Research articles (RAs) have been recognized as a distinct genre in the English-using discourse community because of their unique writing conventions. Despite the great number of studies on the analysis of the textual or phrasal aspects of abstracts of RAs, few have been transformed into actual teaching materials for EFL graduate students. The…

Projects that require students to perform ethnographic research can be a form of empowerment. Lester Faigley argues that while ethnographic research still requires invention and other writing skills required of more traditional assignments, it has the added value of giving students the opportunity to explore their own locations within the culture.…

Discussion of the use of electronic conferencing to form a discourse community focuses on a case study of student consultants working in a microcomputer lab supporting writing courses at Michigan Technological University. The formulation of a group identity, as well as group values, goals, and expectations are discussed. (16 references) (LRW)

The new "Computers and Writing" course implemented by the division of rhetoric and composition at the University of Texas at Austin is an elective second-year writing course that satisfies the university's requirement for writing component courses. In this course, instructors and students generate and apply rhetorical terminology and…

The use of computers in English departments, especially in composition classes, has become a primary site of contention between those who find technology liberating and those who find only new configurations of the same old hierarchies. Much of the excitement stems from a perceived connection between new classroom technologies and current theories…

Computer mediated communication (CMC) tends to erase power structures because such communication somehow undermines or escapes discursive limits. Online discussions seem to promote rhetorical experimentation on the part of the participants. Finding a way to explain disparities between electronic discussion and oral discussion has proven difficult.…