IText: Future Directions for Research on the Relationship between Information Technology and Writing    

The vast majority of people who use information technology (IT) every day use IT in textcentered interactions. In e-mail, we compose and read texts. On the Web, we read (and often compose) texts. And when we create and refer to the appointments and notes in our personal digital assistants, we use texts. Texts, as already a technology in themselves, are deeply embedded in cultural, cognitive, and material arrangements that go back thousands of years. Information technologies with texts at their core — the blend of IT and texts that we call ITexts — are, by contrast, a relatively recent development. To participate with other information researchers in shaping the evolution of these ITexts, researchers and scholars concerned with the production and reception of text must build on a knowledge base and articulate issues, a task undertaken in this article. We begin by reviewing the existing foundations for a research program in IText, then go on to scope out issues for research over the next five to seven years. We direct particular attention to the evolving character of ITexts and to their impact on society. By undertaking this research, we urge ourselves and others to play a part in the continuing evolution of technologies of text.

Geisler, Cheryl, Charles Bazerman, Stephen Doheny-Farina, Laura J. Gurak, Christina Haas, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, David S. Kaufer, Andrea Lunsford, Carolyn R. Miller, Dorothy Winsor and JoAnne Yates. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2001). Articles>Writing>Online