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 OPEN-ACCESS,
MULTIMODALITY,
AND WRITING
CENTER STUDIES

Elisabeth H. Buck
Open-Access, Multimodality,
and Writing Center Studies
 Elisabeth H. Buck

Open-Access,
Multimodality, and
Writing Center Studies
Elisabeth H. Buck
Writing and Reading Center
University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA

ISBN 978-3-319-69504-4    ISBN 978-3-319-69505-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69505-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017955716

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Open Access Chapter 5 is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further
details see license information in the chapter.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher
nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material
contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher
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Cover illustration: Détail de la Tour Eiffel © nemesis2207/Fotolia.co.uk

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 For Martin, Eleanor, Jean, and Ted,
who (in various and important ways) bolstered
my journey into higher education
And for Clara, who is just starting hers
 Acknowledgments

On a spring day in 2008, I received an email that changed my life. An

anonymous professor had recommended that I apply to work as a tutor in
the Learning Resource Center and, as goes the cliché, this book represents
the culmination of that simple missive. My sincere thanks then goes to
Ann Stenglein, Maureen McBride, Bill Macauley, and Jackie Grutsch
McKinney for giving me the opportunity to explore this path. I thank you
all for your guidance, support, and embodiment of what it means to be a
successful writing center practitioner.
Thanks to all those in Muncie and Massachusetts who supported me
throughout this process, especially Nicki Baker, Kat Greene, Morgan
Gross, Kelsie Walker, Alison Klein, and Katie DeLuca. Particular thanks
too to Rory Lee and Paul Gestwicki for their invaluable comments on
early versions of this project. And Jennifer Grouling—you have been my
cheerleader since day one. Thank you for everything.
Much appreciation is due to Shaun Vigil and the editorial team at
Palgrave for their enthusiasm about and commitment to this project, as
well as to the two reviewers whose comments demonstrated the truly rare
combination of astuteness, utility, and kindness. Everything about this
process has run counter to the standard angst-ridden narratives of aca-
demic publication (many of which I chronicle here!) and for that I feel
both incredibly fortunate and enormously grateful. On this note, signifi-
cant appreciation too is due to the administrator-scholars who shared their
perspectives with me for Chap. 5. This work benefits immeasurably from
their honesty and insights.

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

And, finally, thank you to my family, especially my exceptionally

s­ upportive in-laws (John, Judy, Kate, Sara, and Bailey), my sister, and my
parents, Lisa, Bob, and Vikki. You have all done so much to help me make
it to this point. And, to Tom, thanks always for being my adventure and
for keeping me in socks.
 Contents

1 Introduction   1

2 Writing Scholars on the Status of Academic

Publications: Implications for Digital Future(s)  11

3 Digital Histories of Writing Lab Newsletter,

Writing Center Journal, and Praxis: A Writing
Center Journal  27

4 Collaborative Spaces in Online Environments:

Writing Center Journals as Digital Artifacts  73

5 Conversations with Writing Center Scholars

on the Status of Publication in the
Twenty-First Century  93

6 Conclusion: Writing Center Scholarship

as Case Study 111

ix
x Contents

Appendix 1  123

Appendix 2  131

Works Cited 133

Index 145
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Top ten journals subscribed to most frequently 16

Fig. 2.2 Top ten journals referred to most frequently 17
Fig. 2.3 Factors influencing decision to submit to a particular journal 19
Fig. 2.4 Factors inhibiting decision to submit to a particular journal 20
Fig. 3.1 Overall digital representation in Writing Lab Newsletter43
Fig. 3.2 Overall digital representation in Writing Center Journal51
Fig. 3.3 Overall digital representation in Praxis: A Writing
Center Journal57
Fig. 3.4 Overall digital representation in all journals 2003–2015 62
Fig. 4.1 Analysis of @WLNewsletter 80
Fig. 4.2 Analysis of @ampersandWCJ 84
Fig. 4.3 Analysis of @PraxisUWC 88

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract This chapter describes questions that are central to the work of
the academy, yet heretofore largely undiscussed: how do scholars perceive
the current status of academic publishing, and in what ways do these per-
ceptions affect what is produced and “counts” as academic writing? While,
in the past 30 years, there have been increasing venues for and institutional
acceptance of open-access and multimodal forms of scholarship, to say
that these emerging modes are on par with traditional print publications
elides multiple strata of consciousness and history. As such, the evolution
of academic publication should be of concern to writers in all academic
disciplines. Writing center studies ultimately functions as a microcosm of
many of the larger issues at play in the contemporary academic publishing
landscape.

Keywords Open-access • Multimodality • Writing center studies • Empirical

research • Academic publishing

Consider the following scenarios:

You are an undergraduate student writing a research paper. You want to

locate scholarly research pertaining to your chosen topic, so you start by doing a
search on your college’s library webpage. You find an article that seems perfect,
but you’re having trouble figuring out how to access it. Your library’s database

© The Author(s) 2018 1

E.H. Buck, Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69505-1_1
2 E.H. BUCK

lists the title, but indicates that the institution does not subscribe to the full text
version of the journal. You spend five minutes clicking all the links on the page,
hoping that the article might manifest. Frustrated, you decide to just Google
your topic and hope for the best.
You are a graduate student. You have been told that publishing in a peer-­
reviewed edited collection will significantly improve your chances of securing a
tenure-track job. You submit to a call-for-papers because the subject area
matches your research interests. The editors publish your research as a chapter in
the collection, but you learn that the full text costs $180. The publisher provides
no complementary print copies to contributors. You cannot afford to purchase
your own research.
You are an early-career scholar. Your work has just been accepted to an innova-
tive refereed journal that publishes research as digital, hypermediated webtexts.
Although you feel confident with the text-based elements of your work, you also
must use hypertext markup language (HTML) and cascading style sheets
(CSS) to code your webtext. You give it your best shot (this is your first time try-
ing something like this), but your peer reviewers are not enthusiastic about your
design. You have reached the limits of your coding abilities. You wonder whether
it might be easier to pull your piece and submit it instead to a more traditional
publication. You just need to have this research published in order to advance
your career.
You are the editor of a well-established journal. You think that it is time that
your publication joins the 21st century and determines new ways to interact
with readers. So, you create social media accounts, but you are unsure exactly
what tone you want to strike. Should you try to be funny? Who should you inter-
act with? You realize too that, if you want to share journal content on these
accounts, it would be helpful to publish some articles as open-access texts. You
recognize that there are significant time and monetary costs associated with
open-access. You also worry how your readership will perceive these changes—
whether they will begin to think of your publication as less rigorous if you begin
to use social media and publish open-access articles, even if you alter nothing
about your peer review process or acceptance rate.

If you see yourself in any of these stories, this book is for you.
These situations represent aspects of the contemporary academic pub-
lishing landscape. Researchers at all levels hunt for the most germane
scholarship. Many graduate students and current faculty must publish in
order to obtain or keep an academic position. A healthy publication record
becomes especially important given the tenuous status of employment in
higher education. For every attempt at publishing innovation, there are
 INTRODUCTION 3

attendant risks or obstacles. Publishing is a significant investment for all

parties involved, from authors to editors, peer reviewers to students. In
short, to participate in academic publishing, as reader, scholar, or distribu-
tor, means engaging in a complex ecology of conscious and unconscious
choices on a near-daily basis.
The questions that motivate this book are thus central to the work of
the academy, yet heretofore largely undiscussed: how do researchers per-
ceive the current status of academic publishing, and in what ways do these
perceptions affect what is produced and “counts” as academic writing?
Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe noted in 2001 that “the new electronic
wor(l)ds of writing and publishing can be glimpsed, but not yet fully
examined; contemplated, but not yet comprehended” (187). In the nearly
two decades since Hawisher and Selfe’s piece, there have been increasing
venues for and institutional acceptance of open-access and multimodal
forms of scholarship. To say, however, that these emerging modes are on
par with traditional print publications elides multiple strata of conscious-
ness and history.
This is where the third element of this book’s title—specifically, writing
center studies—comes into play. Although, according to Elizabeth
Bouquet (1999), citing Lerner and Gere, the concept of an institutional
writing center likely has its origins in the late 19th century ideology of
“conference practice” and the “extracurriculum of composition,” writing
center studies as an academic discipline only began to constellate in the
late 1970s/early 1980s (466). This is when WLN: A Journal of Writing
Center Scholarship (formerly Writing Lab Newsletter), founded in 1976,
and The Writing Center Journal, established in 1980, began to dissemi-
nate academic conversations pertaining to the work of writing centers.
A third publication, Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, began to publish
scholarship on writing center studies in 2003. WLN, Writing Center
Journal, and Praxis exist across a spectrum of digital and print representa-
tion. WLN is primarily a print-based journal, but the publication makes its
entire archives—except for the most recent issue—freely accessible to indi-
viduals on its website. Writing Center Journal is the most prestigious
forum for writing center-related scholarship, and it only publishes in print
format, although its archives are available through some databases and
online resources. Praxis, on the other hand, is a native digital, open-access
journal. It does not publish multimodal webtexts (i.e., that would include
images, audio, video, etc.), but instead distributes articles as PDFs and
simple HTML pages.
4 E.H. BUCK

