Electronic Writing Centers: Computing in the Field of Composition (New Directions in Computers and Composition Studies)

This book describes the emerging practice of e-mail tutoring; one-to-one correspondence between college students and writing tutors conducted over electronic mail. It reviews the history of Composition Studies, paying special attention to those ways in which writing centers and computers and composition have been previously hailed within a narrative of functional literacy and quick-fix solutions. The author suggests a new methodology for tutoring, and a new mandate for the writing center: a strong connection between the rhythms of extended, asynchronous writing and dialogic literacy. The electronic writing center can become a site for informed resistance to functional literacy.

DAVID COOGAN is Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology, He teaches courses in writing, the rhetoric of technology,technical communications, and poetry. His work has appeared in the journal, Computers and Composition and the anthology Wiring the Writing Center. His current research explores the intersection between rhetorical theory, technical communications, and technological change.