From LISTSERV@uacsc2.albany.edu Tue Jan  5 16:04:04 1993
Date:         Tue, 5 Jan 1993 16:03:04 -0500
From: Revised List Processor (1.7e) <LISTSERV@uacsc2.albany.edu>
Subject:      File: "EJRNL V2N3"
To: pirmann@trident.usacs.rutgers.edu

             _______  _______                                         __
            / _____/ /__  __/                                        / /
           / /__       / / ____    __  __  __ ___  __ __    ____    / /
          / ___/  __  / / / __ \  / / / / / //__/ / //_ \  / __ \  / /
         / /____ / /_/ / / /_/ / / /_/ / / /     / /  / / / /_/ / / /
         \_____/ \____/  \____/  \____/ /_/     /_/  /_/  \__/_/ /_/

August, 1992            _EJournal_  Volume 2 Number 3            ISSN# 1054-1055
                      There are 730 lines in this issue.

                   An Electronic Journal concerned with the
                implications of electronic networks and texts.
                       2680 Subscribers in 38 Countries

              University at Albany, State University of New York

                            ejournal@albany.bitnet


CONTENTS:

   Editorial Notes -                                      [ Begin at line   62 ]

   Letters about V2N2 (David Coniam on "Literacy ....")
        from Peter Graham                                 [ Begins at line  92 ]
        from Bret Pettichord                              [ Begins at line 147 ]
        from Philip Taylor                                [ Begins at line 254 ]
        from Alvanir Carvalho                             [ Begins at line 343 ]

   [ To get V2N2, send to  LISTSERV@ALBANY
     the one-line message  GET EJRNL V2N2  ]

   Letter about e-journal layout, ASCII, bandwidth        [ Begins at line 379 ]
        from Murry Christensen

   Announcement from Joe Raben about SCHOLAR              [ Begins at line 477 ]

   Inquiry from Michel Lenoble about Computer Generated Literature
                                                          [ Begins at line 555 ]

   Information -                                          [ Begins at line 616 ]

      About Subscriptions and Back Issues
      About Supplements to Previous Texts
      About Letters to the Editor
      About Reviews
      About _EJournal_

   People -                                               [ Begins at line 689 ]

      Board of Advisors
      Consulting Editors
                                                                       [line 53]
********************************************************************************
* This electronic publication and its contents are (c) copyright 1992 by       *
* _EJournal_.  Permission is hereby granted to give away the journal and its   *
* contents, but no one may "own" it.  Any and all financial interest is hereby *
* assigned to the acknowledged authors of individual texts.  This notification *
* must accompany all distribution of _EJournal_.                               *
********************************************************************************

Editorial Notes -

        This is our first "letters" issue.  There have been five
responses to David Coniam's essay about children and keyboards (and to
my editorial).  One of them was a request to reprint his piece in the
_Journal of Computing in Childhood Education_.  One, from Brazil, was a
report of a "test," of sorts, of David's hypothesis.  I have not been
able to reach David to solicit his replies to the writers, but I am
taking advantage of the medium to share the letters now, knowing that we
can distribute his reactions to them, if he wants us to, as soon as we
do reestablish electronic contact.
        There is also an "unprovoked" letter to the editor, this one
about the ways that network transmission constricts communication in one
dimension even as it makes exchanges quick and easy in another.
        There are also an announcement and an inquiry that seem
related to _Ejournal_'s purpose and (probably) to our readers'
interests.
        Han Geurdes has had to resign as a Consulting Editor.  I am
canvassing ten people who have asked about joining that group to see if
they are still interested, and would be happy to receive names,
addresses, interests and "qualifications" from anyone else who would
like to be in the queue.
        _EJournal_ would especially like to look at essays about virtual
reality (including MUDs) and about interactive fiction (hypertext
make-believe).  Robert Coover's article "The End of the Book" in the
NYTimes Book Review of 6/21/92 pointed to _EJournal_ as a place where
such essays appear; a review of Stuart Moulthrop's _Victory Garden_
would seem especially appropriate.  Any volunteers?
                                                                       [line 90]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Mid-June, 1992
Editor, _EJournal_]

A few comments on 2.2 just received:

1) The jargon reference to text being "privileged" over sound was
jarring to me.  I associate it with a school of historical and literary
analysis.  Is that an explicit association you intend?  Outside of that
context, use of that verb is unusual and I suspect unnecessary.

