A Dialogic Critique of OWLs

In the first issue of Kairos, the coverweb featured a review of OWLs. In that issue, Jane Lasarenko predicted that "at the current reproductive rate, traditional writing centers are well on their way to becoming an endangered species." Phrases saturated with such rhetoric lead to both gloom and doom scenarios. The new technologies will either propel us (another commonly used metaphor) forward into an exciting cyberage or backward into a nostalgic longing which can never be satisfied. Either way, the "endangered species" idea is unsettling. Whether these extreme views are realistic is difficult to say; but uncritical acceptance determines our beliefs, attitudes, and actions. Consider this "critique" of the Purdue OWL:

One of the oldest and most venerable of its kind, the Purdue University OWL publishes the most extensive and comprehensive writing handouts. Virtually all other OWLs on the web contain a link to this OWL, and wisely so. The Purdue OWL publishes handouts on grammar, punctuation, spelling, ESL, general writing concerns, research paper and citation information, as well as on business and technical writing.

"Who" Serves What Audience?

Lisa Ihle believes OWLs have a place on college campuses, although she would not advocate them in the public schools. "I think they are tailor-made for the older, more experienced writing students." Third or fourth year students are more likely to benefit since they have more knowledge and skill with writing and because their "time is more limited due to work and class schedules." She notes that students, in upper-level courses, do not expect the personalized attention they might receive in lower-level courses. At a school like UNO, with a high percentage of non- traditional students time factors may outweigh other considerations. In addition, UNO, like some other institutions of higher learning, has no formal writing center. Thus, OWLs can provide a nice alternative.

Process vs. Product

A number of reviewers stressed the mechanical and technical aspects of writing instruction. Shelley Carter said, "Underlying the way writing composition is taught is the notion that writers must know the rules of grammar and punctuation to be able to write effectively. In the classroom, learning these rules generally takes place before the student is expected to produce a piece of writing." Many current compositionists would be dismayed at this perception, given the currency and widespread acceptance of the "process movement." The reviewer goes on to say that college-level students are often unable to recall the rules and conventions which their professors expect them to access easily and efficiently. The Rhetoric class is a case in point.

Link from Rhetoric

Shelley Carter wrote, "Often it comes as a surprise to professors when students submit writing riddled with error as final drafts. This is what happened in our Rhetoric class early in the semester. Our professor [Joan Latchaw] urged us to investigate on-line writing labs (OWLs) as a possible solution for this problem." Pedagogically, I (Joan Latchaw), like many compositionists, believe in turning failures into learning opportunities. After discussing the error problems with some other faculty, I considered the OWL review from two perspectives: as an interesting, timely, and productive project whereby students, as professionals, could revisit an ongoing published conversation about OWLs and as a way to confront and solve their own writing problems. One of the students who was plagued with comma dilemmas and other equally frustrating errors used the project to test out the effectiveness of both venues which became the topic for the last short assignment.

Virtual environment vs. Face-2-Face

Dana Sweetwood used Rebecca Rickly's article, "The University of Michigan's Online Writing and Learning: Locating the Writing Center in the Aviary," to explore the ethos of the virtual setting. Rickly says that OWLs challenge students to "solve their own problems" with their work before submitting a paper for a final analysis. Dana's own personal experience seeking tutorial help from live people (a graduate helper in a first- year comp course and a peer tutor in a traditional writing center) supports Rickly's opinion. Dana perceives the traditional writing center as an extension of the classroom but not in a positive way. Facing the tutor puts subtle or even unconscious pressure on the student to comply with suggestions, advice, or prescriptive "you shoulds." As she puts it, tutors sometimes don't give students the option to revise. "When tutors, or even well-meaning friends, tell me something, or even when friends do, I just have a tendency to take the advice. A grad student helper in a fresh comp class "tutoring me" outside class basically rewrote my paper."

The anonymity of the online environment "makes a positive difference." Online tutoring seems more like input than direction. In addition, there's the matter of self-respect and pride. When Dana sent work into an OWL, she wanted it to be the best it could be because "you're working with a peer. So if it is readable enough for them, then I don't feel stupid." Dana didn't want the tutor to think she sent in sloppy work; therefore, she made a conscious effort to maintain high standards. "This way, it's not working for a grade." This statement is a rhetorical testimony that teaching and learning can coincide.

