The Digital Writing & Research Lab

explores how information technologies are changing the ways we produce and consume texts, the ways we argue, and how we can flexibly address these sociotechnical changes.

Positioned at the intersection of rhetoric, writing, and technology, the Digital Writing & Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin dedicates itself—practically, pedagogically, and theoretically—to the identification and promotion of twenty-first century literacies. These literacies, both multiple and malleable, range from navigating online newsfeeds and participating in social networking sites to composing powerfully persuasive multimedia texts that require producing, sampling, and/or remixing media content. DWRL research projects aim to offer instructors the tools they need to teach their students key communicative competencies in an increasingly technologized global environment. These competencies, which are a requisite part of any liberal education today and are necessary to critical thinking, effective communicating, and active citizenship, include the capacity to:

• proficiently use current software packages and technological devices,
• effectively collaborate, synchronously and asynchronously, across special barriers,
• confidently produce, analyze, and share information in various digital formats,
• and efficiently manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information.