2) I found David Coniam's article on handwriting and keyboarding fairly
self-indulgent.  In spite of the seeming authentication lent by the
references, the assertions in the paper seemed to me very ad hoc and
anecdotal.  His early references to the times-tables seemed ambiguous to
me:  should we or should we not memorize them?  If not, what other means
is there than rote, or going through numerous repetitive exercises?  In
memorizing a poem, for example, I don't pretend to be trying to feel and
understand its meaning as I work on each line and phrase; yet having
memorized it I feel I have something of enormous value that comes back
for years.

Coniam's swipe at Latin is another example of an assertion, not backed
up, and for questionable purpose.  Perhaps he doesn't like Latin; that's
his privilege.  But many people have found it indeed an aid to thought
and expression even in English; his blanket condemnation is just as ad
hoc as their own approval.

I'm delighted to hear of the successes and progress of his child, but it
doesn't seem of a whole lot of generalizable use to me.  Does the
editorial board listed at the end of Ejournal do reviews and comments of
mss?  Did they on this one?

--Peter Graham, Rutgers University.

[Editor's reply, 15 June  1992]

Dear Peter - Thanks for your letter about _EJournal_ v2n2.  May we
consider it a formal (or even informal) "letter to the editor," intended
for publication?  David Coniam might want to respond -- or might not.
                                                                     [line 131]
Meanwhile, my quick answers to two of your questions: I didn't mean to sound
like an advocate of a particular "school" of analysis, but I do find that the
way I thought I was using "privilege" strikes chords in me that other phrasings
do not.  Perhaps "giving undue weight, by implication, [to sight] because of
the absence of an alternative [hearing] not explicitly mentioned" would have
been more thorough.  But I'm not sure that that phrasing would have done the
job as well as "priviliged" seemed to -- to me.

The board does and did offer comments, suggestions, opinions, approvals,
disapprovals; I alone am responsible for assessing the several responses and
deciding whether to accept a particular essay.

Thanks again for your thoughts.     Best,  Ted Jennings

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Mid-June, 1992]
To: Ted Jennings and David Coniam
Re: Writing as punishment and work

Ted, You mention [in the Editorial] that writing is often used as a
punishment and that people often don't look forward to this. You mention
that people rarely enjoy having to take notes at meetings. You contrast
this with speech, which people don't have to learn at school and which
is not a punishment.

Anyway, i wonder if these reactions aren't better described as a
difference between being told to do something and doing something on
your own initiative. For example, people often take their own notes at
meetings without displeasure. What makes the task possibly onerous is
having to take them for everybody. This means that you'll have to make
sure you don't forget anything that other people think is important, and
the like. But people often dislike having to speak in front of other
people as well.

In regards to your and David Coniam's remarks on the future of
handwriting, i'd just like to say that i have machines both at home
and at work, but that when i'm working on serious writing, i prefer
doing the first draft by hand on paper.  Maybe i'm a luddite, but i
can't look forward to a day when children will not know how to use a
pen.                                                                 [line 171]

Also i wonder if it will really happen. A pocket calculator can now be
purchased for the price of a notebook. But even to use one, one needs to
know how to write letters in order to write down the results. The
alternative would be to get a paper-tape calculator, but those are far
more expensive.

Will electronic keyboards and word processors someday be as common as
calculators are today? Will you be able to buy one for ten bucks at the
grocery store? Will it have a built in printer? What will the market be
for such a device? Students, professionals, managers, anyone else? Would
people use it for their grocery lists?

What seems to me to be more likely is that a growing class of
illiterates will be created alongside a computer-literate elite and that
the computerization of education will accelerate the split between these
two classes. Giving children a computer may enhance their sense of
control over the world, but so would giving them a slave. But not all
children are going to get computers, and those that don't will have
their sense of control reduced. Also, for the price of one piece of
decent educational software, i could get my son several perfectly fun
and educational activity books.

I used to teach logo to children. I once taught it to a three-year-old.
My son is now 6 and i haven't taught it to him. Maybe i will someday,
but he hasn't asked and i think it's more important to just encourage
his drawing/writing skills, his vocabulary, and his social skills.

