Johnson-Eilola (2005) *Datacloud: Toward a New Theory of Online Work"

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. Toward a New Theory of Online Work. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, Inc., 2005. Print.

Authors as Symbolic-Analytic Workers

People in this type of work identify, rearrange, circulate, abstract, and broker information in response to specific, concrete situations. They work with information and symbols to produce reports, plans, and proposals. They also tend to work online, either communicating with peers (they rarely have direct supervision) or manipulating symbols. (28)

Johndan Johnson-Eilola’s description quoted above is in reference to “symbolic-analytic workers”—those folks working under titles such as “investment banker, research scientist, lawyer, management consultant, strategic planner, and architect” (28). I imagine for individuals researching in the field of comp/rhet—like me—this passage can be read synonymously as the work of writers writing. We too “identify, rearrange, circulate, abstract, and broker information in response to specific, concrete situations.” We too “work with information and symbols to produce reports, plans, and proposals” among other genres of writing. We too “tend to work online either communicating with peers…or manipulating symbols” through various avenues of collaboration, most times without “direct supervision” or explicit direction or guidance from our mentors or superiors. For me, writers—whether we’re novice students writing in first year comp or we’re seasoned professors writing for publication—can be seen as “symbolic-analytic workers.” While I imagine for compositionists this analogy may not be all that surprising, I was struck by imagining this analogy, mostly because I personally hadn’t ever given much attention to analyzing the role of digital technology when it came to “academic writing.” Of course, I considered the possible limitations of generic formats such as Word when it comes to composing (which the author nicely criticizes on page 105 as too linear for the ‘clouds of data’ strategically negotiated and creatively assembled by today’s digital worker), and I’d considered how much technology impacted our research practices, but I guess I just hadn’t given much credit to (nor really acknowledged the potential possibilities of) digital technology when it came to our writing formats and practices. I was realizing the limitations of writing genres, but I wasn’t realizing any real alternatives for transforming them.

Johnson-Eilola, a teacher of writing and innovator of transformative approaches to genres for writing, (see Johnson-Eilola and Selber’s “Plagiarism, Originality, Assemblage,” which I need to revisit since now buying into Johnson-Eilola’s argument here) apparently makes similar connections as mine as is apparent with his likening of symbolic-analytic workers to rhetoricians. His emphasis, though, remains on the intersection of technology and rhetoric: “we might think of symbolic-analytic workers as technical rhetoricians or rhetorical technologists” (29). When it comes to the modern understanding of the term “rhetoricians,” it’s now a bit challenging for me to separate the two terms “rhetoric” and “technology,” especially when it comes to writing (which, as I can’t seem to stress enough, surprised the hell out of me).

If ya’ll are interested—as I am now—in learning about some of the ways that Johnson-Eilola has implemented a transformed approach to writing genres in the writing classroom, you might want to check out his article from Computers and Composition, “Plagiarism, Originality, Assemblage,” that he co-authored with Selber. We read this in Becky’s authorship class and I plan to revisit it since now buying into many of Johnson-Eilola’s arguments in Datacloud. See my blog below to read the summary I wrote on this text last semester.

CCR 720: Haswell (2005): "NCTE/CCCC's Recent War on Scholarship"

Haswell, Richard H. "NCTE/CCCC's Recent War on Scholarship." Written Communication 22.2 (April 2005): 198-223.

Informal summary:

Investigates the trend of replicable, aggregable, and data supported research within published literature of the field (on research papers, gain in writing courses, and peer review) sponsored by National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and Conference on College Composition (CCCC). Results indicate that there has been a dramatic decline in published RAD research within NCTE and CCCC. Warns that we’re hurting the future of our discipline: “As when a body undermines its own immune system, when college composition as a whole treats the data-gathering, data-validating, and data-aggregating part of itself as alien, then the whole may be doomed” (219).

CCR 720: McCabe (2005) "It Takes a Village"

McCabe, Donald L. "It Takes a Village: Academic Dishonesty and Educational Opportunity." Liberal Education (Summer/Fall 2005). 2 Dec. 2005. < http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-sufa05/le-sufa05feature2.cfm>

Summary:

McCabe argues that what makes a difference in academic integrity in schools is their commitment to creating a culture that values academic integrity by “making academic integrity a clear campus priority and placing much of the responsibility for student integrity on the students themselves” (2). He uses surveys of students to argue that there is a large amount of cheating occurring in universities and suggests that it is because faculty and administrators are not actively educating students and are not reassessing their own policies regarding academic integrity. He calls for treating academic dishonesty as educational opportunities where students can learn about the policies and practices for academic integrity.