In some ways, these established publications exist in tension with two

new journals within writing center studies, The Peer Review—a journal
launched in October 2015 that, according to its website, is a “fully online,
open-access, multimodal, and multilingual journal for the promotion of
scholarship by graduate, undergraduate, and high school practitioners and
their collaborators”—and Tutors: A Site for Multiliteracies About Tutoring,
which launched in 2014 and also showcases digital, multimodal work. The
emergence of these two highly hypermediated publications within the past
three years thus seems to suggest an important shift within the sub-­
discipline of writing center studies—a transition that increasingly interacts
with native digital modes of distribution. Writing Lab Newsletter, Writing
Center Journal, and Praxis also, however, sustain a variety of other media,
including blogs, research databases, and social networking accounts. These
are all supplementary tools enabled by digital technologies that exist apart
from the content of the journal itself, but work to shape a journal’s overall
ethos. As a discipline then, writing center studies is small enough to be
assessed comprehensively, but large enough to stand as emblematic of the
kinds of queries central to contemporary academic publishing, especially
those that have taken place in the past 40 years.
Writing center studies also maintains a unique exigency regarding the
relationship between digitality and accessibility. It could be argued that the
value of openness is central to writing center ideology. Stephen North’s
(1984) “The Idea of a Writing Center” is a foundational writing center text
that, according to Lerner (2014), “appears in nearly every third article’s
[published in Writing Center Journal] list of works cited” (68). North’s
oft-cited piece might therefore demonstrate one basis for this core belief.
In his conclusion, North waxes nostalgic on the origin of writing centers,
which he locates within an Athenian marketplace, where “a tutor called
Socrates set up the same kind of shop: open to all comers, no fees charged,
offering, on whatever subject a visitor might propose, a continuous dialec-
tic that is, finally, its own end” (445). More recently, the 2016 National
Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, one of the two major North
American conferences on writing center studies, was held at the University
of Puget Sound and had as its theme “It’s For Everyone: The Inclusive
Writing Center.” Its call-for-papers asked participants to, “[explore] the
question of how we can more effectively serve all students, particularly
those who may be otherwise marginalized by the academy.” Even Nancy
Grimm’s (1999) influential text Good Intentions: Writing Center Work for
Postmodern Times—a work critical of standard approaches to writing center
 INTRODUCTION 5

labor—still advocates an embedded openness toward multiple forms of

literacy as central to the center’s purpose. She explains, “Writing centers
cannot resolve the national confusion about literacy, but I believe that over
time they can contribute to a deeper understanding of literacy and to more
democratic approaches to literacy education” (xiii). Any barriers to demo-
cratic access could therefore be viewed as contradicting this central princi-
ple of writing center work. For those researchers and tutors who look to
scholarship to guide their own practices, the extent to which the digital
enables—or possibly complicates—accessibility is therefore an important
consideration within writing center studies specifically. Significant too is the
fact that scholarship about the work of writing centers can by its very nature
illustrate the trajectory of conversations about writing across the curricu-
lum and the status of writing within a university setting.
In some important ways then, writing center studies, like many disci-
plines, seeks to validate emerging modes of scholarship. More than just
reaffirming the conventional wisdom about it—that such a shift is happen-
ing and we do not always know how to pinpoint these changes—I argue
in this work that the labor of legitimizing emerging digital scholarship is a
responsibility to be shared by many stakeholders, from journals, to faculty
and administrators making tenure decisions, to the scholars themselves. As
much a comprehensive reading of the state of the field, I suggest that
scholars in all disciplines, compositionists, and writing center practitioners
should work to understand the nuances of academic publishing, as they
manifest in the interconnected histories of a publication, attempts at out-
reach, and scholars’ perceptions. In this large-scale, multifaceted assess-
ment of writing center studies, I provide a focused and critical lens for
gaining insight into factors that influence the production of scholarship in
toto. I seek then in Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies
to use the history, broadly conceived, of one discipline—writing center
studies—to reveal significant implications for the relationship between the
old and new guards of academic publishing.

Overview of Open-Access, Multimodality,

and Writing Center Studies

Given this implicit, introductory call for increasing open-access publica-

tion venues, let me first address the obvious: this book is not digital and/
or wholly open-access. As I will illustrate, however, merely making a text
open-access is not a panacea and, in choosing only to distribute research
6 E.H. BUCK

through one format, authors risk alienating traditionalists. To put this

point more directly, if paradoxically: in order to reach those individuals
who might benefit most from the arguments presented here, it is necessary
to make this text exist in as many forms as logistically possible, including
print. Although many other recent works discuss the efficacy of open-­
access and/or multimodal scholarly publishing,1 very little has incorpo-
rated any empirical analysis on this topic or provided a highly specific lens
for thinking about these concerns. In some ways then, this book takes as
its starting point Gary Hall’s 2008 monograph—the title of which,
Digitize this Book! The Politics of New Media or Why We Need Open Access
Now, winks self-consciously at the irony of producing an argument about
e-publishing within a print medium. Hall discusses how comparatively
small readerships, more restricted academic presses, and the high cost/
mark-up of print texts all contribute to an increasingly high-pressure cir-
cumstance for academics whose job security depends on their production
of a book (48). And so, too, the production of this book depends on the
confluence of several factors, one of which is institutional publication
requirements for tenure-track faculty.
My own experiences as an academic researcher also shape this inquiry.
I found as a graduate student that I was unable to afford a book in which
I had contributed a chapter. Excited as I was to have my research accepted,
it never occurred to me to ask questions about the publisher or the extent
to which my research would be accessible. And how could I know which
questions to ask? No conversation about the intricacies of publishing
accompanied the tacit you must publish as much as you can right now in
order to increase your chances of getting a job. I have also contributed a
scholarly webtext to a digital journal (see Buck 2015) and struggled with
matching my entirely self-taught HTML coding abilities with the expec-
tations of the journal. My excellent peer reviewers for this webtext pushed
me to think about how I could take much more advantage of the affor-
dances of digital publishing, including incorporating audio clips from my
interviewees, a more purposeful design of my navigational menu, and
additional considerations for readers who enter the text non-linearly (i.e.,
not from the main launch page). Let me be forthcoming about this: this
process was difficult and nothing in my academic training had theretofore
prepared me for the technical acumen and innovation required by this jour-
nal. Publishing this piece represented a two-year-long learning process where
I had to attenuate my digital visions with the very clear, very firm limita-
tions of my digital proficiencies. As a writing center researcher too, I have
 INTRODUCTION 7

