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When discussing his writing practices, Associate Professor Dustin Edwards observes that his point of view as a writer is often shaped by places and the stories that come from these places. Edwards’ book, “Enduring Digital Damage: Rhetorical Reckonings for Planetary Survival,” begins with acknowledging his point of view as a former resident of New Mexico, where the histories of mining and other extractive practices have become entangled with the stories of the local communities and the land they live on. Writing from this perspective in his book, Edwards is attentive to both the environmental harm caused by these infrastructures and his own proximity to them, noting that he writes as someone whose family members “have worked in the mines and made a living off of wages that have been accrued from working in the mines.” While his book is intended for an academic audience, his imagined audience shifts by project. Edwards also writes with non-academic communities in mind, aiming to call attention to digital rhetoric by accessing different audiences through different genres of writing. 

While thinking about what the “digital age” means, and more recently the “age of AI,” Edwards is careful to resist the assumption that everybody has access to the digital age. He posits that making these assumptions risks overlooking important questions of access and power, resulting in Western notions of the future being inevitably digital. “It speaks to power; who can control data, who has access to that data, who is making decisions about that data.” Edwards’ special attention to these digital infrastructures, known as data centers, circles back to his point of view and experiences growing up in New Mexico and the tension between the local communities that live on land facing degradation. In connection to this book, Edwards hopes that by foregrounding humanity in relation to the hidden practices inherent to digital technologies, it will bring more attention to these important conversations within an increasingly digitally immersed academic space. 

Edwards explains that the RWS department equips students less by training them to produce efficient answers and more by cultivating habits of sustained inquiry. He emphasizes that the ability to ask critical questions, interpret complex information, and communicate that complexity to multiple audiences is not as common as it is often assumed to be. In a broader academic culture that prioritizes grades, speed, and productivity, Edwards suggests that RWS students are instead encouraged to sit with ambiguity and resist premature closure. This comfort with uncertainty, he notes, becomes especially important in digital environments where information is abundant but rarely neutral. By foregrounding empathy, audience awareness, and ethical judgment, RWS prepares students to navigate professional and academic spaces where meaning-making, not just task completion, is required.

In connection to emerging discourse, Edwards credits the RWS department for curricula that test students' ability “ask questions, think critically, convey complex information to multiple kinds of audiences, and to approach writing with empathy.” Within a broader academic culture that prioritizes grades and optimizing work output, Edwards notes that RWS students are instead encouraged to sit with ambiguity and make connections using his own experiences and backgrounds in other disciplines. This comfort with uncertainty, he explains, becomes especially important in academic spaces where knowledge is constantly shifting and where answers are rarely fixed or singular.

Current RWS major Evan Dowd describes his writer’s voice as one that is “constantly interrogating itself,” shaped by an awareness of his “uncomfortable complicity” within the systems he critiques. As humorous as they are deeply reflective, Dowd approaches writing from what they describe as being “educated enough to see the systems I’m embedded in, but not detached enough to pretend I’m outside them.” He credits this positionality for grounding his writing process in uncertainty, saying, “I want to see what survives when I start asking better questions.”

As an undergraduate student who also works as an underwriting manager for a consumer lending platform, where his job, “centers on building a machine learning model that automates underwriting decisions, translating behavioral risk patterns and financial logic into algorithmic form,” Dowd quips that his academic writing is “primarily for myself.” He clarifies that he seeks out and connects with an audience that is similarly comfortable with uncertainty, “I hope it  resonates with people who can sit inside uncertainty without rushing to resolve it into a clean academic answer.” 

During his time as an RWS student, he found that questions emerging from his professional work began to become externalized through his writing. He observed that he is interested in the overlap between “technology, spirituality, and consciousness,” often returning to death not as “a morbid fixation,” but rather as, “a lens for understanding what matters when the performance ends.” Additionally, he thinks of rhetoric as “the space where meaning-making can happen in a world that’s hostile to meaning,” and it’s through studying rhetoric that these repeatedly occurring questions outside of academics find a purpose. These types of questions, as surprising as they may be, stimulate ideas that eventually develop into arguments or research questions. For Dowd, it has been through his time spent studying rhetoric that he has come to realize that dwelling on non-academic experiences is what ultimately shapes his writing. 

Dowd remains aware of the implications of his relationship to digital tools with regard to both his professional and academic work. He uses them for research, at various points while drafting and editing, but actively avoids abilities or services that feel “too automated” or “too optimized.” This careful navigation speaks to his self-interrogative writing voice, as he explains, “If I stop questioning my own complicity, the technology makes it easy to forget I have any.” Informed by disciplinary practices from rhetoric and writing, Dowd examines his own connection to digital tools, such as AI, by looking beyond his intended use and considering the implications of his production and usage. He concludes, “I work with them, but also constantly ask myself where collaboration ends and extraction begins.”

Dowd credits the RWS department with providing language and frameworks to navigate the “shapeshifting nature of communication across contexts.” He recalls his own experiences of taking RWS classes and seeing the overlap between professional communication and writing: “More importantly, it creates space to interrogate those contexts rather than just adapting to them unquestioningly, which is what most professional environments quietly expect.” Dowd’s comment on professional skills and expectations also speak to the extent that the knowledge learned studying rhetoric and writing can become beneficial in various settings across various contexts. 

