretical perspectives. On 31 October, 2003, IW Editors Mary Bowman, Wade Mahon, and Rebecca Stephens of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point spoke with Selfe by telephone.�Eds.

Articles

- Beyond �Current-Traditional� Design:  Assessing Rhetoric in New Media.  Meredith W. Zoetewey and Julie Staggers [pp. 132-152]

Abstract:  This article explores the implications of the pictorial turn as they relate to assessing student work in online media, using as examples what we think of as �personal writing� assignments from introductory composition and professional writing classes. First, we consider the remembered person/remembered event writing assessment found so often in the early chapters of composition textbooks. Then, we shift our attention to electronic portfolios, another kind of personal writing often required of professional writing students. The goal here is to offer instructors concrete, rhetorically-grounded strategies for reading students� multimedia writing, something that is largely absent from most scholarly discussions about this topic to date.

- Teaching Electronic Creative Writing: A Report from the Creative Industries Frontline.  Axel Bruns and Donna Lee Brien [pp.153-178]

Abstract:  This report traces the development of a course entitled Electronic Creative Writing at Queensland University of Technology. An initial concern in course development was that there is a danger in limiting the inherent possibilities of hypermedia writing through the very act of teaching it. In our view, the best way to avoid such stagnation is to combine practical, skills-based work with a theoretical and critical approach that looks at hypertext both as an industry and a creative genre. Students can be enabled to acquire the skills to locate, analyze and critique, as well as write and publish literary hypertexts. Those skills differ from but also build on students� prior skills with more traditional forms of writing.

Reviews

(First Person)²: A Study of Co-authoring in the Academy, by Kami Day and Michele Eodice  

Reviewed by Juanita Marilyn Smart (pp.179-184)    

The Testing Trap:  How State Writing Assessments Control Learning, by Geroge Hillocks, Jr

Reviewed by Elizabeth Giddens (pp. 185-189)  

Moving Beyond Academic Discourse:  Composition Studies and the Public Sphere, by Christian R. Weisser

Reviewed by Mada Petranovich Morgan (pp. 190-193)

Writing in the Academic Disciplines:  A Curricular History, by David Russell

Reviewed by Robert Samuels  (pp. 194-196)

Risky Writing:  Self-Disclosure and Self-Transformation in the Classroom, by Jeffrey Berman

Reviewed by Lisa Johnson (pp. 197-199)

Writing To Deadline:  The Journalist at Work, by Donald M. Murray

Reviewed by Elizabeth R. Turpin (pp.  200-205)

Interview

- Plagiarism, Pedagogy, and Controversy: A Conversation with Rebecca Moore Howard

Rebecca Moore Howard (rehoward@syr.edu) chairs and directs the Writing Program at Syracuse University. Her teaching and scholarly work focus on issues of plagiarism and authorship, composition pedagogy, and writing across the curriculum. She is author of Standing in the Shadow of Giants: Plagiarists, Authors, Collaborators (1999) and coauthor of The Bedford Guide to Teaching Writing in the Disciplines (1995). Her co-edited book, Coming of Age: The Advanced Writing Curriculum (2000), won the 2000-2001 Writing Program Administrators Book Award. Find more on her work and teaching at <http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/>. On 2 August 2002, Michele Eodice of the University of Kansas spoke with Howard by telephone.

Articles

- Putting Plagiarism in Context: Reflections from the People�s Republic of China.  David Alan Sapp 

Abstract: Discussions of plagiarism often assume students are either ignorant of ethical standards or simply dishonest. Such discussions should also consider understandings of knowledge in the information age, cultural differences with regards to intellectual property, and the pedagogical implications of enforcement. Plagiarism by students at a Chinese university must be seen in the context of the unfairness, injustice, and unethical practices they believe characterize contemporary business and political arenas. This case has implications for teachers in any culture in which a variety of contextual factors influence plagiarism.

- Rethinking Plagiarism: What Our Students Are Telling Us When They Cheat.  Joe Kraus 

Abstract: College faculty should move beyond a tendency to see student plagiarism as fully informed attempts to defraud the academic process.  Although student plagiarists often say that they agree with such charges, the nature and frequency of college-level plagiarism suggest otherwise.  Students have grown up in a world where media are omnipresent, where they have substantially reduced opportunity to distinguish their own thoughts from those around them.  Recognizing such changing circumstances, faculty should see themselves less as plagiarism police and begin to converse with their students about the evolving process of idea-making.  

- Lessons from Forrester: Nurturing Student Writing in a Climate of Suspicion.  Candace Spigelman 

Abstract:  Various institutional interventions designed to deter, apprehend, and punish plagiarism have had a negative impact on how students come to understand the processes of writing. Attitudes relating to private intellectual property and solitary textual production have become educational commonplaces that constrain the teaching of research methodology, the use of collaborative writing assignments, the active engagement of peer response groups, and the goals of writing center support. University codes of conduct, web-based plagiarism tracking, and classroom anti-plagiarism policies promote fears about sharing knowledge and imply distrust of students and tutors. Ultimately, efforts to prevent and punish the crime of plagiarism create a climate of suspicion, which stifles students� creativity, composition, and, most importantly, opportunities to learn how to write.

Reviews

Writing to Make a Difference: Classroom Projects for Community Change, edited by Chris Benson and Christian Scott

Reviewed by Elenore Long  

Exploding Steamboats, Senate Debates, and Technical Reports: The Convergence of Technology, Politics, and Rhetoric in the Steamboat Bill of 1838, by John R. Brockmann

Reviewed by Gaby Bedetti

A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Modern America, by James J. Murphy

Reviewed by James H. Wilson

Media and Communication Research Methods: An Introduction to Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, by Arthur Asa Berger

Reviewed by Cezar M. Ornatowski