The Invisible Interface: MS Word in the Writing Center

Writing centers have developed best practices in order to help student writers, most popularly, non-directive tutoring pedagogies, based on the use of paper drafts. These same tutoring protocols have been extended to computer-based face-to-face sessions under the assumption that they will have similar outcomes, which subscribes to the myth of technology as a transparent tool that does not affect the writing that emerges from it. A lack of attention to computers in the writing center extends to the use of word processing programs like MS Word. This article discusses these issues in the context of a case study of one tutor in computer-based tutoring sessions in a writing center. Throughout these sessions, situations arose involving the use of the MS Word interface that affected the nature of the session itself. This case study suggests that computers, and particularly the MS Word program, need to be examined critically to consider how their use corresponds with the mission of the writing center itself. There are a number of strategies that can also help tutors use MS Word in ways that will best serve students’ individual needs.     

Composition, Computer Games, and the Absence of Writing

Computer games fundamentally incorporate composition into their game play. Highly symbolic constructs, whose photo-realistic graphical environments are often produced by combining pre-existing elements, computer games not only require players to read and to make meaning of symbols presented on the screen but to write and ultimately to revise their actions in the game relationship to these symbols. This activity, which is often constructed as “play” rather than writing, is significant in that, although its effects appear to be limited to the conversations taking place on the screen, its focus is ultimately on how players read and write (compose) themselves in relationship to the game and to the larger socio-political structures upon which the game is beholden. Computer games thus have the potential to help students not only understand the fundamentals of the compositional process and the larger socio-political structures within which this process occurs but to recognize how these socio-political structures construct reading and writing and in doing so determine the way that the individuals subject to them construct (read and write) themselves.     

Computer access and student achievement in the early school years

Abstract This study examines the assumption that optimal learning occurs in classrooms where every child has access to their own computer. Grades 1 to 4 classrooms in seven schools of an urban school district were given laptop computers in three different student-to-computer ratios (1 : 1, 2 : 1, 4 : 1). Throughout the school year three samples of student writing were taken at equal intervals and classrooms were regularly observed. Writing samples were also collected from control classrooms in the same schools that did not have access to computers. A mancova analysis of holistic ratings of writing samples revealed that by the end of the school year students in the 2 : 1 ratio classrooms improved significantly more than their counterparts in the other groups; the control group students demonstrated the least improvement, while the 1 : 1 and 4 : 1 groups showed intermediate levels of improvement. The study concludes by questioning the long-range efforts at equipping schools with one computer for every student.     

Computers and writing: Casting a broader net with theory and research

Today, teachers of English are faced with the problem of developing new vantage points from which to consider the use of computers in writing programs, writing classrooms, and individual writing processes. Until this time, the profession has subscribed to a limited view of computers and their effects on writing — a view circumscribed by the paradigms of other disciplines or by our own past experiences with teaching machines and paper-and-pencil composing. These visions are not capable of accommodating the larger and more radical changes wrought by the electronic medium we are now using. By subscribing to them, English teachers may, as Coleridge says, have created a tacit compact not to pass beyond a certain limit in speculating about computers. This paper suggests four overlapping areas of exploration, four points of departure that might help us spark creative re-formations of our thinking about computers and their relationship to writing: 1.) Computers and teaching writing, 2.) Computers and language theory, 3.) Computers and learning from the past, 4.) Computer research in other fields.Cynthia Selfe has been chair of the NCTE assembly of Computers in English and a member of the CCCC Committee on Instructional Technology. Billie J. Wahlstrom is chair of the Graduate Program in Rhetoric and Technical Communication at Michigan Technological University and a consultant on interactive videodisc design for Michigan Tech Software.     

Do millennial undergraduates’ views of writing differ when surveyed online versus on paper?

