I'm going to throw this information below the fold, but in the process of messing around with the CCCC Searchable program, I thought I'd go ahead and see how the various categories worked out. Including workshops, there are 54 panels tagged with Area Cluster 106 - Information Technologies, for example. But there are also a bunch of categories gathered under Focus, Interest Emphasis, and Level Emphasis. I've commented before on the Borgesian feel of our proposal system, so I'll restrain myself here. Each of the categories should add up to the same number, but I haven't checked--it's more likely that I made an error than they did, though...
Area Clusters
- 101 - Practices of Teaching Writing (124 panels)
- 102 - Composition Programs (74 panels)
- 103 - Theory (78 panels)
- 104 - History (48 panels)
- 105 - Research (39 panels)
- 106 - Information Technologies (54 panels)
- 107 - Institutional and Professional (71 panels)
- 108 - Language (19 panels)
- 109 - Creative Writing (20 panels)
- 110 - Professional and Technical Writing (23 panels)
- 111 - Community, Civic, and Public (47 panels)
Focus
- basic writing (15 panels)
- cultural studies (57 panels)
- feminist studies (13 panels)
- first-year composition (80 panels)
- two-year college (15 panels)
- WAC/WID (25 panels)
- not applicable (435 panels)
Level Emphasis
- 2-year (18 panels)
- 4-year (69 panels)
- graduate (21 panels)
- all (532 panels)
Interest Emphasis
- class (14 panels)
- disability (7 panels)
- gender (17 panels)
- race/ethnicity (58 panels)
- sexuality (4 panels)
- not applicable (540 panels)
This got me to look up my panel, and here's how we're categorized:
- Cluster: 111) Community, Civic, & Public
- Interest Emphasis: sexuality
- Focus: feminist studies
I'm not sure what this means, exactly...until you mentioned it here, I never even pondered this system. Mostly, I wonder if what I like to talk about is "not applicable" to most folks. We shall see...
I don't object so much to the existence of these kinds of categories as I do to the fact that they're unexplained and as such, imply something about the proposal process that isn't the case (as far as I know, they don't play any role in the review process). Also, when at least 2/3 are not applicable, it suggests to me that the categories have some distance to travel before they're actually useful.
And that's setting aside questions of whether "emphasis" can be established by a single paper, or a whole panel, which would have an effect on how people took the categories up. Etc etc.
cgb