Re: Borrowing and the virtual, virtual center

[Kynell@aol.com]

I have a question, though, about borrowing excessively, or just footnoting
your mission statement as having mostly been adapted/adopted from another
OWL, and the perception others have as to your "authority" or integrity as a
cite.  Now, there's nothing wrong with lots and lots of links, to be sure,
why "re-invent" the wheel?  In fact, I suppose many OWLs border on being
virtual, virtual writing centers as they really function more like bus
stations, or turnstiles, or elevators as students are redirected, processed
in a kind of rhetorical triage, with links to the super-OWLs like Purdue or
Rensesslaer (yikes - spelling?) -- unless there are provisions for on-line
tutoring for local students.  I've been visiting a lot of these sites lately
as I am compiling a "greatest hits" of the OWLs for faculty who want to use
on-line resources to support writing pedagogy across the curriculum.

Our tiny writing center does not currently have an OWL to complement it, but
I'm not sure creating one would be the best use of my/our time,money, energy
-- I don't think I see it as a priority for our students given my ability to
create (on paper -- gasp!) a virtual, virtual writing center that does many
of the same things-- unless I can provide some substantially new service.
(and believe me, I'm working on that)

I'm not sure if this post is leading up to a particular question, other than:

If everything you've (that's the rhetorical "you" not Wendy specifically)got
in your OWL comes, essentially from somewhere else -- are  you sure you need
to be creating an OWL?  In a world of scarce resources (and the relative
demands on our intellectual resources guarantees that they are perpetually
"scarce"), do we need more of the same thing only different?

Based on my marathon OWL surfing sessions these last days, there emerges a
clear format for the OWL --  suggesting, of course, that there is a pervasive
rhetoric of the OWL and that the OWL is very much an institutionally affirmed
sort of thing.  Is there or can there be any revolutionary value in the OWL?

Lynnell Edwards
Concordia University -- Portland