Welcome to the April 1991 issue of Computers and Composition! This issue should be reaching you just as spring is affecting most of the country, and as many of us begin to look forward with a great deal of pleasure to the end of another academic year. For the Editorial Staff at Computers and Composition, this time of year can also bring some sadness; it is often when we lose some of our best talent. This year, for instance Alicia Haley, our long-time (and long-suffering) Associate Editor will be leaving after finishing her Masters Degree in Rhetoric and Technical Communication. She will be sorely missed although Bill Williamson, a new graduate student in the same program, will be assuming her duties.

As you page through this April issue, we hope you are as delighted as we are with the range of topics that it covers. Leading off the collection, we have an excellent piece by Lisa Gerrard that explores how the English profession at large perceives computers-and-composition specialists, the studies these individuals pursue, and the challenges they face. Following this article, we have a study on style analyzers coauthored by Dene Kay Thomas and Gordon P. Thomas. Thomas and Thomas describe an investigation that was designed to "distinguish and analyze the differences between teacher and student perceptions" of the comments made PUNCTUATION & STYLE when it was used with student texts. The investigators also explain how they tailored and tested an alternative version of that program. An exciting piece ends this section. In it, Robert Kozma describes an NCRIPTAL project on computer-based writing tools and the cognitive needs of writers.

Our special sections are no less intriguing. We have included, for instance, a poem by Gary Brown that we particularly commend to our readers. The article we have chosen to include in our Computers and Pedagogy section is authored by Janet Eldred. Eldred's article builds artfully on her earlier theoretical work to show how social theories can be used to shape some power pedagogical strategies in networked classrooms. In our Computers and Research section, Ilene Kantrov explores where teachers need to augment word processing by providing a context of "intelligently designed" writing instruction.

We end this issue with a software review of WRITER'S HELPER by C. J. Wallia.

Enjoy the issue!