The courses in the Expository Writing Program will call for a number of drafts of each paper you write. Oral reports may be part of the drafting process, because speaking to a group forces you to think concretely about logic and coherence. Writers rarely work alone. They ask for help and feedback on the drafts of what they write and they try to give useful comments to other writers who ask them for help. Many of your classes will include group workshops, where you will learn to provide useful feedback to fellow writers while they extend the same courtesy to you.
Word processing lightens some of the purely mechanical burdens of writing, like typing and editing.
It is especially useful when you are revising multiple drafts of each paper, as you will do in the Expository Writing Program. Most instructors at Bentley use e-mail to keep in touch with their students, to update assignments, and to respond to student questions. E-mail can be used, as well, to send drafts of papers to others for comments and, through the Internet, to do research. As you become familiar with these facilities, most instructors will make use of them in course work. Access to Bentley's library, to other libraries and databases, and to the World Wide Web is now part of the regular computing environment at Bentley.