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+\title{Reflections on Writing and Computers 8 (London 7--9 September 1995)}
+\author[R. Allan Reese\\
+Email: \texttt{r.a.reese@ucc.hull.ac.uk}]{R. Allan Reese}
+\begin{Article}
+
+Did you know Shakespeare's plot in {\it Romeo \& Juliet\/} extends over six
+days, from a Friday morning to Wednesday? Just one of the useful titbits I
+picked up at the conference. Writing and Computers conferences attract a
+different class of computer users from \TeX{} conferences; less oriented
+or sympathetic to computer science, possibly more interested in the human
+user. To someone like myself, running a general purpose computing service,
+both groups are very interesting.
+
+These writers' conferences are dominated by people who teach writing or
+who study other writers, rather than by people who live by selling their
+own words. Also noticeably absent were publishers --- possibly a good thing,
+as writers and publishers are necessarily protagonists. The hilarity
+amongst the publishers at seeing so many missed deadlines might have been
+unsettling. The knock-on of missed deadlines was a dynamic hypertext
+timetable, in the genre of an adventure game. The very-packed, constantly
+changing programme led to a feeling of mild panic (cf the Lentillas in
+Douglas Adams {\it Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy}) as we yo-yoed
+between rooms on several floors of the Institute.
+
+Writing about writing generates its own pressure. The monkey on your
+shoulder screams, ``those that can do, those that can't teach.'' One
+telling comment to an academic editor, that I overheard during breakfast
+was: ``Since you told us and the publisher that this would be {\em the} new
+definitive book, for the first time ever I've had writer's block.''
+
+The exact instructions on the presentation of abstracts were apparently
+ignored by most of the authors, including several of the organizers.
+There's a lot to be said for authors providing text and editors imposing
+format. As indicated above, many of the participants did not themselves
+appear to be sophisticated computer users, and talk of imposed stylesheets
+or enforcement of style through SGML would have left them cold.
+
+And yet none of this detracted from an enjoyable and productive
+conference. The organization came together in a weighty and informative
+book of abstracts provided on arrival. Our next problem was finding time
+to scan the abstracts and make difficult choices. What follows therefore
+is a personal and partly-random selection.
+
+In the gaps between the whirling social programme, great ideas were
+exchanged. One paper concluded that `better' student writers devoted more
+time to structure and planning because they were so comfortable with
+grammar and vocabulary that these were handled automatically. Maybe
+`obvious', but at another conference this year I saw a speaker howled down
+for suggesting that grammar should be taught more explicitly in UK
+schools. My own interests include software tools for supporting the
+various stages of writing; text formatting is one, but the words still
+have to be chosen and put in order. The starting point of \LaTeX{} was
+supposedly the idea that the author would be relieved of the need to
+consider the physical appearance while the text was being written.
+
+Another paper compared structured and `free-text' abstracts of scientific
+papers. While strict quantitative measures of use and recall in the
+standard convenience sample of students showed no noticeable improvement,
+the consensus in the subsequent discussion was that the structure would be
+a helpful support and checklist for writers. The difficulty is always to
+extrapolate from volunteer groups in short-term studies to a general
+population developing and applying life-skills with diverse motivations.
+Structured abstracts ought to make comprehension easier and searching more
+consistent. This becomes increasingly important as we rely more on
+computer searches to trawl for information.
+
+Sally Tweddle's keynote opening was well-pitched in relegating technology
+to `appropriate' use, but no one picked up on her mention of a New York
+school{\em girl} who started an account of a group project with ``I'll
+show you Joe's picture. {\em He}'s our best artist.'' What a stereotype of
+male domination of technology, and female subordination to an auxillary
+supportive role! \TeX-group meetings certainly don't reflect a 50:50
+sex ratio, but I wouldn't have called them male-dominated. What do other
+people think? Is \TeX{} a minority sport partly because it's seen as
+a boys' computer-science toy?
+
+Michael Barnett's keynote carried on in a way from Sally's: the interplay
+of technology and the use to which it's put. It struck a chord: a typical
+helpdesk interaction in the university: ``Why did you do that?'' --- ``Well,
+it was in the program so I just clicked on it'' Technology makes things
+possible but must not be allowed to take over and control the task --- what
+would {\em you} do if ``The Machine Stops'' and the technology ceases to
+work? [cry]
+
+Multimedia CD technology was perhaps the dominant topic of the whole
+conference. We agonized about the lack of imaginative use of a `new'
+medium, but maybe we do not need a {\em Shakespeare} of software --- we need
+a Pasolini, or even a Tarantino. In the same way that sticking a camera
+into a theatre seat would not produce a `film', just putting text on a
+disk and automating the index doesn't make it exciting. The BBC/Harper
+team were clear as to the amount of work they had needed to put into
+creating a multimedia study guide to R \& J, despite starting with a
+complete and unrevisable text.
+
+Does hypertext have a role for other than reference material? The
+overwhelming majority of readers don't want to write a story of their own;
+they want to be {\em told} one (as we were, held entranced over lunch by a
+storyteller). PC/CD hardware is still too slow by an order of magnitude,
+though since the conference I've read that CD capacity will soon increase
+by up to 20-fold. When you open a book, you don't stare at the title page
+for several minutes while the rest of the book prepares itself to be read.
+`The medium is the message.' In the area of design and communication,
+if the technology become intrusive, then {\em it} becomes the message, and
+the meaning you intended is lost. That's one reason I advise against
+on-line presentations at conferences using, say, PowerPoint --- the
+audience is either amazed how slickly it works, or bored at how tackily
+it doesn't.
+
+Next year's W\&C meeting will take place in Barcelona. Do they need
+another meeting? My conclusion from the conference (and email discussion
+lists set up to preface and complement the conference) is that there are
+many themes in writing and computers being actively considered and far
+from worked out. Were the technology and its application fully understood,
+there would still be themes in education and dissemination. At some time
+the theme will become an anachronism; everyone will grow up as comfortable
+with computers as we are with pens --- or do I ``talk of dreams, which are
+but children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy''?
+\end{Article}
+\endinput
+R. Allan Reese Email: r.a.reese@ucc.hull.ac.uk
+Head of Applications, Computer Centre Direct voice: +44 1482 465296
+Hull University Voice messages: +44 1482 465685
+Hull HU6 7RX, U.K. Fax: +44 1482 466441