On-line computer conferences have been of increasing interest to teachers of composition who hope to provide alternative forums for student-centered, collaborative writing that involve all members of their classes in active learning. Some expect them to provide sites for discourse that are more egalitarian and less constrained by power differentials based on gender and status than are face-to-face discussions. These expectations, however, are largely unsupported by systematic research. The article describes an exploratory study of gender and power relationships on Megabyte University, one particular on-line conference. While the results of the study are not definitive, they do suggest that gender and power are present to some extent even in on-line conferences. During the two 20-day periods studied, men and high-profile members of the community dominated conference communication. Neither this conference domination nor the communication styles of participants were affected by giving participants the option of using pseudonyms.
Recent interest in the structure of discourse has brought attention to one of the oldest issues in the discipline of rhetoric, the classification of texts by type. Two traditions of classifying texts run through the 2,400-year-old history of rhetoric, both deriving from Aristotle's 'Rhetoric'. One tradition classifies texts according to purpose, the other by mode or type. Three studies were undertaken to examine the basesfor type classifications in rhetoric. The results indicate that both readers familiär with rhetorical theory and those without knowledge of rhetorical theory classify texts into consistent cate· gories when variables of purpose, genre, and style are controlled. The discussion interprets these findings in the light of recent work in linguistics and psychology. An analysis of readers' text groupings suggests that time was the primary criterion used to classify texts. Readers produced three distinct groups, which the researchers labeled 'non-narrative \ 'process \ and 'narrative'. The distinctions among these groups can be explained by applying linguistic concepts ofaspectand time representation. HigMevel text structure appeared to be a secondary criterion forgrouping texts.
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