Methods:

· Data: 1990 survey of student in 31competetive colleges (47% of students in school with no honor code admit to cheating; 24% of students with honor code admit to cheating; comparison to Bowers (1964) survey; 2001 survey on-line (21% admit to cheating on an exam; 51% admit to plagiarism; 4 of 5 plagiarists copy/paste from online). NO methodology is outlined.

· Anecdotal: even though the author calls on his conducted surveys, the data collection and analysis is not described and therefore often seems anecdotal. He also uses anecdotal evidence of his own experiences and the experience of an anonymous person in the intro and conclusion.

Notable Notes:

· McCabe does not provide details of his methods or methodologies. It’s difficult to assess his interpretations seeing how we don’t learn his modes of analysis.

· It’s interesting that he cites a study of his completed with co-author Trevino, yet he takes sole authorship of the survey: “In 1993 (McCabe and Trevino 1996), I surveyed nine medium to large universities” (2). Note the use of first person.

· Since he advocates that in order to help make our students more responsible regarding academic integrity faculty must set standards and consider academic integrity to be an institutional value, he is assuming that teachers don’t already.

· While his data collection and interpretation is unclear, and while it’s challenging to uphold his claims he makes from this data, I find some merit in his argument that we should use plagiarism as educational opportunities since students often do so out of ignorance and time/stress constraints (5). Still, it is hard to blindly accept his arguments that “strong rules” might help foster idealistic values later.

CCR 691: Enos et al (2006) "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Rhetorical Criticism"

Enos et al. (2006). “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Rhetorical Criticism” and “A Bibliographic Synthesis of Rhetorical Criticism.” Rhetoric Review, Vol. 5, No.4: 357-407.

Major claims/assumptions about rhetorical criticism:

• rhetorical criticism is ubiquitously bound by culture, history, and language
• it is important to acknowledge that some approaches of rhetorical criticism are applicable to some cultures/times/sites, while inapplicable to others (since the approaches themselves are tied up with history, culture, and language)
• approaches to rhetorical criticism are (and will continue to be) constantly invented, reinvented, and recycled in response to our historical and social contexts
• rhetorical criticism is not objective and can openly express criticizers' positions and perspectives
• “rhetorical criticism mimics the process of agency….The result [of a critic’s analysis or interpretation] is a world of the agent’s/critic’s own creation” (376)
• rhetorical criticism is not based solely on rational argument (oratory, persuasion, essays)
• rhetorical texts are more than just written documents or speeches; they include: “art, architecture, cityscapes, monuments, handicrafts, and many more human-made objects” (371) and even phenomenons and social movements (Civil Rights; Gay rights, the Chicano Movement, etc.)
• rhetoric is an instrument for investigating influential public contexts and affairs (in media, politics, etc.)
• method for analyzing public affairs: “discovering the best sources, considering the extant theories, interrogating the available evidence, and constructing original arguments that seek to account for the situational matrix that defines public policy debate…going beyond the printed sources to engage directly those involved…through participant observation, interviewing, ethnography, or other field methods” (381)
• goals of rhetorical criticism: “one ends with something beyond the purely rhetorical, something that inevitably speaks to the subject matter under investigation, something that is extrarhetorical in insight or implication” (382)
• it is debatable in what discipline rhetorical criticism originated as well as how rhetoric or rhetorical criticism should be defined
• “it is important to keep in mind that rhetorical criticism should serve a purpose, whether that purpose adds to knowledge in such a way that others can engage with that knowledge creation or theorizes and humanizes rhetoric as performance” (396-397)

Key scholars that are cited: Edwin Black, Jean-Paul Sartre, Herbert Wichelns, Leland M. Griffin, Richard Claverhouse Jebb, Kenneth Burke, Simons, Bowers, Ochs, Enos, Kohrs Campbell, King, Condit, Foss

Some quotes and some questions:

“As exciting and productive as the 1965-1980 era was, it eventually led to an overemphasis on theory and method, often to the exclusion of knowledge grounded in practice and analysis” (380).

In the 21^st century “methodology is clearly less important than before” (368).

“many of the stronger recent studies in rhetorical criticism have regarded criticism not as method but as attitude” (385).

“theorists have presented theories that attempt to break out of the strict structures of methodologically driven criticism” (391).

• I wonder if methodology is used interchangeably with method, or if these scholars reference our definition of methodology: “theory and analysis of how research does or should proceed” (Harding, 3).
• It seems generally accepted that in rhetorical criticism methodology is “less important” than before, yet we’ve been discussing in class how our field has been moving towards aligning greater importance to method and methodology. Does this apply to research methods based on theory and analysis? Should rhetorical criticism be grounded in methods and methodologies? How so? How not?
• Also, might rhetorical criticism’s hesitance to define methods/methodologies reflect many of our instincts (as discussed in class) of keeping methods and methodologies at bay to our already intuitive (and so far effective) practices for analysis?