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Arielle Brown
Dr. Martin
Writing in the Professions
2/13/2016
How Keyboards Change Rhetoric
Technology has been changing the way people do things from the beginning. What used
to be an hour trip to simply talk to a good friend is now only waiting for the phone to stop
ringing and the person to pick up. Hours of writing out every word carefully while using strange
devices like feather pens is now a few minutes of pressing keys. The keyboard itself is a piece of
technology that has vastly changed the way people use rhetoric.
The keyboard that is connected to laptops and pops up on phone screens has become a
part of natural life, but it did not start off that way. It came into existence for the use of
typewriters, well before computers came into being. According to The Classic Typewriter Page
the typewriter dates back at least to 1714, when Englishman Henry Mill filed a vaguely-worded
patent for an artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or
progressively one after another (Polt, para 1 ). However, while the idea for it came out in 1714
it was not fully put into effect until much later, and people were still working on little mechanical
issues throughout the years. In fact, some historians estimate that the typewriter was
invented at least fifty-two times, as one tinkerer after another groped toward a usable design
(Acocella, para. 1).
One of the main mechanical issues that came to be was the use of two popular keys being
set next to each other. As a person would begin typing and find themselves having to use two
keys next to each other he/she would either have to slow down to give the key time to pop back
up before clicking the next key or he/she would risk the two keys sticking together and having to
stop to unstick them before continuing. To help solve this problem Christopher Latham Sholes
created the QWERTY keyboard (Acocella, para. 3). The point was to separate keys that are
often used next to each other on opposite sides of the keyboard (Bigler, para. 2).

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While this was helpful for the time of typewriters, it is no longer a huge concern. Todays
keyboards are not using the levers that a typewriter used which eliminates the sticking together
of two or more keys when people try to type. In fact, it often makes it more difficult as people
are now using their non-dominate fingers to type different letters like the a and have many
seemingly random letters strewn about on the keyboard. Dvorak created a keyboard that
modified these problems and made the letters more convenient to create a faster typing speed for
those that are using keyboards for a computer as opposed to the type writer (Bigler, para. 5).
The invention of the keyboard and the different ways it is used to help people learn how
to write has drastically changed how people do things nowadays. For one, it changed the ways
in which people are able to tutor. What once had to be an in-person conversation with someone
has now changed to be a conversation that can be done online, sometimes through the use of a
typed conversation between tutor and tutee. An example of this is:
The CIRCSIM-Tutor project [which] began as a cooperative effort between the
Computer Science Department at Illinois Institute of Technology and the
Department of Physiology at Rush Medical College to build an intelligent tutoring
system that carries on a natural language dialogue capable of teaching students to
use causal reasoning to solve problems in physiology. From the beginning,
[Farhana Shah , Martha Evens , Joel Michael & Allen Rovick] decided to base the
design of the system on human tutoring sessions carried out by Joel Michael and
Allen Rovick, who were already tutoring students regularly on a face-to-face
basis. They switched to keyboard-to-keyboard tutoring so that the system builders
would have models of keyboard language (Shah, Evens, Michael, & Rovick, 24).
They worked together with people in science, particularly medical, fields to create an
atmosphere for the students to have a conversation about the work he/she was doing and
asking for help on. This conversation helped them to understand their work in ways that

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many other students who were not tutored could not (Shah, Evens, Michael, & Rovick,
25). That does not mean that it will be equally as effective on other subjects.
If a student wanted a tutor to help him/her with a paper for a literature class, a
simple typed conversation will not be as helpful because of running the risk of plagiarism
as well as slipping into editing mode more than tutoring mode. Should this be the only
option available for the writer, the tutor could either write comments at the beginning and
end of the paper or embed comments in the paper making sure that it is known where
he/she did so (Ryan & Zimmerelli). Another aspect of an online tutoring session that the
tutor must be aware if is that they must use humor and sarcasm carefully. These dont
translate as well in writing as they do face-to-face and can offend writers inadvertently
(Ryan & Zimmerelli, 80).

