Collaboration

Collaboration is a highly prized workforce competency. Develop your collaborative competencies so you can work productively with others to create effective texts, products and services.

Genre

Genres are a classification scheme for sorting texts and commonplace responses to recurring situations Develop your genre knowledge so you can discern which genres are appropriate to use—and when you need to remix genres to ensure your communications are both clear and persuasive.

Grammar

Grammar refers to the rules and conventions that inform how people and discourse communities use signs (e.g., body language, oral, written, and visual language) to communicate. Learn about the rhetorical nature of grammar so you can identify grammatical problems with your writing and the communications of others.

Information Literacy

Information Literacy refers to a cluster of competencies associated with consuming, evaluating, producing, using, and archiving information. Knowledge of information literacy practices, perspectives, and strategies is a prerequisite for critical literacy, clarity, and persuasiveness in communication.

Invention

Invention is the act of creation, the Eureka moment. Writers, entrepreneurs, and product developers experience the act of invention when they compose, write, and draft texts.  Explore strategies and heuristics to develop your creative potential.

Mindset

Mindsets are ways of perceiving, interpreting and acting in the world. The mindsets you hold, consciously or subconsciously, shape how you feel, think, and act; your sense of identity and belonging; what you believe is possible. Review research and scholarship on mindset. Learn to coach yourself, to avoid unnecessary negativity and anxiety when writing. Explore how to adopt the habits of mind employed by successful writers, entrepreneurs, and product managers.

MLA Handbook, 9th Edition

Organization

Organization refers to commonplace, recurring patterns of discourse such as deductive or inductive order. Learn about the organizational schemas that people use to communicate so you can discern the most appropriate way to organize your communications.

Publication Manual of the APA: 7th Edition

Research

Research refers to investigator's efforts to learn about a topic and develop new knowledge. Learn how to solve problems at work, school, and home. Learn how to test knowledge claims using informal, qualitative, quantitative, textual, and mixed research methods.

Revision

Revision refers to the critical and creative processes people engage in to develop new ideas and ensure past drafts are written as well as possible. Learn how to revise texts like a professional writer.  

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is "the art, practice, and study of human communication" (Lunsford). Understanding rhetoric is crucial to literacy, composing, and interpretation. Learn about rhetoric so that you can better understand why people say what they say and do what they do--and, perhaps most importantly, so you can compose messages that accomplish your goals.

Style

Your style of writing or speaking can have a profound impact on whether your audience listens to or understands your message. Writers, speakers, knowledge workers study the styles of writers and discourse communities -- i.e., they engage in rhetorical analysis -- in part to figure out how they need to style their communications for particular audiences.  

Writing Studies

Writing Studies is an academic subject of study with B.S., B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. programs in the United States. Writing Studies is an interdisciplinary field, with investigators coming from a multitude of academic and professional fields, including English studies, communication, the learning sciences, corpus linguistics, rhetoric, composition, and English Education.

Conducting a Spatial Analysis through the Lens of Universal Design

The sign in this image reads, “WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE ENTRANCE AVAILABLE, PLEASE ASK INSIDE FOR ASSISTANCE.” Obviously, this picture was taken and turned into a meme because someone thought it was funny, which it is. But is it just funny, or does it reveal a deeper message about the way our society thinks about people with disabilities? What does this meme actually tell us? It tells us this building has been retrofitted with an alternative wheelchair accessible entrance, and its proprietors went so far as to post a sign with this information. However, the proprietors

So Your Instructor is Using Contract Grading…

Working Through Revision: Rethink, Revise, Reflect

 What is revision? How can it help me improve my writing? Read about what revision is and how to solicit, interpret, and implement feedback that helps you make positive changes to your work.

You want me to do what to my paper? Interpreting your professors’ feedback

Feedback is one of the major components of effective writing. Professional technical writers may get feedback from clients or members of their target audience before producing a deliverables; creative writers may ask other writers they trust or a sample of their target demographic to provide feedback; and workplace writers may receive feedback from their boss or coworkers before releasing the final version of a draft. What these writers know is that feedback provides an invaluable opportunity to understand the needs and perceptions of their audiences, so it’s important to take that information into account to produce a rhetorically sound final product. The purpose of this article is to walk you through some common comment types, and help you respond effectively to improve your writing.