s­ ubmitted to, published in, and/or referred frequently to the ­publications

that I discuss throughout this work. While I strive for objectivity, as with
any empirical undertaking, the ways that I describe the results will inevi-
tably be shaped by these experiences, just as the various tacit and explicit
requirements of the genre of academic publishing tacitly and explicitly
determine the ultimate character of this book.
Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies includes data
collected in spring 2015 through spring 2016. The text also discusses
writing shaped through various technologies. To use then a common say-
ing, a portion of what is represented here signifies an attempt to track a
moving target: journals publish new articles, they update their websites,
contributors write new blogs, and someone (editorial assistants? graduate
students?) posts on social media. The data often changes before it can be
committed to a page. As such, this book is a snapshot of a discipline as it
existed at a particular moment in time. It is of course impossible to predict
the future of the publications I reference here. Important instead is what
they can demonstrate about how we have come to this point and what we
can learn about our shared (scholarly) futures through them. When we
have perhaps evolved to the point of implanted cranial microcomputers
that allow us to read and compose scholarship without ever lifting a finger,
this book will function as a relic of the ways that things were. As the sec-
ond chapter in this text illustrates, however, there are still important
insights that can be gleaned through a comprehensive assessment of his-
tory, especially regarding the ways that publications make sense of techno-
logical innovations.
This book consequently represents an attempt to understand the
nuances of academic publishing via a unique method and methodology—
it includes historiographic, quantitative, and qualitative analysis, in order
to capture the complex, imbricated ways that digitality manifests both
within the content of the writing center journals and as related to how the
journals themselves function as signifiers of writing center studies’ visibil-
ity and bearers of various social and professional relations. A thorough
assessment of all these data points is necessary to paint a fuller, more pro-
ductive picture of the issues at play in this larger conversation—specifically,
the digital pluralities of writing center scholarship.
Each chapter can be read as a “mini-study” with its own methods,
methodology, and attendant research questions. There are, however, five
inquiries that unify the cohesive work.
8 E.H. BUCK

• How do scholars working in writing studies (and, more specifically,

writing center studies) conceptualize and negotiate the current pub-
lishing landscape?
• How do writing center journals establish ethos through their digital
engagement and content?
• How do a journal’s affiliated media (e.g., social media accounts,
blogs, etc.) support and reflect the content and overall intent of the
journals? To what extent do these digital tools work to promote col-
laboration and outreach?
• What is the current state of writing center studies, especially as exem-
plified in the tension(s) between print and digital modes of
distribution?
• What does the digital suggest for the future of writing center studies,
and, by extension, all academic publications?

The overall structure of this book can be articulated through metaphor.

The microscope zooms out first, and then gradually narrows its focus. In
Chap. 2, I begin with a broad portrait of the ways in which contemporary
scholars perceive and interact with journals in writing studies. By reading
the results of a survey distributed to the WPA-L, Wcenter, WAC-L, and
gWPA-L professional listservs that was ultimately taken by 232 individu-
als, I contextualize some of the perceptions about print versus digital pub-
lishing that emerge throughout the project. I ask questions about which
journals scholars refer to frequently in their own research practices, which
journals they have institutional access to, and more explicit questions
about perception, including what factors most influence decisions to sub-
mit to particular journals (e.g., prestige, open-access). Offering then
important insights not just into views of writing center publications—but
rather the discipline of writing studies as a whole—this chapter impor-
tantly situates “where we are” with regard to what matters to scholars
when they interact with academic texts.
Following this broad-based inquiry, Chap. 3 narrows the focus specifi-
cally on Writing Lab Newsletter, Writing Center Journal, and Praxis. This
chapter functions as an historiographic analysis of the treatment of com-
puters and computer technologies within writing center publications. In
reading every article within these publications that focused on these tech-
nologies, I think first about what can be gleaned from comprehensive
historical work on a specific topic, especially as a means to compare and
contrast the trajectories of two publications (Writing Lab Newsletter and
Writing Center Journal) that began producing content at roughly the
 INTRODUCTION 9

same time. Chapter 3 therefore describes the way that these “digital histo-
ries” exist both parallel to and apart from each other and articulates the
overall importance of these histories to the future of writing center stud-
ies. In this chapter, I also document the shifting accessibility of these mate-
rials, including the overall navigability and availability of each journal’s
archives from within my position as an institutional researcher.
In Chap. 4, I focus not on the peer-reviewed content of Writing Lab
Newsletter, Writing Center Journal, and Praxis, but on the supplementary
digital tools used and/or developed by these journals. These materials
include each journal’s websites and Twitter accounts, as well as affiliated
blogs, research tools, and attempts at building digital writing center com-
munities. I consider the ways that these affordances—that exist separately
from the journal’s refereed content—work to shape a publication’s larger
identity, thereby interrogating whether the digital redefines (or even
“distracts” from) a journal’s purpose.
In the final chapter of this project, I synthesize interviews with seven
individuals working prominently within the discipline of writing center
studies. I discuss how these scholars conceptualize and define their experi-
ences with Writing Lab Newsletter, Writing Center Journal, and/or
Praxis, and also reveal their ways of describing the broader significance of
digital and open-access scholarship. This chapter thus brings the focus
back to a wider perspective, demonstrating what these scholars’ insights
reveal to be lasting barriers to scholarly accessibility.
In sum, anyone who has published in an academic journal or who hopes
to publish in such a journal in the future can benefit from the lessons
offered by this comprehensive view of writing center studies. Writing
­center practitioners, in particular, might see in this book a lens through
which we can understand the past, present, and, possibly, the future of our
discipline. It is my hope too that scholars in other fields might replicate the
methods I describe here vis-à-vis their own discipline’s journals in order to
explore this key question: how does a journal’s overall relationship to
open-access and/or multimodality dictate what is (or what can be) pro-
duced in and as scholarship? Technological affordances matter, but only
insofar as they are legible and interpreted positively by a wide range of
readers, scholars, institutions, and the profession, more abstractly. Why an
article or journal takes a particular form—whether that form is print or
digital, closed or open-access, or somewhere in between—is a complicated
question, but it is one that writing center studies, for the reasons outlined
previously, is particularly positioned to engage.
10 E.H. BUCK

Note
1. For example, Peter Suber’s 2012 text for the MIT Press Essential Knowledge
Series Open Access; Martin Paul Eve’s 2014 work Open Access and the
Humanities: Contexts, Controversies and the Future; George Pullman’s 2003
book chapter, “Digital Archives and the Future of Scholarly Publishing;”
and Purdy and Walker’s 2010 Profession piece “Valuing Digital Scholarship:
Exploring the Changing Realities of Intellectual Work,” just to name a few.

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North, Stephen. 1984. The Idea of a Writing Center. College English 46 (5):
433–446.
Pullman, George. 2003. Digital Archives and the Future of Scholarly Publishing.
In Digital Publishing F5 Refreshed, ed. Kate Agena, Karl Stolley, Rita Wu,
Christopher Eklund, et al., 47–61. Anderson, : Parlor Press.
Purdy, James P., and Joyce R. Walker. 2010. Valuing Digital Scholarship: Exploring
the Changing Realities of Intellectual Work. Profession: 177–195.
Suber, Peter. 2012. Open Access. Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press.
 CHAPTER 2

Writing Scholars on the Status

of Academic Publications: Implications
for Digital Future(s)

Abstract This chapter articulates the results from an international survey

distributed to the Writing Program Administration listserv (WPA-L),
Writing Center listserv (Wcenter), Writing Across the Curriculum listserv
(WAC-L), and Graduate Writing Program Administration listserv (gWPA-L)
that was ultimately taken by 232 writing scholars. It contextualizes some
of the perceptions about print versus digital publishing that emerge
throughout the book. The results of the survey indicate, for example, that
although institutions increasingly value digital publications for the pur-
poses of tenure and promotion, scholars are still hesitant to refer and
submit to digital publications with the same frequency as traditional pub-
lications that primarily produce print copies of articles.

