In this essay, I propose that the field of composition/rhetoric can make important contributions to the understanding of ethics based on our critical perspective on language as interactional and rhetorical. The actual language of decision making with ethical dimensions has rarely been studied directly in the literature, a crucial gap our field can usefully fill. To illustrate this approach, I analyze the language of research recruitment in two biomedical and behavioral studies, arguing that different ethical frameworks-- a principle-based ethics of rights and a context-based ethic of care--license different kinds of interaction and rhetorical persuasion. The findings identify and complicate certain concepts and assumptions within these ethical frameworks, with implications for the context of regulated research in the university.
]]>Dispelling historical narratives in composition and rhetoric that largely depict nineteenth- century student compositions as "vacuous" themes, this archival study examines women's compositions at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary as complex generic hybrids, in which the composition is fused with common social and dialogic forms. By focusing particularly on two related hybrid forms--the letter composition and the sermon composition--this article demonstrates the discursive nature of women's intellectual work as it circulated within and beyond seminary walls, in both written and oral forms, serving as localized evidence of a gendered antebellum epistolary culture.
]]>This article is a rhetorical analysis of the anxious and outraged discourse employed in response to the "rising tide" of cheating and plagiarism. This discourse invites actions that are antithetical to the goals of education and the roles of educators, as exemplified by the proliferation of plagiarism-detection technologies.
]]>The study of writers and writing in digital environments raises distinct and complex ethical issues for researchers. Rhetoric theory and casuistic ethics, working in tandem, provide a theoretical framework for addressing such issues. A casuistic heuristic grounded in rhetorical principles can help digital writing researchers critically interrogate their research designs, carefully examine their relationships with research participants, and make sound ethical judgments.
]]>This article places responses received from an open-ended survey of graduate students and faculty in dialogue with published commentary on the scope of composition studies as a discipline to explore three interrelated disciplinary dilemmas: the "pedagogical imperative," the "theory-practice split," and the increasingly complicated relationship between "rhetoric" and "composition" as our field's titular terms.
]]>This essay reports on a study of first-year student writing. Based on a stratified national sample, the study attempts to replicate research conducted twenty-two years ago and to chart the changes that have taken place in student writing since then. The findings suggest that papers are longer, employ different genres, and contain new error patterns.
]]>Coogan, David. "Response to Heather Lettner-Rust." CCC 59.4 (2008): 813-814.
]]>Rinck, Christie. Rev. of Computers and Writing: The Cyborg Era, by James A. Inman. CCC 59.4 (2008): 825-827.
]]>The phrase "academic bullshit" presents compositionists with a special dilemma. Because compositionists study, teach, and produce academic writing, they are open to the accusation that they both tolerate and perpetuate academic bullshit. We argue that confronting this problem must begin with a careful definition of "bullshit" and "academic bullshit." In contrast to Harry Frankfurt's checklist method of definition, we examine "bullshit" as a graded category. We suggest that some varieties of academic bullshit may be both unavoidable and beneficial.
]]>In this essay, I present three case studies of immigrant, first-year students, as they negotiate their identities as second language writers in mainstream composition classrooms. I argue that such terms as "ESL" and "Generation 1.5" are often problematic for students and mask a wide range of student experiences and expectations.
]]>Writing in personal genres, like autobiography, leads writers to public voices. Public voice is a discursive quality of a text that conveys the writer's authority and position relative to others. To show how voice and authority depend on genre, I analyze the autobiographies of two writers who take opposing positions on the same topic. By producing texts in genres with recognizable social functions, student writers gain agency.
]]>The Japanese martial art of aikido affords a framework for understanding argument as harmonization rather than confrontation. Two movements, circling away (tenkan) and entering in (irimi), suggest tactics for arguing with adversaries. The ethical imperative of aikido involves protecting one's adversary from harm, using the least force necessary, and, when possible, transforming aggression into cooperation.
]]>The article explores writing-centered pedagogies that deepen student learning in literature survey courses. More broadly, the article also responds to Richard Fulkerson and Maureen Daly Goggin, who challenge professors of English studies to find disciplinary unity within the diverse epistemologies of rhetoric.
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