\title{Reflections on Writing and Computers 8 (London 7--9 September 1995)}
\author[R. Allan Reese\\
Email: \texttt{r.a.reese@ucc.hull.ac.uk}]{R. Allan Reese}
\begin{Article}

Did you know Shakespeare's plot in {\it Romeo \& Juliet\/} extends over six
days, from a Friday morning to Wednesday?  Just one of the useful titbits I
picked up at the conference. Writing and Computers conferences attract a
different class of computer users from \TeX{} conferences; less oriented
or sympathetic to computer science, possibly more interested in the human
user. To someone like myself, running a general purpose computing service,
both groups are very interesting. 

These writers' conferences are dominated by people who teach writing or
who study other writers, rather than by people who live by selling their
own words. Also noticeably absent were publishers --- possibly a good thing,
as writers and publishers are necessarily protagonists. The hilarity
amongst the publishers at seeing so many missed deadlines might have been
unsettling. The knock-on of missed deadlines was a dynamic hypertext
timetable, in the genre of an adventure game. The very-packed, constantly
changing programme led to a feeling of mild panic (cf the Lentillas in
Douglas Adams {\it Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy}) as we yo-yoed
between rooms on several floors of the Institute. 

Writing about writing generates its own pressure. The monkey on your
shoulder screams, ``those that can do, those that can't teach.'' One
telling comment to an academic editor, that I overheard during breakfast
was: ``Since you told us and the publisher that this would be {\em the} new
definitive book, for the first time ever I've had writer's block.''

The exact instructions on the presentation of abstracts were apparently
ignored by most of the authors, including several of the organizers.
There's a lot to be said for authors providing text and editors imposing
format. As indicated above, many of the participants did not themselves
appear to be sophisticated computer users, and talk of imposed stylesheets
or enforcement of style through SGML would have left them cold. 

And yet none of this detracted from an enjoyable and productive
conference.  The organization came together in a weighty and informative
book of abstracts provided on arrival. Our next problem was finding time
to scan the abstracts and make difficult choices. What follows therefore
is a personal and partly-random selection. 

In the gaps between the whirling social programme, great ideas were
exchanged.  One paper concluded that `better' student writers devoted more
time to structure and planning because they were so comfortable with
grammar and vocabulary that these were handled automatically. Maybe
`obvious', but at another conference this year I saw a speaker howled down
for suggesting that grammar should be taught more explicitly in UK
schools. My own interests include software tools for supporting the 
various stages of writing; text formatting is one, but the words still 
have to be chosen and put in order. The starting point of \LaTeX{} was 
supposedly the idea that the author would be relieved of the need to 
consider the physical appearance while the text was being written.

Another paper compared structured and `free-text' abstracts of scientific
papers. While strict quantitative measures of use and recall in the
standard convenience sample of students showed no noticeable improvement,
the consensus in the subsequent discussion was that the structure would be
a helpful support and checklist for writers. The difficulty is always to
extrapolate from volunteer groups in short-term studies to a general
population developing and applying life-skills with diverse motivations.
Structured abstracts ought to make comprehension easier and searching more
consistent.  This becomes increasingly important as we rely more on
computer searches to trawl for information.

Sally Tweddle's keynote opening was well-pitched in relegating technology
to `appropriate' use, but no one picked up on her mention of a New York
school{\em girl} who started an account of a group project with ``I'll
show you Joe's picture. {\em He}'s our best artist.'' What a stereotype of
male domination of technology, and female subordination to an auxillary
supportive role!  \TeX-group meetings certainly don't reflect a 50:50
sex ratio, but I wouldn't have called them male-dominated.  What do other
people think?  Is \TeX{} a minority sport partly because it's seen as
a boys' computer-science toy?

Michael Barnett's keynote carried on in a way from Sally's: the interplay
of technology and the use to which it's put. It struck a chord: a typical
helpdesk interaction in the university: ``Why did you do that?'' --- ``Well,
it was in the program so I just clicked on it'' Technology makes things
possible but must not be allowed to take over and control the task --- what
would {\em you} do if ``The Machine Stops'' and the technology ceases to
work? [cry]

Multimedia CD technology was perhaps the dominant topic of the whole
conference. We agonized about the lack of imaginative use of a `new'
medium, but maybe we do not need a {\em Shakespeare} of software --- we need
a Pasolini, or even a Tarantino.  In the same way that sticking a camera
into a theatre seat would not produce a `film', just putting text on a
disk and automating the index doesn't make it exciting. The BBC/Harper
team were clear as to the amount of work they had needed to put into
creating a multimedia study guide to R \& J, despite starting with a
complete and unrevisable text. 

Does hypertext have a role for other than reference material?  The
overwhelming majority of readers don't want to write a story of their own;
they want to be {\em told} one (as we were, held entranced over lunch by a
storyteller). PC/CD hardware is still too slow by an order of magnitude,
though since the conference I've read that CD capacity will soon increase
by up to 20-fold. When you open a book, you don't stare at the title page
for several minutes while the rest of the book prepares itself to be read. 
`The medium is the message.' In the area of design and communication,
if the technology become intrusive, then {\em it} becomes the message, and
the meaning you intended is lost. That's one reason I advise against 
on-line presentations at conferences using, say, PowerPoint --- the 
audience is either amazed how slickly it works, or bored at how tackily 
it doesn't.

Next year's W\&C meeting will take place in Barcelona. Do they need
another meeting? My conclusion from the conference (and email discussion
lists set up to preface and complement the conference) is that there are
many themes in writing and computers being actively considered and far
from worked out. Were the technology and its application fully understood,
there would still be themes in education and dissemination. At some time
the theme will become an anachronism; everyone will grow up as comfortable
with computers as we are with pens --- or do I ``talk of dreams, which are
but children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy''? 
\end{Article}
\endinput
R. Allan Reese                         Email: r.a.reese@ucc.hull.ac.uk
Head of Applications, Computer Centre  Direct voice:    +44 1482 465296 
Hull University                        Voice messages:  +44 1482 465685
Hull HU6 7RX,  U.K.                    Fax:             +44 1482 466441