We Still Treat Computers Like Old Media

The subordination or disappearance of the fluid text in the final step of writing represents a fundamental difficulty with the process paradigm in composition theory and practice: the process shift has not gone far enough yet; composition theory still requires a corresponding product shift. If the computer is viewed as a medium separate from print—affording/ forcing/ encouraging different types of writing, reading, and thinking activities—rather than as a tool for producing old media, the noun and verb forms of "writing" might begin to collapse into each other more than they have so far. (Johnson-Eilola, 1993, p. 385)