Computers and Composition最新文献

Revising Marxist theories of circulation with affect theory, this article establishes a new model of rhetorical analysis that positions rhetorical exchange as a circulatory infrastructure of late capitalism. By measuring the value produced by rhetors and audiences in rhetorical exchange, we can see how the daily rhetorical activity of neoliberal subjects captures our behavior, positioning us a raw material for late capitalists. This new theory of rhetorical circulation is tested and revised by a qualitative study on the mundane communication of neoliberal subjects, in this case, the group chat of one fantasy football league. Fantasy football communication creates an ambient backdrop for its users, leading to quotidian rhetorical exchanges in clearly defined social networks. The study shows the contours of rhetorical exchange in one league's GroupMe chat. I found that, in exchange, subjects transform their investments into social and cultural capital (Bourdieu's capital forms). Ultimately, subjects can produce what I call affective capital, a uniquely neoliberal capital form. I find that the immense value of affective capital produced by league members in rhetorical exchange points to the reasons why neoliberal subjects repeatedly return to platforms that harvest our data.

This study inspires new pedagogical practices with evolving technological innovations. One example of such innovation is the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in education. The potential impact of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, on composition education has caused concerns among educators due to its human-like writing capabilities. However, there is no escape from ChatGPT-generated text, which is influenced by prompt engineering. Such engineering can lead to underlying issues in content, prompting a pedagogical opportunity for understanding human-written and AI-generated texts. Since, to this date, there is no single reliable source for identifying AI-generated text, this study introduces a pedagogical approach, DETECT, with two major goals: (1) explore the nuances that differentiate human expression from the algorithmic patterns and tendencies of generative AI writing and (2) inspire ways to integrate generative AI in composition instruction in a post-plagiarism era. Using exploratory practice research, this article examines DETECT in composition instruction of 32 students during Fall 2023 and Spring 2024. The findings showed that using DETECT improved students’ confidence in analyzing human-written and AI-generated texts, which enhanced their recognition and appreciation of their own writing voice. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for the possibilities of generative AI in writing instruction.

This article considers the influence of algorithmic attention systems on writing and human interaction within digital environments. Building on existing scholarship in writing studies on rhetorical strategies and critical literacies for algorithmic contexts, the author discusses how algorithmic attention systems and the conventions of writing-as-content reinforce a particular view of human attention. This approach to attention is especially problematic within forms of social media that involve interpersonal communication. The article discusses the possible future directions for writing teachers and researchers to continue conversations about the ethics of algorithmic attention systems and alternatives to thinking of writing as content.

Though many studies have been conducted on written language task complexity, much remains to be explored about its relationship with writers’ fluency. In this study, we examined the potential impact of cognitive task complexity on L1 and L2 learners’ writing and spelling fluency, and the writing fluency and spelling differences between two L2 learner groups when performing tasks of varied complexity. Ninety university students– 30 native English speakers, and 30 Hispanic and 30 Chinese English learners–participated in the study. We recorded the process performance of the three learner groups using computer keystroke logging software– Inputlog 7.0– while they completed two argumentative tasks of varied cognitive complexity. The participants’ writing performance was analyzed using multiple fluency measures. The results generally showed that task complexity plays an influential role in differentiating the participants’ writing fluency, and that task complexity interacts with the three learner groups’ writing and spelling fluency performance. This offers invaluable insights that can be harnessed by technology developers to tailor their tools, furnishing learners with the means to adeptly navigate the intricate terrain of task-induced fluency challenges. Such nuanced understanding holds the potential to refine technological solutions, ultimately empowering proficient TBLT-driven L2 writers.

This paper investigates the YouTube channel 2inaZoo, using it as a case study to explore the Orientalism embedded in digital media produced by members of the evangelical adoption movement. It builds on the theoretical framework of Digital Orientalism proposed by scholars in other disciplines, applying it to digital rhetoric to investigate how discursive elements unique to digital media, such as YouTube thumbnails and intro clips, can construct Orientalist meaning in texts. Through a landscape analysis of 2inaZoo’s YouTube homepage and inductive coding of their fifteen most popular videos, this paper uses the framework of Digital Orientalism to argue that 2inaZoo uses digital tools to perpetuate Orientalist discourse through objectification, essentialism, and commodification.