Keywords Survey • Print journals • Open-access • Digital journals • Tenure

requirements

For the majority of present-day researchers, questions about and in the

digital increasingly permeate academic work. With the variety of publica-
tion options enabled by new media technologies—ranging from the digi-
tal delivery of a print journal to open-access online publications and
HTML-coded webtexts—consciously or unconsciously, these modes of
distribution will dictate how and where scholars produce their work, as
well as who is able to read and engage with this scholarship. This is a

© The Author(s) 2018 11

E.H. Buck, Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69505-1_2
12 E.H. BUCK

situation not confined only to individuals working in writing studies, but

it also factors significantly within the larger space of academe. On March
2, 2015, for example, Inside Higher Education featured an article describ-
ing how Canada’s three largest funding agencies will now require, “all
peer-­reviewed publicly funded research be made available for free online
within 12 months of publication” (Straumsheim). Additionally, all
University of California (UC) schools, as of October 28, 2015, authorized
their employees to publish their work via the UC system’s open-access
forum in conjunction with scholarly journals; the goal of this policy is
to “[enable] the university system and associated national labs to pro-
vide unprecedented access to scholarly research.” (“Groundbreaking
University of California Policy Extends Free Access to All Scholarly
Articles Written by UC Employees”). The idea behind this digital distri-
bution is that online status automatically equates to more accessibility
and availability of information. While this is true to some extent, and
online delivery (especially freely available content) eliminates many
institutional barriers, thinking only about these implications of digital
publishing neglects important corollaries to the conversation, particularly
when online publication of scholarship is not yet a universal mandate.
Some of these other concerns include how institutions perceive digital
scholarship for tenure and promotion purposes, the current ability of
researchers to access print-only journals, as well as the journals and research
procedures (digitally-based or otherwise) that individuals engage with.
What is therefore missing from the current discussion are the perspectives
of those who actually interact with these journals: those who read, research,
and seek to contribute within this increasingly complicated publication
spectrum.
In this chapter, I discuss the results of an international survey distrib-
uted to individuals with self-proclaimed expertise in writing studies. I
address important questions about access, institutional affiliation, and the
current level of support for digitally produced scholarship, thus situating
and contextualizing the larger focus of this project. The survey takes on
not just the question of the usability of these journals, but also their rela-
tionship to traditional print publications. Instead of focusing on journals
only within writing center studies (e.g., Writing Lab Newsletter, Praxis,
and Writing Center Journal), however, this chapter broadens the scope to
all publications within writing studies. While these writing center journals
are a part of this larger field of study (and, indeed, this chapter will con-
sider the overall level of representation of these writing center texts), this
 WRITING SCHOLARS ON THE STATUS OF ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS… 13

particular inquiry seeks to gain a broader perspective on what the digital

currently suggests for those in the larger discipline of which writing center
work is traditionally considered a part.
As such, my goal is to describe a contemporary moment in this disci-
pline’s history, to interrogate the implicit call in Hawisher and Selfe’s
2001 claim that there is “much work to be done before electronic publish-
ing gains the academic credibility of print” (196). In reporting then on
the results of an international survey conducted via several professional
listservs and taken by 232 individuals who self-identified as invested in
writing studies scholarship, I provide an empirical consideration of how
scholars themselves demonstrate and/or complicate perceived differences
between print and digital frameworks for publication. I provide data on
current engagement with and opinions of these academic resources, espe-
cially as juxtaposed with more traditional print journals in writing studies
such as College Composition and Communication, College English, and
WPA: Writing Program Administration. This chapter begins an important
conversation about what the digital signifies (or does not yet signify) for
scholars in the contemporary moment and beyond.

Methods
I initially distributed an 11-question, Institutional Review Board (IRB)-
approved survey (see Appendix 1) to four professional listservs affiliated
with writing studies—the Writing Program Administration listserv (WPA-­
L), the Graduate Writing Program Administration listserv (gWPA-L), the
Writing Center listserv (Wcenter), and the Writing Across the Curriculum
listserv (WAC-L) on April 23, 2015. These particular listservs were chosen
due to their perceived high levels of activity by individuals in the target
audience (scholars working in writing studies), as well as for their use in
other scholarly contexts. Several researchers1 have used WPA-L and
Wcenter to solicit participants for projects related to writing studies, and,
in consequence, these lists represent effective measures to reach a large
population of individuals interested in writing studies as a discipline. For
this reason, I consider the sampling method utilized here to be homoge-
nous sampling, as my intended audience included individuals with similar
educational and work backgrounds/interests (Blakeslee and Fleisher 148).
Prior to distribution, several academic peers piloted the survey to assess
and provide feedback on its length, clarity, and overall fluidity. The survey
was distributed using the Qualtrics survey platform; this platform was
14 E.H. BUCK

chosen due to prior familiarity as well as my perception of its professional

design. A link was also included in a tweet on my personal Twitter handle
(@ElisabethHBuck). This tweet requested that individuals who were
“readers of and/or writers in writing studies journals” take the survey, and
it was ultimately retweeted 16 times by other Twitter users, thus expand-
ing its overall reach beyond my personal networks (Buck, 23 April 2015).
A few minor revisions of the survey questions occurred during the pro-
cess of distribution as a result of individuals who commented on the sur-
vey and/or emailed me directly. The journal Philosophy and Rhetoric, for
instance, was initially incorrectly indicated as Philosophy and Writing. One
participant noted that, in the question asking participants to identify which
journals libraries subscribed to, it was a bit ambiguous as to whether I
intended participants to identify print publications. The wording on this
question was therefore revised to correct this ambiguity. The survey was
re-distributed to the WPA-L and WCenter listservs on May 13, 2015.
Prior to this re-distribution, the survey was slightly re-ordered, as it
became apparent that users were spending more time than anticipated
answering the first survey item (that asked participants to identify which
journals their institution currently subscribes to). In an effort to improve
the survey’s retention/completion rate, this question was moved to appear
as the last question within the first section of the survey. I closed the sur-
vey on May 20, 2015.

Limitations
This survey primarily generated quantitative data, although some qualita-
tive responses were produced when participants were asked to identify
journals or processes that fell under the category of “other.” While a major
goal of this survey was to ascertain digital research processes, this could
mean, however, that those more inclined to use other, non-digital means
of communication—as well as the large number of individuals working in
writing studies who are not members of any of these listservs—were likely
excluded from participation in this study. Individuals also self-select into
participation with these listservs as subscribers, and actual affiliation with
or training in writing studies is difficult to ascertain, since users might
identify various reasons for becoming members (e.g., desire to keep up
with conversations pertaining to the discipline, interest in viewing relevant
calls-for-papers for conferences and publishing opportunities, or, for
emerging scholars, a desire to gain insight into an informal professional
network). With these caveats in mind, the data represents responses
 WRITING SCHOLARS ON THE STATUS OF ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS… 15

collected from many of these individuals who belong to these writing

studies-­oriented listservs—I collected no demographic data in this survey
beyond participants agreeing for IRB-approval purposes that they were
over 18 years of age. In one question, participants were asked to identify
their current institutional rank to solicit those with tenure-track status to
indicate whether their institution perceives publishing in a digital and/or
open-­access text with the same merit as a print publication.
The recruitment email sent via the listservs included the survey link that
requested that participants be “individual[s] who [engage] (in any capacity)
with writing studies journals—as a student, faculty member, or an inde-
pendent researcher,” but it is again impossible to ascertain the specific
interests and/or affiliations of listserv members. Given also that all three
lists represent a specific area of emphasis—that is, writing program admin-
istration, writing centers, and writing across the curriculum—it is probable
that journals publishing works affiliated with these areas of interest would
be selected more frequently than had the survey been distributed to a
more general population of individuals working within writing studies.

