List of Electronic Resources List of Electronic ResourcesThis section of the FAQ is designed to cover the more mutable electronic aspects of our
profession: instructions on listserv and listproc commands, addresses of e-mail lists and
MOOs, URL's of relevant World Wide Web pages, lists of upcoming conferences, calls for
papers, etc. Given how quickly electronic resources for rhetoricians and writing
instructors change, this section cannot hope to be an exhaustive resource; however, I
intend to update this section every month, so the information shouldn't be too stale at
any given time.
Electronic Resources on the internet fall into two broad categories, loosely determined by
how much the individual participates. Those resources designed for disseminating
information (like ftp sites, gopher servers, web pages, on-line journals) are generally
built and maintained by a small group of users and are accessed by large numbers of users.
Resources that are designed for communication (E-mail discussion lists, newsgroups,
electronic meeting places) are generally constructed and reconstructed continually by
their users.
This broad division can get quite blurry, however. For instance, the information in
so-called "passive" spaces is often contributed by many participants and updated
continually, and so-called "constructionist" spaces like MOOs are often
repositories for information collected by one or two individuals (which has very little to
do with the real-time building of the MOOs). In fact, any single computer function may be
placed at multiple points along this full spectrum. (Call is what you will--each pair
validates someone's paradigm and frustrates another's (Consumption/Production,
Reading/Writing, Observing/Participating, Lurking/Seeding, Following/Leading). In any
case, take e-mail lists, for example:
Consumption --------------------------------- Production
forum : digests moderated lists unmoderated lists
or take the user of e-mail lists:
user: lurker occasional post participant catalyst
I like to maintain this taxonomy, despite its blurriness, for several reasons. First, it
describes communication, not specific computer programs, which inevitably change like
Paris fashions. Second, it mirrors what we do as rhetoricians and teachers in our classes.
We facilitate the production of artifacts as well as their consumption. We teach critical
consumption and audience-oriented production. And our students participate in a variety of
ways, suited to their cognitive abilities, their social skills, and their expectations
from the class.
The following activities are presented in the order of the those that generally involve
producing to those that involve consuming:
E-mail lists require a subscription and an e-mail account. Mail that is sent to the group is forwarded to all the members on the list, either individually or in a Digest form (meaning all the mail for a certain period is sent as a single e-mail message)
ACW-L (Alliance for C&W) |
listproc@listserv.ttu.edu |
Bizcom (Business comm's) |
listproc@ebbs.english.vt.edu |
CCCC-L (Conf/Coll. Comp. & Com) |
listproc@listserv.ttu.edu |
CHORTT-L (Comp-Humanities) |
send "subscribe chortt-L" to majordomo@mtu.edu |
CREWRT-L (creative writ ped.) |
listserv@mizzou1.missouri.edu |
CWC95-L (C&W conf 95 plans) |
listserv@utepvm.utep.edu |
Composition Digest |
e-mail to r0mill01@ulkyvx.bitnet |
Electronic College of Theory |
e-mail to xx124@po.cwru.edu |
H-RHETOR (history of rhet) |
listserv@uicvm.bitnet |
NCTE-INTL (NCTE int'l forum) |
listproc@itc.org |
NCTE-TALK (K-12 NCTE members) |
listproc@itc.org |
PURTOPOI (Purdue) |
listserv@purccvm.bitnet |
RHETNT-L (e-journal rhet/writ) |
listserv@mizzou1.missouri.edu |
TECHWR-L (Tech. writing) |
listserv@osuvm1.bitnet |
TCC-L (Teach. in Comm Colleges) |
listserv@uhccvm.uhcc.hawaii.edu |
TESL-L (Teach. Engl. Sec. Lang) |
listserv@cunyvm.cuny.edu |
TNC (technoculture) |
listserv@gitvm1.bitnet |
WAC-L (Writing Across Curric.) |
listserv@uiucvmd.bitnet |
WCENTER (writing center) |
listproc@listserv.ttu.edu |
WHIRL (Women's Hist--Rhet/Lang) |
e-mail to mmw9@psuvm.psu.edu |
WIOLE-L (Writ. Intensive Envs) |
listserv@mizzou1.missouri.edu |
WPA-L (Writing Prog. Admin.) |
listserv@asuacad.bitnet |
NOTE: There is a huge list
of lists maintained on the Alliance gopher server.
ACW is now running on ListProcessor software (instead of LISTSERV). While the commands are similar, there are differences (please see the section on listserv commands below) When you make a request of the listproc software, send a message to listproc@listserv.ttu.edu with the body of the e-mail containing one of the valid listproc commands. DON'T SEND LISTPROC REQUESTS TO ACW-L@TTACS6.TTU.EDU -- THEY WON'T WORK. Here are some of the more common requests (for our purposes, you'd substitute ACW-L for <LIST> below):
help gets an overview. subscribe [list] [your name] to subscribe to a list unsubscribe [list] to remove yourself from a list signoff [list] (ditto) recipients [list] gets listing of everyone on list review [list] (ditto) information [list] get info about the specified list. statistics [list] statistics (what else?)