That's a point that neither of you mention: learning to draw letters and
to draw them well helps one learn how to draw. I think that people's
general unwillingness to draw is more problematic than their
unwillingness to write. I'm presently employed as a graphics software
tester, but i still think that it is much easier to do quick sketches
with pencil and paper than with a computer.

On pen-based computing: it is not proposed as a replacement for a
keyboard for those with a large amount of writing. Instead it is
proposed as an interface to sales-forms, pocket calendars, and for
marking comments on things other people have written. Whether these
tasks will taken over by pen-based computers or not, they will require
people to have hand writing skills.                                  [line 212]

You mention all the labor and thought that it takes to form letters and
words by hand and contrast it with the ease of the computer.  However,
you ignore the fact that computers have a larger amount of overhead. I
have to name the file, remember the name, save it or it will be lost.
With paper none of this is necessary at all. Does your son know how to
do this, or do you come in and help him? When you've finished drawing
your letters, there they are, done. With a computer, you have to
remember the print command. I still have to help my wife, much less my
son, with this sometimes to get it to print right. With paper, this
isn't even an issue.

Regarding Papert's enthusiasm over computer's in the school: Children do
well whenever they are given a lot of attention. Computers are one way
of doing this. Is this the best way? Is this the most cost-effective?
Will it provide better job training? I don't know, but i think that you
and Papert are over-enthusiastic on these matters.


Bret Pettichord
bret@ileaf.com

P.S. Ted, you should include the address you want letters to be sent to
in "About Letters".


[15-JUN-1992 11:02:35.55]

Bret - I particularly appreciate your thoughts because you, too, are a
witness to the environment David Coniam writes about.  May I assume that
your letter is indeed a "letter to the editor," and that you wouldn't
mind our publishing it, with (or without) other letters, responses,
etc.?

Thanks, too, for the idea of putting _EJournal_'s address even closer to
the note about Letters!  I thought the address was in too many places,
but I left it out of a crucial slot.

Best, Ted Jennings
                                                                     [line 252]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Mid-June, 1992]

Sir ---

_EJ_, V2N2, raises some interesting questions to which I would like to
respond.

>>> Editorial 1 - Should we say goodbye to "text"?

Surely not; everything that I have read so far in _EJ_ is, purely and
simply, text (with the sole exception of the _EJ_ Logo).  Unless and
until contributions to _EJ_ contain non-textual elements, `text' will
remain the most descriptive term for its content.

>>> In contrast, the Mathematics section of the U.K. High Schools' National
>>> Curriculum (1990) states that pupils still need to know their times tables,
>>> but that the tables should not simply be rote-learnt.

I do not have a copy of this document to hand, but I most sincerely hope
that it does _not_ refer to their ``times tables''; the tables are
_multiplication_ tables, and any reference to them as ``times'' tables
will only encourage that most sloppy of usages, sadly only too common
among today's comprehensively [sic] educated children, ``to times by'',
meaning ``to multiply by''.

> A popular slogan was "Learning Latin is good for your mind".  What nonsense:
>>> the learning of Latin was simply a test of memory and very little else.

I think that as the author has permitted himself the use of ``What
nonsense'', I may respond in kind:  What nonsense:  the learning of
Latin forms the soundest basis not only for the learning of modern
European tongues (many of which reveal their Latin or Greek origins in a
most transparent way to the classically educated scholar), but also for
the appreciation and understanding of one's own native tongue, be it
<Am.E> or <Br.E>.  If today's children were still educated in the
classics, the nonsensical ``flammable'' designation now apparently
mandatory on _inflammable_ substances would never have been deemed
necessary for widespread comprehension.
                                                                     [line 292]
>>> The typed instructions:

>>>      BK 200   LT 90   FD 100

>>> would produce a figure that resembles the letter "L," for instance.

But how much better, surely, if the instructions had read

        Back 200 Left 90 Forward 100

such that the child would be using natural English commands, rather than
a particularly arbitrary, cryptic and terse computerese. Is it entirely
coincidental that cryptic consonant groups are becoming equally
widespread both within (CD, LS, MV) and without (Toys <Reversed-R> Us,
Fish N Chips) the computing domain?