Sarah Schafer agrees that anonymity might make a positive difference for those students who are underconfident: "cyberspace may protect their dignity. If the student is not forced to sit with the tutor while the paper is being examined, perhaps the stress of the experience can be lessened." If online tutoring is not an extension of the classroom, as Kenneth Bruffee asserts, then peer-to-peer interaction may be more effective and productive.

On the other hand, Bernie Duis argues that efficiency and human interaction are sacrificed in digital space. ". . . in this age of technomania, belief in the machine has reached dangerous levels." Direct dialogue is at once more human and more efficient. To prove this to himself, Bernie took a paper he was working on to Dr. Phil Smith at UNO. "Within five minutes he had read the piece and in as much time he had given me suggestions on how my audience may react and where I should divide a paragraph. This came complete with subtle facial and body gestures that no computer outside the Starship Enterprise could produce. In addition to non-verbal superiority, the face-to-face human tutor appears to be faster than his on-line counterpart."

Sarah Schafer concurs that face-to-face contact has its drawbacks. "The ability to clarify comments regarding the written work is more difficult . . . . the student must send Email to the reader, and the reader must return messages to the student. The OWL's efficiency with regard to the nature of responses is still being tested." Sarah's final comment poses a challenge that both the utopians and the skeptics should seriously consider: "In either instance [OWLs or traditional WCs taking precendence], the mere existence of OWLs forces us to evaluate them and place them in the academic conversation."

Online vs. Print Handbooks/handouts

In responding to a friend's claim that the Internet would take over books some day, Stefanie Van Tieghem replied, "You think so? I disagree. Books will never become extinct." However, after reviewing both online sources and print handbooks, Stefanie reconsidered the question. She compared four handbooks (The Bedford Handbook, The St. Martin's Handbook, Writing with a Purpose, and Effective Writing: Choices and Conventions) with online resources--with respect to underlying pedagogy and usefulness of handouts. Each of the four handbooks "focused on the student's process as a writer" and each emphasized critical thinking and independent learning. Greenberg's Effective Writing represents a top-down approach and reserves the "smaller elements" for later chapters. (Note that this handbook is targeted for developing writers.) Stefanie agrees that "critical thinking about a particular subject can be achieved even if the student is not a grammar whiz." However, two of the handbooks focus on rules and conventions. Interestingly, Stefanie noted that many OWLs provide mission statements but no "explanation of their pedagogies." Even the highly regarded Purdue site provided no pedagogical foundation. Stefanie believes that "the absence of pedagogies in OWLs lessens their reliability because educational goals have not been established."

By comparison, Stefanie found that online handouts on the writing process are not "as helpful as a simple handbook because it is much quicker and easier to pick up a book than" find and use an OWL handout (log onto the Internet, go to the site, find the handout pertaining to the problem, go through it and correct the problem.) Furthermore, accessing the site might take considerable time, depending on how busy the browser is. If the local server is down, OWLs will be completely inaccessible. However, with book in hand, the user can look at the table of contents or index, find the problem, do the exercises and correct the problem. Brian Hoover disagrees and finds that flipping pages is inefficient and sometimes unproductive. Two handbooks Brian examined didn't have a specific comma section, which was easily identifiable. The person using an online writing lab can "click on the 'comma page' and have the information available in an easy-to-understand chart." The chart format was superior to a traditional print format with sections and paragraphs. The reader must sort through numerous paragraphs to first, find the comma mistake, and second, learn how to fix it.

Stefanie favors OWLs when simple rules, conventions, or subjects cannot be found. For example, she found that handbooks may not have a section on non-sexist language and notes that Purdue's OWL includes this topic. Because handouts are not as complete as handbooks and because they are less "intimate" than books, Stefanie prefers "to remain old-fashioned and use a book."

Rhetorically speaking, style and tone play an important role in the two approaches. Shelley Carter, in reviewing The Grammar, Punctuation, and Capitalization: A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors by Mary McCaskill, was put off by "an official voice . . . and a high level of formality," which she says creates a distance "between the writer and the reader." On the other hand, the informality of the OWL handouts make the reader more comfortable. Carter finds "the student is made to feel like a participant in the writing process instead of a pupil having rules decreed to from on high." She cites Bemidji's effort to build a rapport with students: "Proofreading is a pain. There's no doubt about it. It can be tedious and boring--if you approach it as correcting errors." As an alternative, Bemidji advises students, who have trouble with compound sentences, to cover up the comma with your finger. "If there are full sentences on both sides of the coordinator, then place a comma before the coordinator." Shelley believes building this kind of rapport is crucial and absent from most handbooks.

