Rhetorical Ethics & Internetworked Writing

James E. Porter

Rhetorical Ethics and Internetworked Writing develops rhetoric theory as a heuristic tool for addressing the new ethical and legal complexities cyberwriters and writing teachers face on the Internet and World Wide Web. Porter conceptualizes rhetoric as an ethical operation (first by examining the rhetoric-ethics relationship in classical and modern rhetoric, then by turning to postmodern ethics, which revives a casuistic approach to ethics). In the second half of the book, Porter considers special cases involving the discourse on the networks that challenge or undermine conventional, print-based law and ethics.

"This is a timely book, both in its treatment of internetworked writing, which is exploding in college writing classrooms across the country, and in its treatment of ethics, which is much on the mind of composition scholars."
Marilyn M. Cooper
Michigan Technological University

James Porter has been at Purdue University since 1988, teaching in the rhetoric Ph.D. program and directing the undergraduate business writing program. PorterÕs research explores connections among rhetoric theory, postmodernism, ethics, and electronic writing. His co-authored book with Patricia Sullivan, Opening Spaces: Writing Technologies and Critical Research Practices (Ablex, 1977), develops a postmodern approach to doing empirical research on computers and writing.

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James E. Porter
Rhetorical Ethics and Internetworked Writing develops rhetoric theory as a heuristic tool for addressing the new ethical and legal complexities cyberwriters and writing teachers face on the Internet and World Wide Web. Porter conceptualizes rhetoric as an ethical operation (first by examining the rhetoric-ethics relationship in classical and modern rhetoric, then by turning to postmodern ethics, which revives a casuistic approach to ethics). In the second half of the book, Porter considers special cases involving the discourse on the networks that challenge or undermine conventional, print-based law and ethics.
	"This is a timely book, both in its treatment of internetworked writing, which is exploding in college writing classrooms across the country, and in its treatment of ethics, which is much on the mind of composition scholars." Marilyn M. Cooper Michigan Technological University
James Porter has been at Purdue University since 1988, teaching in the rhetoric Ph.D. program and directing the undergraduate business writing program. PorterÕs research explores connections among rhetoric theory, postmodernism, ethics, and electronic writing. His co-authored book with Patricia Sullivan, Opening Spaces: Writing Technologies and Critical Research Practices (Ablex, 1977), develops a postmodern approach to doing empirical research on computers and writing.