>>> The way in which written Chinese used to be taught in the first years of
>>> Chinese primary schools (and still is in many schools in China and Hong
>>> Kong) can be seen as representing an extreme of misplaced emphasis. Not
>>> only was the order of the strokes in which one wrote a character
>>> important, but considerable emphasis was also placed on the way the
>>> brush that produced those strokes was held.

Misplaced emphasis?  Surely the most appropriate and correctly placed
emphasis in the world.  The fortunate Chinese child who is properly
instructed in the ancient art of Chinese calligraphy will be able to
produce manuscripts which are a joy to behold, even to those of us
unfortunate enough not to be able to appreciate their semantics.
Compare the elegance of the characters formed by traditional Chinese
brush strokes with the puerile scribblings of the average European or
American child whose only experience of a writing implement is a
disposable ball-point pen.  Once, Sir, we too valued a well-formed hand
as a mark of education, and taught copperplate; now we regard the
acquisition of _any_ skill in writing as a significant achievement, and
teach only the most simple and rudimentary letter forms.  The increasing
use and ultimate ubiquity of the personal computer will simply hasten
the day when literacy and numeracy finally cease to exist.
                                                                     [line 330]
                                Yours provocatively,
                                Philip Taylor, RHBNC.


[15-JUN-1992 12:15:39.80]

Dear Philip - Thanks for your provocative letter.  We expect to assemble
and distribute a bundle of "What Nonsense" communications, accompanied
perhaps by David Coniam's responses.  Best, Ted Jennings

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 14:19:50 BS3
From: "alvanir carvalho - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil" <ALVANIR@BRLNCC.BITNET>
Subject: Letter to the Editor

Illiteracy rate is quite high in Brazil. It is part of the reason for
the backwardness of my country.

Perhaps you folks would like to know that, after reading the article
    "Literacy for the Next Generation : Writing Without Handwriting"
           by David Coniam, Chinese University of Hong Kong

I decided to give it a trial.

As it happens, my wyfe and me do enjoy entertainning, from time to time,
a 5 years old girl, the daughter of the concierge at our apartment
building, in Rio de Janeiro. The parents of that girl are both
illiterate so I undertook the job of teaching her to read and to write.
She was already able to recognize some letters I did print on small
peaces of papercard.  However, after reading David Coniam's article, I
asked the girl if she would like to use my electric typewriter ( for I
do not have a micro computer in the house ). Her progress was
astonishing.

The girl was much excited about typing words she would already
understand its meaning, such as the names of her parents and her own
name. She is now able to formulate short sentences of her own.  There is
no doubt, however, how much more she would be learning if she would be
able to use a micro computer.                                        [line 370]

    My congratulations to David Coniam for his most useful "discovery".

                                        [Alvanir Caravalho
                                        alvanir@brlncc]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 Jul 92 09:58:15 EDT
From: Murry Christensen <71521.2515@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: letter to editor

        Greetings from the network nation.  In keeping with the
informality which is (at least partly) in keeping with one of the stated
purposes of EJournal, I'd like to explore two related, though for the
sake of clarity best kept distinct, issues which might be interesting to
the readership (which is what?? an interesting question in itself,
better suited to the survey inclined?).

First, though, a quick precis of my background will make my interest in
these topics more clear.  MA in English Literature and writing from
Univ.  of Michigan, with BA minor in Philosophy.  15 years experience in
the media business: starting with advertising typography and mechanical
production; industrial multi-media (slide shows, theater/trade shows,
videotape) as designer, writer, producer; information design (slides
mostly) for financial, biotech, computer and telecommunications;
interactive software and hypertext design and production.  I list this
not as some ticketpunching, credential-waving exercise, but to give a
sense of what experience drives the following concerns.