Results
Between April 23 and May 20, 2015, 232 individuals participated in this
survey; of these participants, 187 responded to every question, which
resulted in a completion rate of approximately 80%. The first section of the
survey was intended to ascertain which journals in writing studies partici-
pants interacted with most frequently as researchers, and to understand
what tools they rely on during their research processes. The first question,
consequently, asked participants to identify which print journals they sub-
scribe to, and as is evident in Fig. 2.1, the journals College Composition
and Communication, College English, and WPA: Writing Program
Administration are the most subscribed to journals by a fairly substantial
margin. Participants could also select “other” as a response, and, of these
answers, the journal Research in the Teaching of English was mentioned
most frequently (by eight participants).
The next question asked respondents to identify their first step in
their research process in terms of locating scholarship most relevant to
their research topic. Forty-five percent of participants indicated that
their first step is to, “perform a search using my institution’s library
databases,” ­followed by 25% of respondents who noted that they, “use
a rhet/comp-­specific database (e.g., comppile.org, WcORD, the WAC
Clearinghouse)” to locate relevant scholarship. Thirteen percent of
16 E.H. BUCK

Fig. 2.1 Top ten journals subscribed to most frequently

participants indicated that they “perform a search using an Internet

search engine (e.g., Google, Bing, etc.)” and less than 10% of partici-
pants each responded that they either “refer to print copies of relevant
journals or books” (3%), “refer to digital copies of relevant journals or
books” (6%), or perform some other process (9%). Of those who
selected “other,” the most common response was to use the Google
Scholar search engine, which, as one participant noted, “I would
differentiate [from] a simple Internet search.”
 WRITING SCHOLARS ON THE STATUS OF ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS… 17

The next question in this section asked participants to identify which

journals they most frequently refer to in their own research processes (the
list included both print and digital journals) and requested that they select
all applicable publications. Figure 2.2 illustrates the top ten responses to this
question. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy was the
only open-access digital journal that was selected by over 50 ­participants,
although Computers and Composition Online (chosen by 34 participants),
Praxis: A Writing Center Journal (31 participants), and Enculturation

Fig. 2.2 Top ten journals referred to most frequently

18 E.H. BUCK

(22 participants) also received a significant number of responses. Again,

Research in the Teaching of English represented a significant portion of the
“other” responses, with nine individuals who refer to this journal fre-
quently in their research.
The final question in this section asked participants to identify—to the
best of their knowledge—the print journals that the institution they are
currently affiliated with subscribes to. The top ten most selected journals
were College Composition and Communication (70%), College English
(67%), Rhetoric Society Quarterly (43%), Rhetoric Review (42%), Computers
and Composition (42%), Written Communication (39%), JAC: A Journal
of Composition Theory (36%), Composition Studies (34%), Journal of
Business and Technical Communication (32%), Teaching English in the
Two-Year College (30%), and Technical Communication Quarterly (28%).
In the “other” response category, one participant noted that because their
institution subscribes to the database JSTOR, they “had access to many
of these digitally” and another commented, “we have MARVELOUS
databases so I have ACCESS to most of these journals” (emphasis is the
participant’s own).
In the second section of the survey, the participants were asked to
approach the questions as authors who have published in or hope to pub-
lish in these journals. The first question in this section requested that
respondents select all the journals in which that they have ever submitted
an article for consideration. The top most selected journals for this ques-
tion were College Composition and Communication (41%), College English
(27%), Composition Studies (25%), WPA: Writing Program Administration
(23%), Computers and Composition (17%), Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric,
Technology, and Pedagogy (14%), Rhetoric Review (14%), Writing Lab
Newsletter (14%), Across the Disciplines (13%), Composition Forum (11%),
Praxis: A Writing Center Journal (11%), Teaching English in the Two-Year
College (11%), and Writing Center Journal (11%). Frequent responses in
the “other” category for this question again included Research in the
Teaching of English (six respondents), Pedagogy (six respondents), and
Peitho (four respondents).
The subsequent two questions asked participants to consider what fac-
tors influence or inhibit their decisions to submit to a particular journal.
For the first of these two questions, participants were instructed to drag
and drop certain attributes (e.g., “prestige”) to columns marked “very
important,” “important,” and “not important.” Figures 2.3 and 2.4 rep-
resent the results of when participants were asked to prioritize the
 WRITING SCHOLARS ON THE STATUS OF ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS… 19

Fig. 2.3 Factors influencing decision to submit to a particular journal

factors that influence their decision to submit to a particular publication,

as well as when they were asked to identify which factors would inhibit
their decision to submit to a particular journal, again using the drag-
and-drop survey feature.
The final two questions in the survey asked individuals to first identify
their current academic rank. Those who selected professor, associate
­professor, or assistant professor were then directed to a question about
whether publication in a digital peer-reviewed (refereed) journal carries
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
the next evening, if the weather permitted. This programme had
been drawn up by my husband and myself two or three weeks
before Mr. Quinton’s arrival, but it has since come to light that the
Jubraj suspected us of treachery in asking him to arrange and be
present at these nautches.

NATIVES OF THE MANIPUR HILLS.

 We had never seen so many people in the Residency at once as
there were that Sunday night at dinner—fifteen in all. I felt rather
forlorn, being the only lady present, and wished that I had even one
familiar spirit in the shape of another woman to keep me company.
The band was very much appreciated, and everything seemed
very bright and cheery. No thought of evil troubled any of us, for little
we knew that it was the last evening we were to spend in peace
there all together.
The next day Mr. Melville was to leave us. I had tried to persuade
him to stay longer, as he had only been two days with us before, and
had seen nothing of the place; but his time was precious, and he had
his work to do in a great many other places, so we could not get him
to alter his arrangements. He agreed to compromise matters by
remaining until the afternoon of the following day, the 23rd, and
about eleven the party broke up and retired to rest.
 CHAPTER XIV.
Up early on the eventful morning—The Jubraj does not attend the Durbar—Visit of
Mr. Grimwood to the Jubraj—Finds him in high fever—Matters assume a
serious aspect—Thoroughfares deserted—Terrific thunderstorm—Our
servants take French leave—My ayah deserts—Melancholy thoughts—Lovely
moonlight night—A Manipuri arrives to spy out our doings—The night before
the outbreak—Attack on the Residency—Capture of the Jubraj’s house—
Anxiety about Lieutenant Brackenbury—Stray bullets find their billet in the
Residency—Attack gets hot, and big guns play on the Residency—We have
to take to the cellars—The Regent invites Mr. Quinton to an interview.

