This is an archival post from Techsophist, my former iWeb blog.
Yes, the grading is large and full-bodied. Yes, spring weather means power outages and many events. Yes, I may be living on hors d’oeurves from those events because there’s no time for meals. All the same, the end of semester is a happy time, full of good possibilities ahead. After all, Computers and Writing is next week.
I had a student visit my office yesterday who wrote a fabulous degree paper on 1337 from a linguist’s point of view. He centered it on IMHO as a hedge and the staccato use of a sequence of periods for emphasis. He had never heard of Computers and Writing, so my excitement over going needed a little explanation.
It is the primary conference for my specialty area of Computers and Writing, thus the place to see all those smart people who do the research that supplements and enriches my own. As senior editor for Computers and Composition Online, it is the place where I find many potential submissions, the place where the truly cutting-edge work is presented, often by graduate students. That is also true of the CCCC, but let’s face it, it happens more at C&W. Whatever the hosting campus, the halls are filled with the essence of geek. Those preliminary explanations that we all do so often that we don’t think about it, don’t have to happen here. We don’t have to watch our terminology. Prior work is known. We can talk, and we do…endlessly.
That is hard to explain, but here is what made the new M.A. in my office hunger to be there: the schedule and its massive list of panel presentations titles. No filler. From the screen, he read through them all. He will be there next year (I’ll make sure) and if accepted, present his work.
See you at Computers and Writing!
Lanette Cadle 