I'd be interested in seeing EJournal address in some form two issues
that over time have come to concern me more and more:

1.) A consideration of the ways in which formal narrative structure
might be adapted to or expanded by the capabilities provided by
interactive software platforms.  Hypertext linking, interactive
"front-ends," direct manipulation of view point are a few of the new
capabilities available to the author of narrative fiction.  I've built
several of these to varying degrees of sophistication.  I've also been
working on a more formal article and/or essay along these lines.  In its
best-realized form this article would itself be a hypertext, including
examples of the kinds of interfaces described.  But, in order for this
to happen we'd (in the generic sense) have to confront the second of my
concerns...                                                          [line 414]

2.) Is ANYBODY else out there as frustrated (to the point of beating my
head against the monitor) by the absolute paucity of communication tools
*actually* available to the _cyberspace_ communicator? :-(

Look at this last sentence...what a pathetic arsenal of communication
tools.  And that pretty much exhausts what's available!  This in a world
that gives any user of any reasonably-competent word processor scaleable
typefaces, embedded graphics, at least simple text linking.  Yet the
instant you want to make that "document" available to others on-line all
the meaning inhering in anything other than raw ASCII text gets stripped
away.  Put it on the wire and instantly we all become visually
disadvantaged (and I wouldn't be afraid to propose perhaps in some way
intellectually-mangled also).

A single example: the typographic industry spent several hundred years
developing the _technic_ and the _technique_ to accomplish quite subtle
feats of explicit and implicit communication, only to find that at the
very moment the means became available to distribute that artifact in
ways that would enrich all of us...it was all taken away.  "The Lord
giveth and the Lord taketh away."  I hope that I'm not the only one on
whom the irony is not lost.  Just as a simple metaphor, the kinds of
academic publications that form the community of which EJournal is some
(slightly renegade?) part are very conservative in general typographic
and visual convention, extremely formal understates it, yet even they
make use of a much broader range of cognitive clues, tools, and devices
than does EJournal.  I'm absolutely not arguing for the kind of
wacked-out layout and typography you might see in "Mondo 2000" or "The
Face," nor am I delivering any particular critique of EJournal (except
as it provides an example of my point).  But there are so many subtle
aids to understanding that can't be crushed into the "ASCII cage."
Reminds me of the story about the kindergarten teacher who began to find
it difficult to talk to adults, so atrophied had the intellectual skills
become.

Until this loss of capability is acknowledged and remedied it seems to
me (with my particular view of how the medium can be used) that much of
the breathless discussion of millenarian impact is pretty hollow.  Until
we fix this "loss of band-width" we're only talking about distribution,
not revolution...or at best a revolution hand-delivered, like 1848.  At
a cognitive level we might consider the ways in which the restricted
vocabulary (in the larger sense I'm arguing for) offered by cyberspace
as it currently exists is in fact "dumbing down" our discourse.  Or the
political implications of islands of capability (IBM vs. Mac vs. NEXT
vs.  whatever) which, if able to communicate at all, have to do so by
stripping out all strictly non-textual, non-linear clues/cues before the
words can pass the border.  Pretty Stalinist?                        [line 461]

I'll turn the word-machine off for this first pass, but these issues
warrant some consideration and it seems like EJournal might be a good
place to begin some discussion.  I've tried other places (like CompuServe),
but the conversation always seems to end up with endless chat about the
merits of paint program A vs. paint program B.  Not very rewarding.  I hope
this doesn't sound like a rant (except where I wanted it to), but I guess
my frustration shows.  All that (potential) capability and so little of it
accessible.  What a shame.

Murry Christensen
Art & Science, Inc.
71521.2515@compuserve.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Received from Joe Raben in June 1992]
     *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

The first release of SCHOLAR, an online news service
for natural language processors, will be available
in mid-August 1992. Its contents include

Abstracts from the following journals:

     Computational Linguistics, 17:4
     System, 19:1/2,3,4
     Machine Translation, 6:1,2,3
     Computers and the Humanities, 25:1,2/3,4,5

Reports on the following projects:

     A European Ph.D. in Linguistics
     CTI Center for Textual Studies
     Georgetown Center for Text and Technology
     ARTFL: American and French Research on the Tresor
          de la Langue francaise

A short review of _Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush
     and the Mind's Machine_ by James N. Nyce and Paul
     D. Kahn                                                          [line 501]

A full-length review of _Hypermedia and Literary Stud-
     ies_ ed. Paul Delaney and Gedorge P. Landow

A notice of WinGreek: Fonts for Greek and Hebrew

A CD-ROM of Latin texts

A calendar of language-processing-related events

     -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
To receive this and future releases by email, send a
message to

     <listserv@cunyvm.cuny.edu>

as follows:

     subscribe scholar [your full name]

