This is our original "About" statement (2001-2006) through 2006. In 2007, we expanded the scope of CompPile to include work from 2000 onward.
Original Purpose The purpose of CompPile is to allow ready reference to the published twentieth-century work in post-secondary composition and rhetoric, from the beginning of WWII to the end of the century. It does not extend before 1939 or after 1999. It is an on-line, keyworded, searchable inventory for researchers and teachers and anybody else interested. CompPile is offered in the spirit of free research and scholarship. Use of this bibliography for profit, however, requires our permission.
Coverage (through 2006) CompPile's focus is on post-secondary writing (not speaking or conversing). It integrates journal articles, review-essays, notes and comments, books, dissertations, ERIC items, and edited collections. It does not systematically cover textbooks, how-to books, conference notices, editor's forwards, or reviews of single works.
CompPile is in process. It is not complete, and will not be complete for many years. Please note: currently, 15% of entries lack search terms, and much of the provision of search terms that has been done is stopgap (otherwise all entries do all have full bibliographic information). The Search Term field remains empty in entries for many monographs and for the majority of the articles in important journal runs, such as as TESOL Quarterly. Until the addition of ample search terms is complete, topic searches should utilize the Title field along with the Search Term field.
First upload, May 2001: 17,602 entries total
July 2001: 22,205 entries total
August 2001: 26,863 entries total
October 2001: 28,261 entries total
January 2002: 34,129 entries total
March 2002: 36,344 entries total
June 2002, 39,472 entries total
August 2002, 41,579 entries total
December 2002, 48,018 entries total
Febuary 2003, 52, 532 entries total
May 2003, 55,004 entries total
August 2003, 62,481 entries total
October 2003, 66,366 entries total
January 2004, 71,208 entries total
August 2004, 79,406 entries total
September 2005, 80,007 entries total
July 2006, 82,734 entries total
In addition to the search engine, CompPile offers help with searching, lists of search terms, a list of journals currently covered with links to journal websites, a list of publishers, a list of edited series, and a list of edited collections. (NOTE: journal list, publisher list, edited series list, edited collection list are all valid only through 2006.) It also has an Archive of journal runs and other materials useful to composition folk, links to other bibliographic internet sites, a series called CompPanels on curiosities in the interface between graphic and text. And it sponsors CompFAQs, a Wiki site providing reliable answers to common questions raised by teachers and scholars of post-secondary composition.
Help with CompPile! Help make CompPile accurate, complete, and useful! Tell us of errors—they can be fixed in a few minutes. Especially, help provide search terms! Authors have the opportunity to keyword their own entries. Monographs especially need keywording. Send offers of help to comppile@gmail.com.
Acknowledgments A special thanks is due to Lee Honeycutt, who donated his on-line bibliographies to CompPile. His contributions include 71 of the edited collections, and many, many issues of the journals (see the journals currently covered for his work). CompPile will always owe a great deal not only to his generosity but to his spirited belief that bibliographic scholarship should be free to all.
There are plenty of others who deserve thanks for assistance and for work represented here. Sine amicitia vitam esse nullam
Katherine Adams, Frank Bauer, J. Anthony Blair, David Blakesley, Bob Carlson, Don Cunningham, David Downing, Doug Downs, Elaine Edward, Jillian Fairchild, Becky Flores, Greg Glau, Susanmarie Harrington, Joyce Hawthorne, Dean Hinnen, Meg Jaskolski, Deannya Latimore, R. J. Lee, Paul Kei Matsuda, Bill McCleary, Clyde Moneyhun, Katy Ochoa-Weeks, Dayna Ottens, Sharon Quiroz, Shirley Rose, Kathy Schwinghammer, Mary Jo Turley, Karen Uehling, Luane Uluave, Mauna Wicker.
And let's not forget the interlibrary loan office of the Bell Library, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi!
Rich Haswell (bibliography 1939-1999)
Glenn Blalock & Susan Wolff Murphy (bibliography 2000-current & site)