Should there be a confident tutor who is able to balance the

right rhetoric when tutoring through strictly typing, then online tutoring without voice
interaction can be a helpful tool for students who are commuters or otherwise unable to
arrive in person for a one-on-one session.
The invention of the keyboard did not just change education, it also changed things like
online-gaming. It was because of the keyboard that gamers were given the option to have a more
interactive experience. The keyboard that is attached to a computer or laptop is used to send
messages to other players online helping people to become a larger part of the virtual world than
he/she might have been before. From there, different relationships can be developed and further
the progression of technology. For instance [t]he idea for Desktop Theater began, innocently
enough, in dialogues between Brenneis and myself as we ventured onto existing visual chat and
game- centered online spaces. Like many other non-gamers, we were intrigued by the
communicative potential inherent in these dynamic environments (Jenik). One simple idea lead
to a whole new world where Desktop Theater could exist.

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Computers and keyboards have changed more than just the gaming industry as
well though. As more people were given access to the internet, different types of social
media popped into existence. The idea that someone could go onto a website and interact
with a friend or family member, share pictures, talk about their day, or a multitude of
other things has opened up a new world that people jump into sometimes without
thinking. For others, while [they] might be comfortable deploying social media in their
personal lives, manyare hesitant to engage social media in technical communication
contexts where assumptions about professionalism and credibility seem too high a price
to pay for use (Hurley and Hea, 56). It has become an everyday occurrence where
people post pictures of themselves going out drinking or doing other activities that are not
professional and can jeopardize their career without him/her realizing it.
In a world where posting something for fun on social media is only a click away from
research for an essay or a job application, it has become increasingly important for people,
especially students, to learn what it means to codeswitch and how to do it. Codeswitching is the
difference between spoken English and standard written English and, in the case of Wheelers
article Codeswitching: Tools of Language and Culture Transform the Dialectally Diverse
Classroom, how that translates on paper (Wheeler, 473). In her article, Wheeler helps her
students learn how to code switch by talking about the difference between formal and informal,
starting with dress, and working up to how language may differ in a formal and informal
situation making it clear that neither way of speaking was incorrect or wrong, simply different
(Wheeler, 475). Knowing the difference between the situations and how to write for each is
increasingly important in the digital age where people need to be able to codeswitch on a
moments notice.

It is also important for people to know what and how to post on social media

in a way that displays their best professional self.

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Between social media, gaming, and education, the new software and technology like the
keyboard has changed the way people use rhetoric every day. It is easy to confuse when to use a
professional tone and when to use a more informal tone for writing when it can be changed in a
moment. The way people speak has become the way that he/she writes, which is not
professional. People need to be aware of these little changes in technology and society so that
he/she can adapt and move forward with the future.

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Works Cited:
Acocella, Joan. The Typing Life: How Writers Used to Write. New Yorker 83.7 (2007): 85-91.
MLA International Bibliography. Web. 14 Feb. 2016.
Bigler, Jeff. The Dvorak Keyboard. MIT. n.p. 7 March 2003. Web. 12 Feb.
2016
Jenik, Adriene, Desktop Theater: Keyboard Catharsis and the Masking of Roundheads. TDR:
The Drama Review: A Journal of Performance Studies. 45.3 [T171] (2001): 95-112. MLA
International Bibliography. Web. 13 Feb. 2016.
Hurley, Elise Verzosa, and Amy C. Kimme Hea. The Rhetoric of Reach: Preparing Students for
Technical Communication in the Age of Social Media. Technical Communication
Quarterly 23.1 (2014): 55-68. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.
Plot, Richard. A Brief History of Typewriters. The Classic Typewriter Page. n.p. n.d. Web. 12
Feb. 2016.
Ryan, Leigh, and Zimmereli, Lisa The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors (5th ed.). Boston:
Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. Print.
Shah, Farhana, Evens, Martha, Michael, Joel, and Rovick, Allen. Classifying Students
Initiatives and Tutor Responses in Human Keyboard-to-Keyboard Tutoring
Sessions Discourse Process, 33.1, (2002) 2352. Web.
Wheeler, Rebecca S., and Rachel Swords. Codeswitching : Teaching Standard English in
Urban Classrooms. New York: National Council of Teachers of English, 2006.
Print.