Expos to Offer Computerized Program

The computer may have been Time magazine's 1982 "Machine of Year," but it still has to go to Expos.

The Expository Writing staff will offer an experimental section of the traditional freshman requirement in the spring, using Apple II computers and a specially designed computer program which will teach writing skills.

The section will be Expository Writing 17, "Theory and Practice," and will count for Expos credit. Program Director Richard C. Marius said yesterday.

"I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time," said Marius, who will lead the class.

Marius said he plans to accept about 12 students, with special preference to those who already own an Apple computer. Some 50 freshmen have already expressed interest in becoming part of the experiment, he added.

The Apple computers will probably be rented for about $7200, said McKay Professor of Applied Mathematics William H. Bossert '59, who served as a consultant in the design of the special program. "Inkblot," to be used in the course.

The Educational Development Center of Newton, a computer company specializing in the production of educational software, is mainly responsible for the program's design Bossert said.

Marius says he plans to test the program next week, after its completion, adding that it will take students about four hours to learn the program. "The introductory sections may be tough," he remarked.

The program will allow students to bring file notes to the top of the screen and the edited text of a paper to the bottom, Marius said. He added that students will be able to gain access to notes and pull direct quotations out of the text.

"The program allows students to start from the bottom up" in writing their papers. Bossert said, explaining that the notes can be structured to form the text. The program then allows the user to edit the paper.

The student must read the completed text before the computer will print it, Bossert said, adding that while this part of the program is experimental, he hopes it will "take the student paragraph to paragraph and ask questions" about the continuity between the paragraphs and sentence length.

While this writing aid is one aspect of the experiment, Bossert also said he hopes to see if student and teacher can communicate more quickly and automatically by exchanging programs.

Bossert and Marius both said they would like to experiment with the location of the computers as well. Bossert said they hope to have each student keep the computer in his room to see if it is used more frequently there than if it were in a central location.

Through this, he hopes to determine the most effective distribution and personal use of computers, Bossert said.

"By 1986, I anticipate all of the students in Expository Writing will have some mechanical type of writing," he said, adding that in the next two or three years, most students will be using some type of computer aid.

"The computer makes easier the process of writing, but doesn't help with the skill of writing," Marius said, while emphasizing the experimental aspect of the section. "The computer eliminates so much of the physical labor and allows far more mental labor," he added.

While this spring's section will be a testing ground for the future of the personal computers at Harvard, Bossert said, "In the end, I hope students will write better."