To receive this release by anonymous ftp send the
following:

     ftp jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu

          or

     ftp 128.220.2.2

At the login: prompt, type

     anonymous  or  SCHOLAR

At the password: prompt, type

     [your own login id]

To locate the SCHOLAR files, type

     get index.SCHOLAR                                               [line 541]

To close the connection, type

     quit

     -    -    -    -    -    -

Material for inclusion in future releases should be
sent as e-mail to <jqrqc@cunyvm.cuny.edu> or mailed to
SCHOLAR, P.O. Box F, New York NY 10028-0025.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michel Lenoble asked that we publish his request for information about
Computer Generated Literature west of the Atlantic.  There's a
sketch of CGL following Michel's note.  Please send responses to
lenoblem@ere.montreal.ca

        I am gathering information about Computer Generated Literature
(CGL) in order to write a long article on the state of CGL on this side
of the Atlantic.  Information about bibliographical references,
databanks, and e-adresses of persons or groups involved in CGL is
especially welcomed.  I seek information in particular about:

        - active groups or individuals or former researchers, including
programmers and writers
        - different movements, associations, schools
        - published or distributed CGL texts, or anthologies, or journals
        - short stories, novels, poems or scenarios
        - monographs, journal articles, research papers devoted to CGL
        - references to CGL in "normally" written literary texts

        Computer Generated Literature (CGL) refers to fully automated
literary text generation -- to literary texts produced by computer
programs.  CGL does not include literary texts written by human authors,
even if they were written directly on computers.  (One might debate
whether Interactive Fiction (IF) and multi-authored literary texts
(MALT) belong to the realm of CGL.)                                   [line 579]

        A typology of Computer Generated Literary texts could be
organized according to several different criteria, such as:

   - the starting data: vocabulary databases, knowledge bases,
redaction rules, textual corpora, etc.
   - the generation programs: substitutional, aleatory, autonomous,
interactive; typographical animation, modulatory programs with
integrated auto-corrective functions, etc.
   - the various "types" of generated texts: full texts versus frames or
scenarios, short stories, poems, unique finite texts versus infinite
texts (perhaps interactive fiction and multi-authored texts), etc.
   - the transmission / inscription medium: printed texts, floppy
texts, potential texts (literature to be generated when the user
/ reader starts the CGL program), etc.

        CGL appears to be more common in Europe and particularly in
France, where it is part of a literary tendency to explore the limits of
literary writing, literary texts and literariness.  At its origin, we
could mention combinatory literature, OULIPO endeavours, the
automatists, etc.  Nowadays, two or three Computer Generated Poetry
reviews are regularly issued by active writer / programmer groups on
floppy disks.  One conference has already been organized, at
Cerisy-la-Salle.

        Thank you for your help.
===============================================================================
Michel Lenoble           |
Litterature Comparee     |        NOUVELLE ADRESSE - NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS
Universite de Montreal   |        --->   lenoblem@ere.umontreal.ca
C.P. 6128, Succ. "A"     |
MONTREAL (Quebec)        |        Tel.: (514) 288-3916
Canada - H3C 3J7         |
===============================================================================
                                                                      [line 614]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------  I N F O R M A T I O N  ------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Subscribing and Sending for Back Issues:

In order to:                    Send to:                  This message:

Subscribe to _EJournal_:        LISTSERV@ALBANY.BITNET    SUB EJRNL Your Name

Get Contents/Abstracts
 of previous issues:            LISTSERV@ALBANY.BITNET    GET EJRNL CONTENTS

Get Volume 1 Number 1:          LISTSERV@ALBANY.BITNET    GET EJRNL V1N1

Send mail to our "office":      EJOURNAL@ALBANY.BITNET    Your message...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About "Supplements":

_EJournal_ is experimenting with ways of revising, responding to, reworking, or
even retracting the texts we publish.  Authors who want to address a subject
already broached --by others or by themselves-- may send texts for us to
consider publishing as a Supplement issue.  Proposed supplements will not go
through as thorough an editorial review process as the essays they annotate.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Letters:

