Computer-Mediated
Communication Magazine /
Volume 2, Number 2 / February 1, 1995 / Page 2
Editor's Page
by John December
(john@december.com),
Publisher/Editor
Thanks for this issue
Thanks to the CMC Magazine staff in Troy:
Mick Doherty for managing the process of bringing
this magazine through editing and production,
Chris Lapham and Kevin Hunt for their advice and wisdom,
Lee Honeycutt for his brilliant production work,
Amelia DeLoach for coordinating style issues as well as editing,
and to Lynne Cooke, Kirsten Cooke, Wendy Pepping, Lisa Schmeiser,
Camille Shandor, Jason Teague, and Nick Weaver
for their production work, editing, and contributions.
Thanks to Barbara Bernstein at Hampton Press for permission to
reprint the introductory chapter from the first
volume of an important series
of books, Computer-Mediated Communication and the
Online Classroom. In the coming months, we'll reprint the
first chapters from each of the next two volumes in this series.
Thanks to SunSITE
You'll notice that CMC Magazine has a new home for
back issues and articles on
Sunsite.
My personal account on RPI's server
was getting full (and the server strained ;)),
so our roomier quarters on Sunsite should give
us continued room to grow and a "permanent" place to archive
articles. Past issues from my account on www.rpi.edu
will remain available for a period of time, but if you've linked directly
to any of them, you can link to their corresponding place
on Sunsite
(1994 or
1995 articles),
as the Sunsite links for the
back issues should remain stable. Our new email
address john@december.com
will also allow a
more permanent email "identity" for the magazine, and we
include a
Contact Us
link in the footer of every page to encourage more contact with readers.
Our thanks and gratitude go to Sunsite for providing this space for our
magazine.
Thanks for the last issue
I was very pleased at the work
Mick Doherty and Kevin Hunt did in putting together
a great January
special issue. If you haven't had a chance to
look over this issue, I'd
encourage you to take a look. I thank the many writers who took the
time to contribute to our ongoing goal to discover what we can
know about Computer-Mediated Communication. I hope that we've provided
a forum to raise
some questions and identify new issues important to the field
of CMC.
Matters of style
The great team
of people working on this magazine have begun to explore
and pick apart its essentials. Our goal is to produce an
excellent magazine that fills a need for more informal publication
for people interest in CMC studies.
One issue that faces us is style.
We need to develop a style
guide so that writers and editors have some guidance
for language usage, citation, and format.
Amelia DeLoach (deloaa@rpi.edu)
is coordinating this effort, so please pass any comments or
questions about style you have, or might have had, while
reading CMC Magazine.
In developing this style guide, our goal is
to draw from established style guides that can
be modified for our needs (to adapt existing guides
in order not to "reinvent the wheel") while at the
same time identifying unique needs of a Web-based
publication. The other unique challenge of this work
is to negotiate a style appropriate to the identity
of CMC Magazine
for its audience in academia, industry,
and the general public.
The style guide will contain:
- Citation style -
APA American Psychological
Association (APA)
Style Guide as a basis
- Language usage - Associated Press (AP) Style Guide as
a basis
- Modifications of the above as necessary; for
example, modifications of APA's citation style
for online publications; and an extension of
this specification for hypermedia links
- Vocabulary - a glossary of
language and cultural references considered
part of audience knowledge (impossible to fully
enumerate this, but we'll attempt a characterization)
- Format - specification of the hypertext layout
and format for articles as well as specialized
articles (book reviews, etc).
- Writing style guidance; We encourage writers to
- Use active voice whenever possible.
- Introduce subject matter within the context of
those interested in CMC, using
terms and cultural references that
either are in the glossary (with hyperlinks
to more online information) or explicated
in the article itself.
- Present material recognizing the diverse interests
and backgrounds of the readership.
Eventually, we'll get more of this style and other policy
issues online. We're still growing up as a magazine.
Bob in this issue?
No, Bob (Microsoft's "social" interface to a computer) is not here.
But John Horberg provides
an introductory
glimpse of "intelligent agent" technology, focusing on connections
to fiction and some of the preliminary notions of agent technologies.
Laura Gurak critiques Bob
and the recently announced
Thomas
system
from the viewpoint of what these names symbolize for women.
In my editorial, I question the wisdom of
creating a "social" interface to computers as well as the technical
ability of an "intelligent agent" to make sense of today's Net.
In our CMC News this month, we examine the
progress of the US telecommunications policy,
particularly
the rift between the Clinton Administration and the Republicans:
both seem to embrace the goal of communication on networks
as a national goal, but disagree on the best way
to accomplish this.
Chris Hand and Mark Skipper report on a interactive real-time
trade exhibition. This exhibition demonstrates how today's
Web/Net technologies can be used to patch together real-time
interaction.
Rounding out the issues are reviews:
Mick Doherty looks at a new book on Marshall McLuahn,
and Amelia DeLoach reviews an introductory Internet
book by Alfred Glossbrenner.
And Lisa Schmeiser continues her Web surfing,
finding popular culture sites on the Web.
Enjoy the issue!
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