It is now some time since the events took place which I am

recording here, and not one vestige of the past remains to help me in
my work, not a single scrap of writing or note of any kind; yet the
smallest detail of those few terrible days is engraved so indelibly
upon my memory that it seems but the occurrence of yesterday, and
I need no reference to help me in my description of a catastrophe
which almost outrivals some of the horrors of the Mutiny.
We were all up early on the morning of the 23rd. The durbar was
fixed to take place at eight, and the rooms had to be prepared for the
ceremony. But when eight o’clock came, it brought only a message
from the palace, saying that the Jubraj was too ill to leave his house,
and therefore the regent had not come; so the red cloth arranged for
his reception was put away, and a consultation took place between
the Chief and my husband as to what the next move should be.
It was decided to make one last attempt to get the princes to
attend, and then if that failed, other measures were to be resorted to.
But twelve o’clock brought no better results, and about four my
husband was sent to the palace to see the Jubraj, and convey to him
personally the orders of the Government, and use all his influence to
persuade the prince to give himself up quietly, telling him at the
same time that the proposed banishment was not to last for ever, but
that it would depend chiefly on his good behaviour, and eventually, at
the death of his brother, the regent, he (the Jubraj) would be allowed
to return to Manipur, and ascend the throne as Maharajah. It was a
veritable hornets’ nest into which my husband ventured that
afternoon, accompanied only by his friend Mr. Simpson. He would
not take even a single orderly with him, knowing in what an excited
state the whole palace was at that time. It was crowded with Sepoys,
collected, the regent told him, for the review which we had desired to
witness. I got very anxious about them both when more than an hour
had passed and they had not returned, but when my husband did
come back I knew at a glance that his mission had failed. He said
the Jubraj was certainly very unwell. He had had some difficulty at
first in persuading the prince to come and see him at all, but after
finding out from his people that the two Sahibs had come quite
alone, the Jubraj had himself carried down to see them in a litter.
The exertion caused him to faint, and my husband said that there
was no doubt as to his illness, and that he found him in high fever.
Shortly before this visit to the palace took place, Mr. Melville
started off on the first stage of his journey to Kohima. He intended
travelling as far as Sengmai that day, a distance of ten miles. My
husband tried to make him reconsider his decision to go, and I
added my persuasions to his. We did not like the look of things at all,
and how matters would end was, to say the least, very uncertain.
I remember so well our all standing on the steps of the Residency
that afternoon, watching the coolies collecting Mr. Melville’s luggage,
and begging him to remain even one day longer with us, for fear of
anything going wrong; and I remember equally well his answer:
‘Thank you very much, Mrs. Grimwood,’ he said, ‘but do not fear for
me. I am not important enough to be captured by these Manipuris. I
shall get on all right, never fear’; and in a few more minutes he had
left us. But the thoughts of his going away like that, alone, without
any guard to protect him, troubled me more than once that
afternoon, and I could not get it out of my head. Matters assumed a
serious aspect indeed when my husband returned about six o’clock
from the palace with the news that he had been unsuccessful with
regard to the Jubraj. There was only one way, then, out of the
difficulty, and that was to place the affair in the hands of the military,
and apply force where persuasion had failed. It was a council of war,
indeed, and everything seemed to combine to fill me with sensations
of dread for what was going to happen. I could not feel the
excitement that took possession of the men when the chances of a
probable fight became known. Such an idea filled me with alarm and
horror. The place had a deserted look about it, and on the principal
road, as a rule crowded with people at that hour, not a soul was
visible.
The clouds had been gathering up all the afternoon, and about
seven o’clock a terrific thunderstorm occurred, and darkness set in,
which was only lit up now and then by brilliant flashes of lightning. I
busied myself about the house, where I found a state of confusion
reigning. A number of the servants had taken French leave and
departed, scenting danger.
My old ayah was among the first to go. She had been with me four
years, and had followed me about faithfully till now; but at the first
sign of danger she packed up her belongings and went off. I
wondered where she had taken refuge, for she had a good many
enemies, and was not a native of Manipur, so had no home or
relations in the place to whom she could fly for protection. I felt her
desertion very much. She was only a native, but she was at any rate
a woman, and better than no one in a case like that. However, there
was no good to be got out of thinking over her departure, and I had
as much as I could do as it was to keep the other servants up to the
mark, and get them to understand that dinner that evening would
have to be gone through the same as usual. Mr. Quinton and three
of the others amused themselves by playing whist until dinner-time,
as, of course, going out was an impossibility; and I went to the
kitchen to superintend the arrangements there, and to make
preparations for the next day, as I knew that if there were fighting
going on, I should be left without a single servant, and so resolved to
get as much work out of them while they were there as was possible.
We made a quantity of soup that night, as I thought it would be
useful, and cooked some fowls to provide us with something to eat
the next day in case of accidents. And then we had dinner.
 No one seemed inclined to speak much that evening. With me
conversation was almost an impossibility, and the rest were too
excited about the morrow to be able to talk and laugh as they had
done the day before. It was a relief to me when dinner was over. I felt
nervous and low-spirited, and very lonely, quite out of place amongst
those men whose profession it was to fight, and who were longing
for the next morning.
Thoughts of England and of all whom I loved there, flocked
through my mind, and I wondered what they would say if they could
see us then, and know the possible danger that threatened us and
our home. My husband was troubled at the thoughts of my being in
the place at such a time, and he blamed himself for having agreed to
my staying, though I had done so of my own free will. Even then we
did not dream of any really serious ending. We expected that the
Jubraj would fight well—in fact, the officers and Sepoys were hoping
that the resistance would be strong, and my husband was afraid that
the house might get knocked about, and some of our property
destroyed; but serious alarm for our own safety never entered our
heads. This was the night of the 23rd, the date that we had originally
fixed for the Manipuri nautch to take place; but under the
circumstances we did not think it likely that the girls would come. Mr.
Brackenbury amused us by singing comic songs, accompanying
himself on his banjo after dinner, and all went to bed early, as
everyone had to be up at three the next morning.
It was a lovely moonlight night, and my husband and I walked up
and down in the garden for some time after our guests had gone. I
felt restless and unhappy, but he did his best to reassure me and
make me believe that we should all be perfectly safe. Just before we
were preparing to go in, the sentry challenged at the gate, and
appeared a few minutes afterwards with a Manipuri, who had been
sent from the palace to inquire whether we wished to have the
nautch or not, saying at the same time that the girls who were to
dance were waiting outside in the road if we wanted them. Of course
we told him it was much too late to think of such a thing at that time,
and the man left the place. We believed that he had really been sent
to spy out the land, and find out what preparations, if any, we had
been making. If that were his mission, he must have been seriously
disappointed, for the whole place, and everyone in it, was wrapt in
slumber, with the exception of my husband and myself, and we very
often walked about the grounds late on moonlight nights, so there
was nothing unusual in our doing so on this occasion. There were a
few extra sentries on guard, but chiefly at the back of the house, and
the presence of the Chief Commissioner was quite sufficient cause
for a larger guard than usual.
At last we turned in too, one to sleep as unconcernedly as ever,
knowing not that it was his last night upon earth; the other to lie
awake, listening to the hours as they were struck out on the gong
down at the quarter-guard, and wonder what the ending of the next
day would bring. I never closed my eyes all through the watches of
that night—the last I was destined to spend in Manipur—and when
three o’clock came I woke my husband, and told him that the hour
had come when we were all to get up, and the work of day
commenced.
It was a bitterly cold morning, and quite dark. I dressed quickly,
putting on a warm, tight-fitting winter dress. We had a sort of scratch
breakfast of eggs and bread-and-butter about 3.30 a.m.; but most of
the officers had theirs at the camp, and started from there, so that I
did not know when they actually left to commence the attack. My
husband accompanied Colonel Skene, much to my distress, as I
thought he would have stayed at the Residency, being a civilian; but
he seemed just as keen on going as the others, and I had to make
the best of it. Mr. Quinton, Mr. Cossins, and I all went off to the
telegraph-office, which was situated at the end of the drive, about
three hundred yards from the Residency. It was well built and fairly
strong, the basement being made of stone, and there was a similar
building on the opposite side, which my husband used as an office
for himself, the lower half of which contained the treasury. Here we
took up our position, going up into the telegraph-office first to send a
message to the Government of India, giving details of all that had
occurred up to date. Mr. Cossins, who was acting as secretary to the
Chief Commissioner, brought the telegram down, and while we were
waiting and watching the Baboo[15] despatch it, we heard the first
shot fired in the palace, which was followed up quickly by others, and
we knew then that the fight had begun.
By this time the dawn was breaking, and streaks of daylight were
dispelling the darkness around. It seemed difficult to me to realize
what was really taking place. I had heard firing in the palace so often
that it seemed almost impossible to understand that a sterner game
was being played now, and one which was to cost both sides so
dear. Only half the telegram had been sent, when we were startled
by the sudden advent of a bullet through the office window at our
elbows. It crashed through the glass, breaking it to pieces, and went
into the wall opposite. My heart went to my mouth with fright, and I
left the place with considerable rapidity, taking up a more secure
position below, where I was fairly protected by the stone basement of
the building. Mr. Cossins occupied his time in taking several journeys
up to the house, where he mounted to the roof to discover whether
he could see what was going on inside the palace wall; but it was
impossible, as the Jubraj’s house, which we knew was being
attacked, was some distance off, and hidden from us by intervening
buildings. It was situated near the outer wall of the palace, and our
men seemed to have taken a very short time in getting up to it.
The whole palace was fortified. Five walls surrounded the
Maharajah’s enclosure. The outer of these was much broken, and of
no great height; but the inner ones were very strong, built of brick
and supplied with bastions, and they surrounded the inner palace on
all four sides. On three sides of the outer wall was a canal, very deep
and wide. It was here that the great boat-races took place every
year, and the water was always kept weeded and clean for those
events. The whole citadel was built with a view of resisting attack in
the time before Burmah was annexed, when armies of raiders used
to come down upon Manipur with hostile intent; and it was a place
which could easily be held against an attacking force, provided big
guns were not brought to bear upon it. The Manipuris were well
armed, and supplied with ammunition. The Maharajah had four
mountain guns which had been presented to his father by our
Government in return for services which he had rendered in times
gone by. The Jubraj understood perfectly how to work these guns.
We had seen him fire them himself for our amusement on an
occasion already described, and we knew he would be perfectly
cognizant of their powers of destruction when the opportunity
occurred to bring them into play against us. Of course we, who were
left at the Residency, did not know what was going on round the
Jubraj’s house, where all the firing seemed to come from. From time
to time stray bullets came over our heads where we sat down at the
telegraph-office. I thought it was very exciting then, and the little
Ghoorkas, who had remained to keep guard over the place, were
constantly running out on to the road in front of our entrance-gate, to
see whether they could discover what was happening. They did not
like being inactive at all.
About half-past ten my husband returned, and came to the
treasury to get out some of the reserve ammunition which had been
stored there. He only stayed a few minutes, talking to me before
rejoining Colonel Skene. He told me that the Jubraj’s house had
been captured after a good fight, and that our men were in
possession of it, and the principal gateway besides, and had taken a
good many prisoners. I asked if anyone had been hurt, and he said
there were grave rumours about Lieutenant Brackenbury. No one
seemed to be certain of his whereabouts, while some affirmed that
he had been wounded, and others that he had been killed. We were
very anxious about him, but my husband said that it was all
uncertain, and he might be perfectly safe all the time; and of course
we hoped he was all right.
About twelve Mr. Quinton and I went up to the house, but long
before going he had made another attempt to get the telegram to the
Government of India despatched, and had found that the wires had
been cut on all sides, so all hope of communication from that source
was abandoned. We were rather hungry by twelve, as no one had
eaten much at the hasty repast at three in the morning, and we were
very glad of some hot tea and sandwiches now. I went on a voyage
of discovery round the house. One or two servants still remained, but
they seemed very frightened, and were saying many prayers to their
gods for their safety. A stray bullet or so had hit the walls of the
house, knocking off some of the plaster, but otherwise everything
looked the same as usual.
 SKETCH MAP OF MANIPUR.