Future Teacher Perspectives

Beth Balkus will strongly consider using OWLs for her prospective students, based on her own experience and "Tutoring in Cyberspace: Student Impact and College/University Collaboration" by Jennifer Jordan-Henley, and Barry M. Maid. She especially values online tutoring as it provides: "practice using technology; additional writing practice since all of the communication is in writing; an outlet for a shy student and a way to engage a reluctant writer" (Jordan-Henley and Maid). Christine Nelson reports that some OWLs actually provided more feedback than a face-to-face tutorial center would. The better sites provide "comments within the paper itself, on grammar and stylistic points, as well as an overall review at the end of the paper." Christine believes that online labs might "alleviate some of the massive goals that tutors set for themselves." She cites John Trimbur's "Peer Tutoring: A Contradiction in Terms" which reports some student tutors' anxieties: to save the English language from decline or to turn all students into "A" students. The computer interface may psychologically distance the tutor from the tutee, thus allaying or preventing those anxieties. Some scholar/teachers find an advantage in working only from text (as conversation). If Kenneth Bruffee is right that teachers and tutors must ensure conversation "is similar in as many ways as possible to the way we would like them [students] eventually to write," then online "conversation" may be a more effective mode of communication. More research is indicated in assessing whether online dialogue more nearly represents speaking, writing or a combination. However, in either case, online communication lacks the verbal and visual gestures normally present in face-to-face communication; writing must fill in those gaps.

However, in the interests of efficiency, Beth would "never support the use of online peer tutoring or even online conversations with students in the same classroom." One of the graduate students in Jordan- Henley and Maid's article said, "Wouldn't using the internet to interact with my Comp I students be the equivalent of going around the world to get across campus?" (216). Beth's personal experience with computerized classrooms was frustrating because the time factor for typing slowed down discussion and the "facial cues are too important to conversation to be left out." Cybertutors might miss important cues about the writer's self-esteem or attitude towards writing.

Beth concludes that OWLs are a "wonderful resource" for students without access to traditional writing centers and provide numerous teaching aids. The handouts, "especially on Purdue's site, will be great for me to refer to when teaching mini-lessons on conventions to a whole class or when helping an individual student. Still, I will never advocate online tutoring as a replacement for or better alternative to face-to-face tutoring."

Lisa Ihle, another future teacher, is skeptical about the role of OWLs. She is concerned about the online tutors' level of training and experience. She found, in her evaluations, that in many cases, "faculty only oversee and supervise the OWLs. She noted that some OWLs required no specific training, some required one peer tutoring course, and one required two courses, an impressive commitment. Naturally, "an online tutor cannot know precisely what the assignment is and the teacher's expectations" for that assignment. Some traditional writing centers have collected a file of assignments from various teachers, which obviously isn't possible with online labs. We understand that some OWLs, not included in our study, are designing ways to overcome these limitations and hope to hear more about future innovations. So far, the OWL tutor cannot know "the person behind the paper submitted for review," although some OWLs are experimenting with videoconferencing. This technique should help overcome the impersonal nature of cybertutoring, although anonymity would be sacrificed for those who desire it. As a language arts teacher, Lisa believes her job is to answer questions, clarify instructions, and offer encouragement. She would not want to sacrifice these "joys" under any conditions. Lisa would, however, consider a unit on Internet exploring as a way to conduct research, especially via home computers.

Dana's experience going to an OWL supported Rickley's belief that creating a comfortable and friendly atmosphere is crucial. In her essay, Dana suggested that exposure to unknown peers was somewhat intimidating, but could be overcome with clear instructions (user-friendly interface) and an inviting tone. " . . . a friendly and informative site is the only way to encourage students to submit papers and for this to happen the tutors must be comfortable with their work location."

Sarah Schafer, drawing on Kenneth Bruffee's "Peer Tutoring and the 'Conversation of Mankind,'" explains that "Peer Tutoring incorporates the community (the students) with the conversation (the writing) thus advancing the goals of both parties. Sarah says that in peer tutoring situations, "each student is both the teacher and the learner. This state of equality allows the student to enter the relationship without fear of incompetence." Whether such fears are substantially reduced remains an open question and a potentially interesting research project.