About Us

The Digital Writing & Research Lab, operating under the auspices of the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, 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 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.

In order to further these goals, a variety of digitally-oriented rhetoric classes are offered bythe DWRL. In these classes, the DWRL is dedicated to providing 21st century technologies--computers, A/V equipment, a wide array of multimedia software appropriate to the rhetoric classroom, and more--to students in its undergraduate and graduate courses in order to support its goal of promoting digital literacy and research into digital rhetoric.

Furthermore, graduate students teaching in the DWRL participate in pedagogically-oriented research projects. These research projects aim to offer all 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 arts 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 spatial barriers,
• confidently produce, analyze, and share information in various digital formats, 
• and efficiently manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information.