Collaboration – A Catalyst for Academic Achievement and Career Growth

Collaboration is the act of working with others or AI to solve problems, coauthor texts, and develop products and services. It is highly valued in both academic and professional settings because it promotes learning, enhances problem-solving, boosts efficiency, strengthens relationships, fosters adaptability, encourages health and well-being, and facilitates skill development for all individuals involved. This essay summarizes research and theory on collaboration, and it serves as an introduction to our articles on collaboration @ Writing Commons:

Design Matters: The Visual Language That Shapes Our World

Design refers to much more than how something looks or works: Design is a powerful tool of communication that empowers writers, graphic designers, and product developers to reach their target audience at a viscera, visual level. Good design makes information easier to understand, more engaging, and more memorable. It creates emotional connections, influences perceptions, and shapes decisions. If your design is unappealing or confusing, you've lost your chance at engaging your audience in the 8 seconds they're willing to give attention to your work. The essay below defines design based on research and scholarship, explores the importance of design in our contemporary information ecology, and serves as an introduction to design resources @ Writing Commons.

Editing

Editing, one of the final steps in the writing process, refers to the process of rereading a text word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence, in order to identify and eliminate errors and problems with the writing style. Editing is crucial to establishing a professional tone in school and workplace contexts. Learn how to edit documents so they meet the needs and expectations of your readers.    

Genre

Genre may reference a type of writing, art, or musical composition; socially-agreed upon expectations about how writers and speakers should respond to particular rhetorical situations; the cultural values; the epistemological assumptions about what constitutes a knowledge claim or authoritative research method; the discourse conventions of a particular discourse community. This article reviews research and theory on 6 different definitions of genre, explains how to engage in genre analysis, and explores when during the writing process authors should consider genre conventions. 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 that inform how people and discourse communities use language (e.g., written or spoken English, body language, or 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 the competencies associated with locating, evaluating, using, and archiving information. In order to thrive, much less survive in a global information economy — an economy where information functions as a capital good such as money or social influence — you need to be strategic about how you consume and use information.

Mindset

Mindset refers to a person or community's way of feeling, thinking, and acting about a topic. The mindsets you hold, consciously or subconsciously, shape how you feel, think, and act--and what you believe is possible. When engaging composing, writing, and drafting, your mindset can be a hindrance or it can be a source of inspiration. This article summarizes different definitions of mindset. It reviews research on the importance of mindset to the writing process.

Organization

Organization refers to the arrangement of content (e.g., headings/subheadings, parts/sections of a text, ideas, arguments, stories, steps, evidence) into a deliberate order in speech, writing, and visual discourse. Organization refers to a writer or speaker's efforts during composing to interpret and sort information in ways that are most likely to achieve their aims while being responsive to their audience's mindset about the topic. Learn about the organizational patterns that people use to communicate so you can discern the most appropriate way to organize your communications.

Professional Writing – How to Write for the Professional World

Learn about the style of writing that characterizes the texts of professional writers in workplace writing contexts. Master the stylistic conventions of professional communities of practice.      

Publication Manual of the APA: 7th Edition

Research

Research refers to a systematic investigation carried out to discover new knowledge, expand existing knowledge, solve practical problems, and develop new products, apps, and services. This article explores why different research communities have different ideas about what research is and how to conduct it. Learn about the different epistemological assumptions that undergird informal, qualitative, quantitative, textual, and mixed research methods.

Rhetoric: Exploring Its Definition and Impact on Modern Communication

Learn about rhetoric and rhetorical practices (e.g., rhetorical analysis, rhetorical reasoning,  rhetorical situation, and rhetorical stance) so that you can strategically manage how you compose and subsequently produce a text that is persuasive, authoritative, and well written. Additionally, develop your rhetorical knowledge so that you can more accurately interpret what people write, say, and do. This article summarizes different perspectives on rhetoric: Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Modern, Constructionist, and Postmodern Rhetoric. It explores, in contemporary times, the foundational role rhetoric plays in writing, communication, literacy, reasoning, and critical thinking. In summary, the essay below and associated chapters on rhetoric are must reads for anyone who wants to learn to write well and achieve their goals.  

Style

Style, most simply, refers to how you say something as opposed to what you say. The style of your writing matters because audiences are unlikely to read your work or consider it seriously if they dislike its style. This article summarizes multiple definitions of style; explores the role style plays in interpretation, composing, and communication; and presents strategies you can employ to adopt an appropriate style for any rhetorical situation.

The Writing Process – Research on Composing

The writing process refers to everything you do in order to complete a writing project. Over the last six decades, researchers have studied and theorized about how writers go about their work. They've found that the writing process can be seen in three main ways: (1) a series of steps or stages; (2) a cognitive, problem-solving activity; and (3) a creative, intuitive, organic, dialogic process that writers manage by listening to their inner speech and following their felt sense. Learn about scholarship on the writing process so you can understand how to break through writing blocks and find fluency as a writer, researcher, and thought leader.  

Writing Studies

Writing studies refers to an interdisciplinary community of scholars and researchers who study writing. Writing studies also refers to a discipline, a subject of study. Students in the U.S. may earn undergraduate degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees in writing studies.

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.

Fake News: An Undergraduate Composition Course

Fake News is a themed undergraduate English composition course. This course aims to help students develop an understanding and practice of Empathetic Information Literacy.