This study explores how direct quotations are incorporated into video essays through multimodal resources, with the hope of contributing to the growing body of research that examines the rhetorical and discourse features unique to the emerging multimodal genres in academic communication. Fifty-two cases of multimodal quotations were collected from 15 video essays published in a peer-reviewed online journal. The inductive analysis yielded three types of incorporating direct quotations–(semi)isolated, transplanted, and integrated quotations–that vary in terms of how closely the quoted materials are connected to the co-texts through explicit use of linguistic cues. The findings also highlight the varied ways in which quoted authors are made visible,shedding light on the rhetorical intentions behind the use and configuration of multimodal quotations. This study generates valuable insights into how new conventions are being formed and practiced in a digital genre and provides pedagogical implications for approaching explicit intertextuality in teaching multimodal writing tasks.

This article describes five first-year writing instructors’ experiences with personalizing shared curriculum across three different course delivery formats (face-to-face, hybrid, online). The data is drawn from teaching journals that the co-authors, a non-tenure track, part-time Lecturer and a tenured Writing Program Administrator, and three Graduate Student Teaching Associates completed throughout Fall 2022. The findings illustrate both benefits and drawbacks related to shared curriculum: discussing and troubleshooting curriculum in a community of practice is highly valuable, but separating course delivery from course design is challenging. In our study, those challenges manifested as disconnects between course content and disciplinary identity, as well as personal feelings of failure. On the other hand, the need to personalize shared curriculum across multiple delivery formats proved productive, especially when instructors used asynchronous online materials as a starting point to develop hybrid and face-to-face lesson plans. Ultimately, we advocate for more conversations about how writing programs can support contingent faculty as they personalize shared curriculum through both course delivery and design, and we offer an example of a successful community of practice that revises shared curriculum in response to community members’ experiences with teaching in multiple modalities.

Despite being subtitled “the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” Wikipedia's editors are not nearly as diverse as Wikimedia, its nonprofit parent organization, would hope. In fact, the English version's encyclopedic community has long suffered from gender inequality in both its editorial demographic and its coverage of content representing and of interest to women and non-binary audiences; this despite boasting nearly 7 million articles as of 2024. Educational initiatives have so far proven to be one of the most effective strategies for mitigating Wikipedia's gender gap, the common term for what has become the encyclopedia's most pervasive systemic bias. However, even within educational projects, engaging and onboarding minority editors is challenging. Working from a feminist affective framework, this article reports on a study of student-editors' experience with Wikipedia-based writing, using their reactions to a key editing guideline, “Be bold,” as an entry-point for examining their affective experience. The “Be bold” guideline, which encourages would-be editors to “just go for it,” is nearly as old as the English language version of Wikipedia itself yet has received little critical attention. Drawing on survey and focus group interviews from participants at the undergraduate and graduate level, this study's findings provide new understandings of novice editors’ affective experiences in Wikipedia while offering a critical analysis of the “Be bold” guideline.

While “big data” approaches to writing center research represent promising angles from which to understand the intellectual labor happening during tutorials, aggregation strips away the context in which writing center texts and data are originally constructed. In fact, new methods such as the large-scale corpus analysis of writing center session notes highlight the need for more critical analyses of the administrative software used to generate, archive, and distribute these texts. Drawing on Bogost's (2007) conception of procedural rhetoric and Manovich's (2013) understanding of softwarization, this article seeks to address this gap by recontextualizing writing center session notes within the layered arguments constructed by TutorTrac, a scheduling platform used by many centers. I argue this software advances a rhetoric of recordkeeping that, left unrecognized, risks shifting center practices away from stated commitments and values. In demonstrating how writing center practitioners can employ an understanding of procedural rhetoric to interrogate such applications, this study suggests more attention be dedicated to critical readings of software in writing centers.