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+\title{Report on European Writing and Computers Conference}
+\author{Allan Reese}
+
+\begin{Article}
+
+ \noindent The European Conference on Writing and Computers held in
+ Utrecht in October attracted more than one hundred and fifty
+ assorted academics, predominantly psychologists and educationalists.
+ This conference was formed by combining two events: the biennial
+ meeting of the Special Interest Group on Writing of the European
+ Association on Learning and Instruction (EARLI SIG), and the annual
+ meeting of the European Conference on Computers and Writing (ECW). A
+ third `event' took place in parallel, an on-line conference hosted
+ on a computer in the United States.
+
+ On top of these various groups and starting points, the conference
+ was organized within twelve conference themes (`What is Writing?',
+ `Writing as a learning tool', `Effective Instruction', etc.) and
+ with a variety of formats; there were more than a hundred papers,
+ posters, workshops and demonstrations. Participation was like using
+ hypertext; unless you stuck to one theme it was a matter of browsing
+ round, following up leads and trying not to regret the parts you
+ missed. The organizers distributed a bound set of abstacts some
+ weeks before the conference. This was a great aid in planning and is
+ the main record of the conference, as no direct `Proceedings' are
+ planned. Delegates were instead asked to contribute chapters for
+ three books on themes relevant to the conference. These books are
+ planned for publication in 1995.
+
+The emphasis through the seven ECW conferences has shifted from
+computers and software, to writing and the writing process. In now
+linking with a SIG representing mainly academic research, the writing
+itself ceased to be a focus of interest. Few of these researchers
+considered writing as a product to be \emph{read}; text and writers are
+\emph{data}. There were studies of: how children form sentences; the
+types of grammatical errors made by students learning a second
+language, or learning \emph{in} a second language; linguistic forms
+used in academic papers and how these offer cues to a social subtext;
+comparisons of language used in formal and informal writing. No one
+attended the conference as an `author'; everyone was an observer. The
+poor quality of presentation in many posters was striking --- people
+talking about effective communication themselves ignoring all the
+necessities of the medium. As usual speakers abused the overhead
+projector with illegible or unintelligible foils.
+
+The positive side was that within the anarchic and fulsome atmosphere
+of pure research there were so many opportunities to seek out
+exhibitors and discuss ideas. Compared to a typically British
+timetabled and regimented sequence of papers leaving few minutes for
+questions before proceeding, most of our time was spent in parallel
+poster sessions where you could spend an hour on twenty topics or just
+one. One person had been deputed as a `discussant' on each theme and
+in the final sessions led a discussion, which helped in shaping
+all one's impressions into a coherent whole. Necessarily, these
+discussions did not lead to consensus or firm conclusions!
+
+I looked particularly at tools to assist writers. The presentations
+caused me to wonder whether there is a strong divide between software for
+training writers, and that used in the production process. Adult
+and professional writers now have well-known products such as MS~Word
+and WordPerfect that subsume aids like spell-checkers and thesauruses.
+The research products on display were not in that league and had been
+developed in very constrained and particular circumstances: a program
+to encourage story writing in early teens; a program to guide
+engineering undergraduates in planning technical reports; programs to
+teach journalistic style. One contemporary strand (all round the
+world) is the observation that traditional writing instruction based
+round constructive feedback and revision is time-consuming and
+expensive; everyone would like a computer-based alternative that is
+cheaper and more readily available. The irony is that the software
+displayed would sink without trace without considerable support from
+the teaching researchers.
+
+The research shows little sign that computer-aided instruction (CAI)
+would be superior or faster. CAI may be appropriate in well-structured
+situations, areas where one might consider using SGML to ensure
+completeness and adherence to required formats. But can it be used to
+encourage reflective and original writing? The researchers didn't talk
+about the software they used for their own writing --- again, this
+odd, clinical decoupling between objective and subjective observation
+--- and the only time I discussed \LaTeX{} was with a UK delegate who
+had had a book mangled by a publisher. Many of the craft skills
+mentioned --- for example, teaching undergraduates to write a table of
+contents to assist in planning their report --- are well-supported in
+the \LaTeX{} philosophy; I felt that the psychologists should break
+out of their research clique and look at pragmatic rather than
+conceptual solutions.
+
+The keynote address widened the field to include pedagogical applications
+of general-purpose software. We can encourage students to use commodity
+software in all subject areas; this is one aspect of information
+technology as an enabling rather than prescriptive tool. Students of
+literature, for example, might build a database of ideas and images in
+poems, and through this discover trends or associations. David Jonassen
+(Penn State Univ) linked this to the constructivist view of education ---
+don't just `teach facts' but train students \emph{how} to make their own
+sense of the world by individually using `cognitive tools'. The teacher
+operates as facilitator and mentor, not an authority. It was a stimulating
+talk and the skills described would assist able students in pre-writing
+organization of material.
+
+As a writer and teacher of writing, I took comfort that the conference
+confirmed there is still no magic shortcut to learning the craft. How
+do you get to be a writer? Several contributions addressed points
+relating to providing feedback from teacher to student. They discussed
+the barriers to communication, the social context, psychological and
+cultural factors. The teacher-pupil relationship is mirrored in
+professional spheres, such as employer-staff and editor-contributor.
+It was very interesting, but would relate equally to teaching in any
+subject. Is the teacher being constructive, or expressing power?
+Good writers say they are writing for themselves, but it is a gift or
+a skill to use yourself as a critical audience.
+
+My highlight was Jack Selzer's (also Penn State Univ) paper
+\emph{Scientific and technical writing in a post-modern era.} What does
+post-modern mean? It's a jargon term for texts that challenge and
+break the conventions of `modern science'. ``Where conventional
+writing is sober and restrained, post-modern ones are playful,
+extravagant, exuberant.\ldots Where conventional scientific writing
+prizes consensus and agreement, these unconventional ones call for
+pluralism and voice conflict.\ldots [They are] unpredictable and
+exploratory.'' Too much writing nowadays is formulaic and
+conventional, in form and content, to the point of parody. Rules is
+rules, but writers must understand the rules and not apply them
+blindly. If students are not to confuse computer writing with
+computerized writing, these are the texts they should study. Take a
+random example: \textit{The \TeX book}.
+
+
+\subsection{Postscript}
+
+I use Correct Grammar (CG) as an aid in proof-reading and polishing. It
+measures the above text as `fairly difficult', with a US reading level of
+14th grade. It found seven passive sentences, of which I changed one and
+clarified the meaning. It found one real spelling mistake (I'd written
+``fullsome''.) and suggested ``post-modern'' should be hyphenated, though
+Selzer had not. CG objected to the noun and verb discordance in ``Rules is
+rules''. It found eleven sentences longer than thirty one words, its
+default for academic writing (I could change that). In this piece I left
+them all. It suggested one `run-on sentence'; this sentence had worried
+me, but I left it --- can you spot it? CG suggested ``in general'' was a
+weak phrase, and I took it out. It picked up several strings of
+prepositions, but I thought they were clear and necessary so overruled it.
+CG missed a phrase that read ``like\ldots\ like\ldots'' but I decided the
+first time was identifying examples while the second did indicate
+similarity so made a slight change.
+
+Correct Grammar is a useful adjunct to straight re-reading your text.
+It's reasonably cheap. One irritation is that it is not \TeX-aware.
+I've suggested several times that the \TeX{} community lobby for this
+to be added. As \emph{thinking} writers, we are probably the intended
+market for such a product.
+
+\end{Article}
+