Introduction

[Robert A. Schwegler]

My name is Bob Schwegler, and I teach in the English Department at the
University of Rhode Island, specializing in Rhetoric and Composition
Studies.  My current interest is in the roles of error and correctness in
the rise and control of professional middle class discourse, primarily in
the US.  My co-author and I are currently investigating mechanisms of
promulgation, standardization, and control, including web sites for
copyeditors, textbooks, instructor response to written work.  Some of our
research includes surveys of attitudes and practices; some of it is
theoretical work investigating the interplay of desire and exclusion in
notions and practices involving "correctness" in written discourse.