This writing guide helps writers develop a familiarity with computers and a sense of how various platforms and programs can develop writing skills. With a combined twenty years of teaching in networked classrooms, the authors provide an introduction for students¿and teachers¿to new ways of analyzing and writing arguments with computers. Emphasizing rhetorical considerations and the writing process, not the technology itself, the text provides new methods for teaching writing with computers. The text maximizes the opportunities computers offer students to engage in the writing process with a sense of freedom and creativity. It encourages students to ¿play¿ with their own text, with their ideas and words, with written dialogue and polylogue. An approachable writing style makes the innovative content easy to understand.

Table of Contents:
Preface.   I. Writing Orientations. 1. Writing Processes: A Review. Approaching the Writing Situation: Purpose and Audience.             Thinking about Purpose.             Thinking about Audience.   Writing Spotlight:   The YOUth & AIDS Web Site Project.   Capturing Your Ideas: Pre-Writing Strategies.               Pre-Writing about Reading.               Writing in a Journal.               Freewriting.               Listing.               Finding a Focus.   Organizing a Writing Project.               Choosing a Form or Genre.               Clarifying Your Thesis.               Developing an Outline.   Writing the First Draft.               Starting the Rough Draft…At Last!               Effective Introductions.               Effective Theses.               Effective Conclusions.   A Student Writer in Action–A Rough Draft.   More than Type, Click, Print:   Rewriting and Revising.               Revising for Unity, Coherence, and Style.   Getting Help–Peer Review.               Tracking Changes.   Finishing Touches: Editing and Proofreading.               Spell-Checkers and Grammar-Checkers.   A Writer in Action: Galen Geer’s Revised Draft.   Useful Links.   Additional Writing Activities. 2. Something to Talk About: Understanding Academic Writing. What Makes Writing “Academic”?   Academic Writing: Audience and Purpose.               Academic Writing and the Public.   Some Key Characteristics of Academic Writing.               Writing Spotlight: Popular Academic Writing.   Writing for an Academic Audience: Some Conventions and Expectations.               1. Academic readers read critically.               2. Informed academic readers expect outside sources and appropriate documentation.   3.   Academic readers expect to see familiar genres.               4.   Academic readers look for the argument.               5.   Academic readers expect stylish and mechanically correct writing.   Strategies used in Academic Writing.   Comparison and Contrast.   Definition.   Analysis.   Useful Links.   A Writer in Action: Susan Sontag on Photography.   “Regarding the Pain of Others” by Susan Sontag.   Additional Writing Activities. II. Writing Situations. 3. Fighting Words? Understanding Argument. Some Elements of Argument.               Pathos, Ethos, and Logos.   The “Basic” Form of an Argument: A Claim with Stated Reasons.   Writing Spotlight: Pathos, Ethos, Logos, and Argument in a “Raccoon in a Bag.”   Kinds of Arguments.               Inductive Arguments.   Deductive Arguments and the Enthymeme.   Cause and Effect.   Analogies.   Definitions.   Examining Assumptions.   Considering Counterarguments.   A Writer in Action: Combining Multiple Argumentative Strategies.   Additional Writing Activities. 4. New Worlds, New Ways: Contemporary Argument. The Limits of Aristotle’s Approach.   Toulmin’s Model.               Using Toulmin’s Model Electronically.   Rogerian Argument.   Writing Spotlight: Rogerian Argument in Action.   “Towards Reconciliation: Common Ground in the Education Curriculum” by Robert Leston.   Evaluating an Argument.   Avoiding Logical Fallacies.   Useful Links.   Writers in Action: Contemporary Strategies of Argument.   “A Fist in the Eye of God” by Barbara Kingsolver.   Additional Writing Activities. 5. More than Just Words Here: Visual Literacy, Visual Argument. Rethinking Literacy: Understanding Visual Rhetoric.   Visuals and Images in Texts.               Comics.               Pictures, Graphs and Charts.               Graphic Manipulation of Text.               Writing Brochures and Newsletters.               Using Visuals in Academic Presentations.   Visual Literacy and the Web.   Visual Argument.               Visual Argument in Print.               Visual Argument on the Web.   Useful Links.   Writers in Action: Hawisher and Sullivan Talk about.               Women on the Web.   “Fleeting Images: Women Visually Writing the Web” by Gail E. Hawisher and Patricia A. Sullivan.   Additional Writing Activities. 6. Navigating a World of Information: Conducting Research. Academic Research.   Popular Reporting versus Academic Research.   The Research Process.   1. Conducting preliminary research.   2. Identifying a research question.   3. Creating a research proposal.   4.1 Finding Information, Part One: Considering a    Variety of Sources.   4.2    Finding Information, Part Two: Recording Information.   A Student Writer in Action: A Research Project.   “The Travel of Henry Timberlake to Jerusalem: A Pilgrimage That Hatched an Idea” by Hershield Keaton.   Useful Links.   Additional Writing Activities.  III. Writing Destinations. 7. Putting It All Together: Combining Research and Argument. Crafting Print-Based Researched Arguments: Some Basic Guidelines.   Considering Audience and Crafting Introductions.               Considering Research and Drafting an Outline or Project Plan.               Drafting and Incorporating Sources.               Composing Conclusions.   Writing Spotlight: Research and Rogerian Argument.   Useful Links.   A Writer in Action: Alfie Kohn and the Issue of Competition.               “Is Competition More Enjoyable? On Sports, Play, and Fun” by Alfie Kohn.   Additional Writing Activities. 8. Putting It All Online: Research and Argument on the World Wide Web. Strategies for Crafting Researched Webtexts.   Writing with Hypertext–Some Initial Considerations.               Using Hypertext to Organize a Document, Part 1: Source Linking.               Using Hypertext to Organize a Document, Part 2: Text Chunking.   Hypertext, the Web, and Argument.   Considering Rebuttals or Counter-Arguments with Hypertext.   Blogs and Argument.   Writing Spotlight: Writing and Blogging.   Some Questions and Issues to Consider about Web Authoring.   Writing for E-Zines.               Preparing to Submit an Article to an E-Zine.   Useful Links.   A Writer in Action: Mark Bernstein on Hypertext.               “Patterns of Hypertext” by Mark Bernstein (online).   Additional Writing Activities. APPENDIX: Documenting Sources.