We returned to the office in about an hour, after I had seen that all
the preparations for lunch were made. The cook had departed, but
the bearer and I between us managed to get things ready in a
fashion. I took a book to read with me, and busied myself in that
manner until, about one o’clock, Colonel Skene and some of his
officers, with my husband, returned from the scene of action. Our
first inquiries were for Mr. Brackenbury, and then it became evident
that something serious had happened to him, and all our fears were
aroused. After that, things seemed to assume quite a different
aspect, for the officers were all talking so gravely together, and did
not seem quite satisfied with the way things were going.
However, we went back to the Residency to get something to eat.
All had returned with the exception of Mr. Simpson and Captain
Butcher, who were still at the Jubraj’s house, and Mr. Brackenbury,
whose exact whereabouts were unknown. We had commenced
lunch, when my husband asked me if I would give orders that some
food should be sent to the two officers who were not able to leave
their posts, and I went away to a little room adjoining the dining-room
and commenced cutting sandwiches for them, as the servants had
disappeared, and one had to get everything for one’s self or go
without.
I had been busily engaged for about ten minutes, when I heard a
sound which filled me with alarm, and a bullet crashed through the
window above my head. It frightened me more than the one at the
telegraph-office had done, and I dropped my knife, left the
sandwiches as they were, and rushed into the dining-room. All the
officers meanwhile had gone out, and had found that the Manipuris
had crept round to the back of the Residency and commenced an
attack upon us, using as cover the Naga village which lay between
our grounds and the river. This was a clever move on their part, and
it was some time before the troops could drive them back, as most of
our men were engaged in holding the posts inside the palace
captured early in the morning, and this left only a small guard for the
Residency, treasury offices, and Sepoys’ camp. Eventually our party
set fire to the Naga village, and drove the Manipuris out. Bullets had
made their way through the window-panes and doors of the dining-
room, and had smashed some of the breakfast-things and the glass
on the sideboard. It was difficult to find out the most secure place in
the house, as the firing was hot in the front of the Residency by this
time, and the walls, being only lath and plaster, were little or no
protection.
My husband suggested my descending to the cellars, which were
under the house and built of stone; but I did not like the idea, and
remembered how scornful I had been when we had talked over
matters weeks before, and he had joked about the snug corner he
would make ready for me in the basement of the house. So I made
up my mind to remain above-board, so to speak, until the worst
came to the worst. It was heart-rending to see the work of
destruction which was proceeding in the different rooms meanwhile.
The windows were broken, and every now and then bullets crashed
into the rooms, smashing different things—first a picture, then a
vase, then a photograph. All my beloved household gods seemed
coming to grief under my very eyes, and I was powerless to save
them. We did try to collect some of the most valuable of our
belongings together and put them away in a heap in the durbar
room, which at that time had escaped with only one broken pane; but
it was dangerous work going into the front rooms to remove them, for
as the afternoon went on the firing became hotter, and bullets rained
into the house at every second.
It must have been about half-past four that the big guns began to
be played against us. It had been found necessary to concentrate
the whole of our force on the Residency and out-buildings, such as
the treasury and offices, and this entailed abandoning all the
positions captured in the early part of the day inside the outer wall of
the palace, and bringing all the men together. The wounded had to
be recovered from all directions and conveyed to the hospital, which
was some distance from the Residency.
 Lieutenant Brackenbury had been discovered lying on the bank of
the river which flowed north of the palace, where he had fallen
shortly after the attack was made early in the morning. He had
mistaken the direction, having got the wrong side of the wall near the
Jubraj’s house, from which point he had been exposed to a heavy
fire from the enemy. It was only a marvel that he was still alive when
eventually discovered, for he had remained where he fell the whole
of that day, and the Manipuris had never ceased firing at him as he
lay. When his exact whereabouts did become known, it was a difficult
and dangerous task to remove him. Efforts had been made by some
of the Sepoys to drag him away, and a native officer had been
mortally wounded in the attempt. At last, about four o’clock in the
afternoon, he was rescued and brought into the hospital, and it was
found that he had received terrible injuries, being wounded in several
places.
The sound of the first shell which whizzed over the Residency
made me speechless with terror. I had heard the boom of the guns in
the morning, and knew that they had been used to try and drive
Captain Butcher’s party out of the Jubraj’s house, which had been
captured; but they had sounded some distance off, and I had not
realized how terrible they could be until they were turned against our
own house.
The cellars were by this time unavoidable. My husband told me
that we should have to make some sort of rough hospital in one of
them, as the Residency hospital, where the wounded had been
taken, was built of plaster and would not be bullet-proof; so we set to
work to get blankets and sheets down from the house, and
everything we thought might be useful.
Meanwhile shells were doing dreadful damage over our heads,
and we were afraid they might set fire to the thatch and force us out
of our temporary shelter. Luckily most of them went over the house
into the garden at the back, where they could not do such serious
damage; but the noise the guns made, added to the other firing,
which had never ceased, was deafening.
 There was not the slightest doubt by this time that our position was
about as bad as it could very well be. I seemed paralyzed with fear,
and it was only by forcing myself to do something, and never thinking
or imagining for one moment what the end of it all might be, that I
kept my senses sufficiently to be able to make an effort to help the
rest. I heard that the wounded were to be brought up to the house
immediately, as the hospital was getting too hot for them to remain in
it. Poor fellows! they had endured so much as it was in getting there,
that it seemed very hard to be obliged to move them again so soon,
and take them up to the Residency.
There were a good many of us in the cellar by this time—Mr.
Quinton, Colonel Skene, my husband and myself, Mr. Cossins, and
Mr. Gurdon. It was about seven o’clock, and a lovely evening. The
sun was just setting, and the red glow of the sky seemed to
illuminate the landscape around and the faces of the colonel and my
husband as they stood in the doorway talking together in low tones.
It was no difficult matter to read what was written on both their faces,
and I did not dare ask what was going to happen.
At last my husband came and told me that we were to leave the
Residency, and try and find our way to Cachar. It seemed worse to
me to think of going out of the house than to remain there; but
whatever was to take place had to be at once, and there was no time
to spend in giving way to the terrible fear which possessed me.
However, a further consultation was held, and it was decided to
make a truce with the regent, and put an end to hostilities by coming
to some terms with him. A letter was written, which the Chief
Commissioner signed. It ran as follows:

‘On what condition will you cease firing on us, and give us
time to communicate with the Viceroy, and repair the
telegraph?’

