Send us your wired words, yearning to be free . . . *
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RHETNET: a cyberjournal for rhetoric and writing
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http://www.missouri.edu/~wleric/rhetnet/rhetnet.html
A Call for Texts & Participation
The Internet has places where the conversations hum with energy, where
subjects of interest to writers and to rhetoric and writing
teachers/students/scholars are dealt with in a variety of forms and styles
not found in traditional print publications.
RhetNet is an electronic journal intended to serve as a place to explore
the possibilities for publishing these new rhetorical and aesthetic forms
with full respect for their native characterictics.
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Dialogic Text Magnet
If this invitation is a magnet, here's the kind of stuff we hope will stick
to it, becoming part of the RhetNet collection of texts:
* Excerpts of discussions that occur spontaneously on electronic mailing
lists, Usenet newsgroups, local bulletin boards, IRC channels, or
text-based virtual environments (commonly MUDs, MOOs, and
other MU*s). These might come in the form of highlights from a single
thread, but perhaps tangential elements and intersections from other
relevant sources could be intertwined.
* Orchestrated online discussions or symposia, which might combine a
number of network venues, might include featured "speakers" or
panels, might occur over an extended time so that the published
"work" would accrue rather than freeze solid the moment i t sees the
light of day (as most printed texts do).
* Snapshots, by which we mean short, pithy, provocative essays on any
topic relevant to writing and rhetoric. Snapshots might also come in
the form of periodically accruing layers of text, with new
installments from the same or different writers or grou ps of writers
being linked to existing texts in numerous combinations.
* Traditional articles and essays that deal in some way with the effect of
technology, particularly (but not exclusively) networked computer
technology, on writing, on rhetoric, and on culture.
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RhetNet Venues
One of the primary assumptions informing RhetNet is that the technological
environment matters when it coms to the form, style, and content of any
text. Therefore, potential contributors should keep in mind that RhetNet
has access to several online enviro nments: World Wide Web, gopherspace,
MOOspace, and mailing list distribution and archives. We hope to place some
version of every text in each spot in order to maintain a high level of
accessibility, but some methods of presenting texts will fit better wi th
one venue or another, and we are open to negotiating where and how each
text can and should best be presented.
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How to submit texts or ideas for specific projects
Tradition and innovation will co-exist. We believe it makes sense to treat
articles and essays in ways approximately similar to the way they currently
are treated in the print and electronic worlds, selecting appropriate work
by a more-or-less conventiona l peer review process. For this purpose,
RhetNet has an editorial board which will review and critique submissions.
Traditionally shaped essays and articles should be submitted via email to
[log in to unmask] All submissions will be acknowledged within
24 hours, and replies concerning acceptance/rejection will follow within
two weeks.
Net/texts (slices of conversations from network venues) or summaries of
them should be submitted via email to [log in to unmask] with a
subject line that begins with COWRITE: (please use all caps and the colon)
followed by the submitter's last name, e.g.: subject: COWRITE: Doe
RHETNT-L/COWRITE is a subset of the public mailing list that serves
RhetNet. Posting texts here is an invitation to collaborate with members of
the RhetNet community. It is also an opportunity to blur the lines between
reader/writer/editor in what we thin k will be interesting ways.
Subscribers to RHETNT-L who choose to read the subtopic COWRITE will
respond to texts submitted, copying in the submitter. The process should be
considered an immediate extension to the text being submitted, a
continuation of the compositing process simultaneous with the editing
process.
NOTE: All submissions, whether traditional essays/articles or
unconventional net/texts, should be accompanied by a 200-300 word abstract.
NOTE2: Anyone who wishes to perform the HTML markup on a text to be
submitted as a net/text or an article may send just the URL where the text
begins so editorial board members or COWRITE colleagues may find it. Texts
destined to be published on th e web may be marked up by authors or by
members of RhetNet, or both, as suits the situation.
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How to become part of the project
We're interested in exploring the reconfiguration of
editorial/authorial/audience roles as they apply on the net. In a sense,
anyone who contributes text is part of the editorial process, part of the
project. Anyone who joins the list is also part of t he process. To
subscribe:
Send mail to
[log in to unmask]
Leave the subject line blank, and in the first line put
sub rhetnt-l Yourfirstname Yourlastname
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* Apologies to Emma Lazarus for "liberties" taken with a line from her
poem, "The New Colossus," as inscribed on a tablet at the base of the
Statue of Liberty.
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Suggestions, questions, comments to:
Eric Crump
[log in to unmask]
