{ theoretical considerations; } K Prof. Karen Springsteen Rhetoric and Technical Communication

Viewing the page source A radical separation of form and content? An era of copy-paste? Plagiarism? Who owns writing?

Discovering the available means of persuasion (Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric) What is the source of creativity? What happens to the myth of the individual author? The enabling assumption is that the traditional emphasis in English on linguistic meaning and written language…is outmoded and that the curriculum must now put learners in touch with various and interlinked representational resources, as well as develop a meta-language to explain differences between text forms and to relate them to their contexts of production and use. (John Trimbur’s review of the book Multiliteracies)

Creating a grammar, syntax, and lexicon How does a language “hang together”? What does it mean to read? How do language and literacy change over time?

Moving beyond the typewriter How do we conceptualize the print-digital relationship? What are the metaphors we use to understand literate practice? How do digital writing technologies change our expectations of writing?

Interfacing: where audience and ethos meet Who does this website want me to be? What may be lost if we only ever read another’s work as a freshly formatted file of xhtml or Microsoft Word?