While this letter was being written, the colonel had ordered our
buglers to sound the ‘cease fire,’ which they did at once; but it was
some time before the Manipuris followed suit. At last their guns
ceased, and all was quiet. Then my husband went out with the letter,
and called a Manipuri off the wall to take it to the Jubraj. The man
went away with it, and my husband returned to the Residency.

FRANK ST. CLAIR GRIMWOOD.

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY VANDYK.

LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, 1891

 Some minutes later a message came to say that the regent
wished to see Mr. Quinton and talk over matters with him; and this
message was followed by a letter written in Bengali, which contained
an acknowledgment of the Chief’s letter, and a proposal to the effect
that we should surrender our arms if the Manipuris agreed to cease
firing. There was some discussion about the translation of part of this
letter, and Mr. Quinton proposed that the Jubraj should be called
upon to explain the meaning of the passage in question, and asked
whether it would be possible to see him.
Meanwhile the Chief Commissioner’s party, consisting of himself,
Colonel Skene, Mr. Cossins, Lieutenant Simpson, and my husband,
had gone down to the office at our entrance gate, and waited there
while the regent’s letter was being translated. Mr. Simpson had gone
of his own accord, as he wished to accompany my husband, and I
had begged to be allowed to go with him too; but he said I was safer
where I was, and bade me good-bye, telling me to keep a brave
heart, that the firing was at an end, and peace about to be restored;
and he told me to try and get some rest, as I looked so tired. I never
saw him again.
 CHAPTER XV.
Mr. Brackenbury—Scenes in the little cellar—Destruction of our home—Another
moonlight night with a difference—Reopening of the attack on the Residency
—Death of Mr. Brackenbury—Preparations to escape.

I remained where he had left me, alone for some minutes, though
some of the officers were standing just outside the door of the cellar
where I was sitting. It seemed so hard that I could not go with my
husband. I feared being left alone without him, and felt very lonely
and broken-hearted among so many men, mostly strangers to me. I
knew, too, that they would look upon me as an extra burden, and
wish me very far away.
I was roused to action by the doctor, who had taken advantage of
the truce to get his wounded brought up from the hospital to the
house, and had come up first to see what kind of a place could be
got ready. I showed him the cellars, for there were several, which all
communicated with each other, and formed the entire basement of
the house.
Shortly afterwards the Kahars[16] arrived, carrying poor Mr.
Brackenbury on a mattress, and the others followed fast, so that the
small cellar was very soon quite full of men lying side by side on the
stone floor. The blankets and sheets that we had already collected
were very useful, and I made several journeys up to the house, and
gathered up every kind of covering from every direction, and all the
pillows I could find. A little cooking-stove proved of great service. I
fixed it securely upon a table in one corner which I reserved for
cooking operations.
The soup we had made on the previous day was in great request.
Fortunately there was a large quantity of it, to which I added the
contents of five or six tins which I found in the store-room. Milk was
the difficulty. All the cows were out in the grounds, and many of them
had strayed away altogether and we could not get any milk from
them, so were obliged to fall back on condensed milk, of which we
also had several tins.
Some of the men were terribly wounded, but poor Mr. Brackenbury
was by far the worst. His legs and arms were all broken, and he had
several other injuries besides. It seemed a marvel that he was still
alive and fully conscious to all that was going on around him. The
doctor attended to him first of all, and had bound up his broken
limbs, and done as much as possible to alleviate his sufferings; but it
was a terrible sight to see the poor lad in such agony, and be so
powerless to lessen it in any way. He was very thirsty, and drank a
good deal of soup and milk, but we could not get him into a
comfortable position. One minute he would lie down, and the next
beg to be lifted up; and every now and then his ankle would
commence bleeding, and cause him agony to have it bound up
afresh. His face was gray and drawn, and damp dews collected on
his forehead from the great pain he was suffering.
That scene will never be forgotten—the little cellar with a low roof,
and the faces of the wounded lying together on the floor. We did not
dare have a bright light for fear of attracting attention to that
particular spot, and the doctor did his work with one dim lantern.
Such work as it was, too! Every now and then he asked me to go
outside for a few moments while the dead were removed to give a
little more space for the living.
There were some terrible sights in the cellar that night—I pray I
may never see any more like them; but being able to help the doctor
was a great blessing to me, as it occupied my attention, and gave
me no time to think of all the terrible events of the day, and the wreck
of our pretty home. I was very weary, too—in fact, we all were—and
when at about half-past ten I asked everybody to come and get
some sort of a dinner, they seemed much more inclined to go to
sleep, and no one ate much.
The dinner was not inviting, but it was the best that could be got
under the circumstances, for I had had to do it all myself. One or two
of the servants still remained, but they cowered down in corners of
the house, and refused to move out or help me at all. Perhaps had
we known that it was our last meal for nearly forty-eight hours, we
should have taken care to make the most of it; but no thought of
what was coming entered our minds, and long before the melancholy
meal was ended most of the officers were dozing, and I felt as
though I could sleep for a week without waking.
We all separated after dinner about the house. I went back to the
hospital for a little, and found the doctor wanted more milk, so I
returned to the dining-room, where I was joined by Captain Boileau,
and we sat there for some time mixing the condensed milk with
water, and filling bottles with it, which I took downstairs. It was
quieter there than it had been. The wounded had all been attended
to, and most of them had fallen asleep. Even Mr. Brackenbury was
dozing, and seemed a little easier, and only one man was crying out
and moaning, and he was mortally wounded in the head. So finding I
could do no more there, I went upstairs again, resolving, if possible,
to go to my room and lie down for a little while and sleep, for I was
very tired.
I went sorrowfully through our once pretty drawing-room, where
everything was now in the wildest confusion, and saw all the
destruction which had overtaken my most cherished possessions.
There are those who imagine that in a case like this a woman’s
resource would be tears; but I felt I could not weep then. I was
overwhelmed at the terrible fate which had come upon us, and too
stunned to realize and bewail our misfortunes.
Perhaps the great weariness which overcame me may have
helped me to look passively on my surroundings, and I walked
through the house as one in a dream, longing only to get to some
haven of rest, where I could forget the misery of it all in sleep.
I wended my way to the bedroom through a small office of my
husband’s, but when I reached the door I found it would not open,
and discovered that part of the roof had fallen in, caused by the
bursting of a shell. So I gave up the idea of seeking rest there, and
retired to the veranda.
I went down the steps and stood outside in the moonlight for a few
minutes. It was a lovely night, clear and bright as day! One could
scarcely imagine a more peaceful scene. The house had been
greatly damaged, but that was not apparent in the moonlight, and the
front had escaped the shells which had gone through the roof and
burst all round at the back. The roses and heliotrope smelt heavy in
the night air, and a cricket or two chirped merrily as usual in the
creepers on the walls.
I thought of the night before, and of how my husband and I had
walked together up and down in the moonlight, talking of what the
day was to bring, and how little he had thought of such a terrible
ending; and I remembered that poor lad lying wounded in the cellar
below now, who only twenty-four hours ago had been the life and
soul of the party, singing comic songs with his banjo, and looking
forward eagerly to the chances of fighting that might be his when the
morning came.
I wondered where my husband was, and why they had been away
so long. They would be hungry and tired, I thought, and might have
waited to arrange matters till the next day, as they had apparently
been successful in restoring peace. I had an idea of wandering as far
as the gate to see whether the party was visible, but on second
thoughts I went back into the veranda, and resolved to wait there
until my husband should return.
There was one of the officers asleep in a chair close to me, and I
was about to follow his example, when Captain Boileau came out,
and I went to him and asked him if he would mind going down to the
gate and finding out whether he could hear or see anything of the
Chief Commissioner’s party, and if he came across any of them to
say I wanted my husband. He went off at once, and I fell into a doze
in the chair.
It was about twelve o’clock at this time. I do not know how long I
had been asleep, when I was awaked suddenly by hearing the
deafening boom of the big guns again, and knew then that it was not
to be peace.
For a few seconds I could not stir. Terror seemed to have seized
hold of me, and my limbs refused to move; but in a minute I
recovered, and ran through the house down to the cellar again,