For a full list of commands, send the help command.
To set your list preferences, use the following table:
Syntax: set [list] ([option] [arg(s)] )
option: mail, password, address, conceal
arg for 'mail': ack/noack/postpone/digest
args for 'password': [current-password] [new-password.
args for 'address': [current-password] [new-address]
arg for 'conceal': yes/no
--So, for instance, if you want to set ACW to digest, send
set acw-l mail digest
There are many relevant e-mail lists that use LISTSERV. When you make a request of a
LISTSERV, you send a message to the LISTSERV at the host computer with the body of the
e-mail containing one of the valid LISTSERV commands. For example, if I wanted to join
Rhetnet (from the list above), I would send the following one-line message to
LISTSERV@MIZZOU1.MISSOURI.EDU: SUB RHETNET-L "Joyce Carter"
Here are the most commonly used LISTSERV commands:
Info [topic|listname] Order documentation Lists [Detail|Short|Global] Get a description of all lists SUBscribe listname [full name] Subscribe to a list SIGNOFF listname Sign off from a list SIGNOFF * (NETWIDE - from all lists on all servers REView listname [options] Review a list Query listname Query your subscription options SET listname options Update your subscription options INDex [filelist_name] Order a list of LISTSERV files GET filename filetype Order a file from LISTSERV REGister full_name|OFF Tell LISTSERV about your name
There are more commands (AFD, FUI, PW, etc). Send an INFO REFCARD for a comprehensive
reference card, or just INFO for a list of available documentation files.
Depending on your site and the degree of your connectivity, e-mail and newsgroups may
be as prompt as a few minutes, or as slow as a couple of days. This section is not meant
to imply that file-time (e-mail) communities are not meeting places, because it's clear
that they are. But the conversations in our e-mail communities are conducted at a snail's
pace -- certainly much faster than the conversations in the professional journals, but
much slower than a good face-to-face verbal discussion.
There are three categories of on-line, real-time meeting places on the internet.
1. BBS's and proprietary forums like CompuServe, AOL, Prodigy, and Delphi require that you
be a member of that service and limit your interaction to other subscribers of that
service or BBS. This category will not be reviewed in the MBU FAQ.
2. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is the internet equivalent to the above category. Structured
around the idea of TV or Radio channels, IRC is a 24-hour meeting place made up of
on-going specialty channels (Malaysian Students, Home Brewers, Computers and Writing
Teachers), and occasional channels (anyone can create a new channel, so the number of
channels available is quite varied). IRC is still a valuable resource for communication in
our field, but it seems to have been replaced by the next category,
3. Text-based virtual reality communities, generally called MUDs, MUSHes, or MOOs. These
environments add an element of reality to the strictly verbal arena of the IRC discussion,
enabling their users to have genders, descriptions, and possessions. The structuring
metaphor for these environments is generally spatial, involving rooms, forests, castles,
etc. Some of the more interesting experiments in Education (including Rhetoric and
Composition) are currently taking place in these environments.
MUDs & MOOs with rooms/spaces dedicated to rhetoric and composition:
A synchronous (real-time) counterpart to MBU is the Netoric Project, located on Media Moo. Netoric activities
include weekly Tuesday Cafe discussions of topics often current on MBU, on-line workshops
on teaching in computer environments, and the promotion of similar virtual spaces as sites
of teaching writing. More information can be found on the Netoric Web pages .
Newsgroups (AKA Usenet) -- This large body of discussion groups functions just like
e-mail lists, except for their distribution method. Computer programs called newsservers
or newshosts collect incoming e-mail "articles" which are posted to their
respective "families" and hold these articles for a certain period of time. The
user of a newsgroup uses a computer program called a newsreader to attach to the newshost
and retrieve the articles that s/he finds interesting. No one in the world has the stamina
to read through the entire Usenet news hierarchy, for it spans thousands of categories,
and the list grows daily.
Newsgroups (If you have access to newsfeed, and have a news reader)
alt.hypertext alt.usage.english bit.listserv.acw-l bit.listserv.mbu-l bit.listserv.wcenter clari.news.education.higher comp.edu.composition comp.groupware comp.text k12.lang.art
If you know where to look on the internet, you can get a document on just about
anything. There are three ways of doing this: via ftp (file transfer protocol) or some
client that facilitates this (Fetch, XferIt), via gopher, and via the World Wide Web. The
underlying differences in these three methods isn't really important for the purpose of
this FAQ, for you can get what you need through all three of them.
Generally, the three protocols build on each other, so that what is considered
"manual" and "computer-ese" about ftp is somewhat automated in Gopher;
likewise, the World Wide Web takes this ease a step further, making it easier to view
documents, graphics, AND to branch from one document to others very easily.
This is CLEARLY an inadequate list, but one has to begin somewhere; please send me ftp,
gopher, and WWW listings for resources relevant to our field, and I'll try to keep this
section as up-to-date as possible.
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