Composing in Electronic Environments

As has become clear over the last twenty years, writing in the 21st century involves the use of digital technologies for several purposes, from drafting to peer reviewing to editing. Therefore, although the kinds of composing processes and texts expected from students vary across programs and institutions, there are nonetheless common expectations.

By the end of FYW, students should be able to demonstrate that they can:

• Use electronic environments for drafting, reviewing, revising, editing, and sharing texts
• Locate, evaluate, organize, and use research material collected from electronic sources, including scholarly library databases; other official databases (e.g., federal government databases); and informal electronic networks and internet sources
• Understand and exploit the differences in the rhetorical strategies and in the affordances available for both print and electronic composing processes and texts
• Articulate, for multiple audiences, meaning-making capabilities of textual, graphic, auditory, and video modes
• Compose in multiple modes with intended rhetorical effects and articulate the steps taken to achieve those effects
• Contextualize meaning-making capabilities of multimodality for academic, professional, and community audiences