The purpose of this study was to test whether different survey delivery conditions made a difference in assessing college students’ practices, affect, and conceptions of academic and nonacademic writing. The delivery conditions represented combinations of three underlying factors: survey format (online versus paper-and-pencil), location (classroom, lab, home), and supervision (proctored or not). Participants (N = 268) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) a paper version of the survey administered in classrooms at scheduled proctored sessions; (2) an online version administered in scheduled proctored sessions in a computer lab; (3) an online version at a location and time of the students’ choice. The survey had 103 closed-ended and three open-response questions. Results showed different participation rates across conditions and more variability in time spent for the “home online” group. However, there were few differences by condition to substantive questions regarding the students’ practices, conceptions, and affective responses associated with writing. The only place where responses differed by condition was in response to the optional open-ended evaluation of the survey.     

基于人眼视觉系统模型的湿纸密写方法

密写是信息安全领域的一个重要分支,近年来引起了各国研究机构的高度重视.提出的基于人眼视觉系统的湿纸密写方法根据图像局部纹理复杂程度、对噪声的敏感程度以及明亮度对图像的小波系数选择性地嵌入秘密信息,从而达到隐蔽通信的目的.秘密信息接收者无需知道具体的密写方法,只需做简单的矩阵乘法操作就可以提取秘密信息,实现了秘密信息传输过程中密写方法的不可见性.实验表明,该密写方法除具有很好的鲁棒性外,在隐蔽性上比传统频域内的密写方法有了很大提升,是一种非常实用的密写方法.     

Measuring Quality of Writing of Construction Specifications

The quality of writing of construction specifications is one of the greatest challenges facing construction contractors or their representatives in today’s business environment. Writers of construction specifications have been criticized for their contribution toward construction disputes. Although the construction business environment has moved toward modernization of some of its business processes, claims arising from construction specifications continue to rise. Equally, a written exposition of a quantitative instrument that measures the quality of writing of construction specifications is not available in the literature. Thus the construction industry needs to develop methodologies for measuring the quality of writing of construction specifications that should overcome their current underperformance in this area. This paper presents the procedures that underlie the quality of writing of construction specifications, gives a management tool for facilitating its measurement, and also presents the results of construction contractors’ practices regarding the quality of said writing. The results show that the surveyed Malawian construction contractors were in the process of putting in place principles to govern the quality of writing of construction specifications.     

论现代平面设计对中国水墨画的借鉴

现代平面设计需要多元文化背景的支撑,以适应现代社会信息交流和沟通的需要.立足于本土文化,保持本土平面设计的特性,则具有重要的意义.中国传统水墨画提供了借鉴的可能性.它从构图、色彩、笔墨技法以及意境等方面对现代平面设计有着不容忽视的借鉴作用.对水墨的借鉴不应仅仅是形式的模仿,更需要发掘其深层次的元素和内涵,理解水墨文化的深层意蕴,将这些元素转化为设计师自身独特的设计语言,唯此才能扩大借鉴的广度和深度,为中国的平面设计带来更新的设计纬度.     

Writing with speech recognition: The adaptation process of professional writers with and without dictating experience

This paper describes the adaptation and writing process of writers who have started using speech recognition systems for writing business texts. The writers differ in their previous writing experience. They either have previous classical dictating experience or they are used to writing their texts with a word processor. To gather the process data for this study we chose complementary research methods. First the participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire and given instruction about the speech recognition system. Then they were observed five times using the speech recognition system during their day-to-day work. Finally, they also filled in a logging questionnaire after each task.

The quantitative analysis of the use of the writing mode shows that those participants who had no previous dictating experience, tend to use the voice input more extensively, both for formulating and reviewing. This result is confirmed in the more detailed case analysis. The other analyses in the case study—i.e. repair, revision, and pause analysis-refine the differences in the organization of the writing process between the writers, and show that the speech recognition mode seems to create a writing environment that is open for different writing profiles.     

学生英语写作状况调查与分析

传统的英语测试体系一直十分强调学生的写作技巧，而学生实际的英语写作能力却不尽人意，这一点很多人已达成共识。职业学校学生的应用文写作状况又如何呢？他们在写作中遇到了什么问题，怎样去写，希望在哪方面得到提高。这些都是本文感兴趣的问题。通过对徐州医药高等职业学校03级学生的问卷调查和分析，初步了解这方面的情况。