_EJournal_ is willing publish letters to the editor.  But we make no
predictions about how many, which ones, or what format.  The "Letters" column
of a periodical is a habit of the paper environment, and  _EJournal_ readers
can send outraged objections to our essays directly to the authors.  Also, we
can publish substantial counterstatements as articles in their own right, or as
"Supplements."  Even so, when we get brief, thoughtful statements that appear
to be of interest to many subscribers they will appear as "Letters."  Please
send them to  EJOURNAL@ALBANY.bitnet .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Reviews:
                                                                      [line 653]
_EJournal_ is willing to publish reviews of almost anything that seems to fit
under our broad umbrella: the implications of electronic networks and texts.
We do not, however, solicit and thus cannot provide review copies of fiction,
prophecy, critiques, other texts, programs, hardware, lists or bulletin boards.
But if you would like to bring any publicly available information to our
readers' attention, send your review (any length) to us, or ask if writing one
sounds to us like a good idea.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About _EJournal_:

_EJournal_ is an all-electronic, Matrix distributed, peer-reviewed, academic
periodical.  We are particularly interested in theory and practice surrounding
the creation, transmission, storage, interpretation, alteration and replication
of electronic text.  We are also interested in the broader social,
psychological, literary, economic and pedagogical implications of computer-
mediated networks. The journal's essays are delivered free to Bitnet/Internet/
Usenet addressees.  Recipients may make paper copies; _EJournal_ will provide
authenticated paper copy from our read-only archive for use by academic deans
or others.  Individual essays, reviews, stories-- texts --sent to us will be
disseminated to subscribers as soon as they have been through the editorial
process, which will also be "paperless."  We expect to offer access through
libraries to our electronic Contents and Abstracts, and to be indexed and
abstracted in appropriate places.

Writers who think their texts might be appreciated by _EJournal_'s audience are
invited to forward files to EJOURNAL@ALBANY.BITNET .  If you are wondering
about starting to write a piece for to us, feel free to ask if it sounds
appropriate.  There are no "styling" guidelines; we try to be a little more
direct and lively than many paper publications, and considerably less hasty and
ephemeral than most postings to unreviewed electronic spaces.  We read ASCII;
we look forward to experimenting with other transmission and display formats
and protocols.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Board of Advisors:                                                    [line 689]
                         Stevan Harnad        Princeton University
                         Dick Lanham          University of California at L.A.
                         Ann Okerson          Association of Research Libraries
                         Joe Raben            City University of New York
                         Bob Scholes          Brown University
                         Harry Whitaker       University of Quebec at Montreal
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Consulting Editors - August 1992

ahrens@hartford            John Ahrens         Hartford
ap01@liverpool.ac.uk       Stephen Clark       Liverpool
userlcbk@umichum           Bill Condon         Michigan
crone@cua                  Tom Crone           Catholic University
dabrent@acs.ucalgary.ca    Doug Brent          University of Calgary
djb85@albnyvms             Don Byrd            University at Albany
donaldson@loyvax           Randall Donaldson   Loyola College
ds001451@ndsuvm1           Ray Wheeler         North Dakota
eng006@zeus.unomaha.edu    Marvin Peterson     University of Nebraska, Omaha
erdt@pucal                 Terry Erdt          Purdue Calumet
fac_aska@jmuvax1           Arnie Kahn          James Madison University
folger@yktvmv              Davis Foulger       IBM - Watson Center
george@gacvax1             G.N. Georgacarakos  Gustavus Adolphus
gms@psuvm                  Gerry Santoro       Pennsylvania State University
nrcgsh@ritvax              Norm Coombs         Rochester Institute of Technology
pmsgsl@ritvax              Patrick M. Scanlon  Rochester Institute of Technology
r0731@csuohio              Nelson Pole         Cleveland State University
richardj@surf.sics.bu.oz   Joanna Richardson   Bond University, Australia
ryle@urvax                 Martin Ryle         University of Richmond
twbatson@gallua            Trent Batson        Gallaudet
wcooper@vm.ucs.ualberta.ca Wes Cooper          Alberta
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
University at Albany Computing Services Center:
                               Isabel Nirenberg, Bob Pfeiffer; Ben Chi, Director
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor:                              Ted Jennings, English, University at Albany
Managing Editor:                                Ron Bangel, University at Albany
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
University at Albany      State University of New York     Albany, NY 12222  USA


