Dear Readers:

With this printing, Computers and Composition marks the beginning of its third year. The first issue, published in November of 1983, was less than ten pages in length. The content came from friends and colleagues: Bill Wresch volunteered a review of his forthcoming book; Hugh Burns wrote a column on artificial intelligence research and its bearing on composition studies; Deborah Holdstein, Helen Schwartz, and Bill Marling, among others, provided reviews of software.

In contrast, the issue you are now reading contains over eighty pages of articles, theoretical perspectives, descriptions of research, tutorials, book reviews, and conference notices. We like to think that Computers and Composition is expanding for a reason, that it answers the needs of English teachers around the country and the world who want to use computers in their writing classrooms and programs. These needs, however, are growing faster that our journal ever could. We can only hope that, as the subscription list grows, so too will the number of articles, program descriptions, research investigations, and software reviews that we receive and pass along to readers.

The message is simple. Read Computers and Composition. Pass it around. Encourage others to

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subscribe. And write about computers. Some ideas for submissions? We are seeking descriptions of computer-aided writing and reading instruction; articles about software development; surveys of computer use in writing programs at various levels; explorations of the various legal, moral, and ethical issues connected with using computers in writing programs; reports of on-going research programs and studies; discussions of how computers affect the form and content of written discourse, the processes by which such discourse is produced, and the impact of discourse on an audience.

What's in this issue? We start off with two articles on "user friendliness" that have a history in Computers and Composition. A year ago, we published a short piece by Billie Wahlstrom and Jack Jobst (Michigan Technological University) that speculated on the relationship between software personae and student learning. They noted that the "friendly" personae used for many software programs seemed to be popular with students but that no research had documented the specific effects of these personae on learning, performance, or retention. Jobst and Wahlstrom ended their piece with a note asking "others involved in similar research" to come forth.

In response to this call, we are publishing in the current issue an article co-authored by Claire Redmond (The University of Rhode Island), Cheryl Lawrence and Frank Villani (Framingham State College) which describes a different perspective on software friendliness. We have also included another article in this issue which represents further thinking on the "user friendliness" concept by Wahlstrom herself. Anybody else out there thinking about this topic?

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Three additional articles are also featured in this issue. In 1984, Bruce Appleby and Steve Bernhardt (Southern Illinois University) surveyed teachers who had used computers in their collaborative writing efforts. The results of their survey are reported in this issue. We have also included two pieces on word processing. One of these, by Deborah Holdstein (Illinois Institute of Technology) and Tim Redman (Texas Southmost College), points out that some word-processing software may "actually hinder. . . writing/rewriting processes." The other piece, by Craig Waddell (Rensselaer Polytechnic) includes a copy of a PC WRITE tutorial for our readers.

To round out the issue, Ken Autry reviews two noteworthy books for your computer shelf:

We hope you enjoy the first issue of the 1985-86 academic year. Write and let us know what you are doing and what you would like to see featured in Computers and Composition.