For lecturer and graduate student alumnus Amber Anaya, rhetoric is fundamentally an act of connection, or perhaps, acts of multiple connections. Drawing on her background in rhetoric, user experience (UX), and accessibility, she approaches writing with the intention to provide clarity and connect users to necessary information. Her means of building connections is with a writing voice that is both reflective and purposeful, with the intention of “balancing analytical precision with empathy.” In addition to teaching at San Diego State University, she works in technology and is primarily focused on UX where her focus on UX continues to reinforce her belief that effective writing is dependent on meaningful connections. Her work consistently seeks to “bridge the gap between technical systems and human understanding.”

Given her background, Anaya is fascinated by the extent to which language can build trust amongst audiences and foster comprehension. She makes an interesting point that many of the same principles that underpin rhetoric can be applied to offer an effective UX, saying, “Theories of audience and persuasion illuminate content design for our favorite apps and websites.” Aligned with her approach to rhetoric and writing as building connections, Anaya tailors UX to bridge gaps between information encoded in technical or academic jargon and audiences that may be unfamiliar with that language. She says returning to questions regarding empathy, equity, and usability helps her better understand her interests in the role language plays when rhetoric and UX intertwine.

Possibility and tension are the markers of the digital age, according to Anaya. While contemporary digital technologies have the power to “amplify access, voice, and connection,” she notes that “inequity can be deepened and the circulation of misinformation can be accelerated.” As a result, Anaya perceives the digital age as a space that requires paying attention to affordances and constraints, saying, “Ultimately I see the digital age as a rhetorical space where writers must navigate ethics, potential bias, and information overload.”

As an RWS lecturer, Anaya views the digital age as beholding both possibility and tension. She calls attention to large language models (LLMs), which are incapable of reasoning or thinking. And she emphasizes that, “Technology should enhance critical thinking, not replace the writer’s rhetorical judgment or voice.” For Anaya, this distinction speaks to her understanding of rhetoric and writing as acts of connection. Digital tools, she explains, should support writers in the work of “learning and understanding,” not serve as “a replacement for the effort all writers must endure to master their craft.”

Anaya credits the RWS Department with equipping students to think critically and communicate effectively while occupying academic and professional spaces. In an ever-evolving landscape, both physical and digital, she shares that, “RWS courses can also help students engage AI responsibly” by teaching students to understand its rhetorical implications, limitations, and potential for collaboration in ethical, audience-centered writing. 

Outside of the classroom, Anaya practices critical thinking through her work as a content designer. “I question how systems communicate, whose needs are prioritized, and how content decisions shape UX,” she says. These moments of reflection speak to her belief that writing is never neutral, a principle she brings into classrooms teaching students to recognize the power and responsibility inherent in every act of communication.

Thanks to the efforts of Chris Werry, the current edition of Code Breaker features a collection of outstanding writing from students in RWS classes. The following two pieces provide further insight into emerging ideas about evolving digital technology in contemporary life. In each piece, students externalize their thinking about digital technology using concepts they learned while studying rhetoric and writing. They articulate the ways digital technologies intersect with their academic interests and what those intersections mean to them. We hope you enjoy this overview of them and consider reading the full pieces and edition on their website.

"Artificial Intelligence and the Law: A Dual Perspective" by Andrew Esteverena

While contemplating the limitations and affordances of implementing artificial intelligence technology into the United States legal system, undergraduate student Andrew Esteverena’s analysis raises concerns about using algorithm-based decisions for determining bail, probation, and sentencing. He argues that AI technology, like administrative sentencing, would potentially further complicate how the United States legal system responds to an injustice. Additionally, widespread understanding of the inner workings of courts parallels the public’s widespread understanding of AI systems. Through cross-examining both the legal system and AI, Esteverena finds similar flaws that leave him to suggest the legal system is better off relying on the combination of human judgment and heavy scrutiny. Overall, Esteverena's essay is an impassioned investigation into AI's integration into the legal system. 

"Modern Dance in Creating Social Advocacy Through Visual Images" by Olivia Goldstein

Driven by the research question of how in-action dance images communicate social advocacy for people of color, women, and disabled individuals, Olivia Goldstein analyzes four photographs spanning from 1930 to 2018. These dance images include Martha Graham's "Lamentations" (1930), Alvin Ailey's "Revelations" (1960), Donald McKayle's "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder" (1959), and AXIS Dance Company's "Radical Impact" (2018). Goldstein identifies decontextualized dark backgrounds, categorized participants, and limited color palettes as the three visual elements she uses to, “analyze these images' connotative strategies in creating socio-political banter.” She argues that the three visual elements she identifies are some of the ways that modern dance photography creates and preserves collective memory for the communities depicted. Goldstein’s analysis acts as a launchpad to further explore “movement-based images for symbolic action in accordance with socio-political action.” Although photographs aren’t innovative technology, the digital storage and circulation of photographs have created new ways for audiences to engage with and make meaning of these images.