Collaboration

What is collaboration? How can I be a better collaborator? Review research and scholarship on collaboration. Explore the interpersonal competencies, the workforce competencies, that comprise collaboration.

Design

What is design? How can design help me communicate clearly, persuasively? Review research and scholarship on design. Learn to use design thinking to develop texts, products, and services.

Editing

Avoid confusing, potentially embarrassing or litigious copy-editing errors. Learn to edit your work and the work of others.

Evidence

What is evidence? Review research and scholarship on the uses of evidence. Explore how evidence can help you communicate more clearly and persuasively. Learn to reason with evidence in workplace and academic writing.

Genre

What is genre? How does genre knowledge help with writing and reading? Review research and scholarship on genre. Explore how genre analysis informs interpretation and composing. Learn how to identify the appropriate genre, or remixing of genres, for a particular situation.

Information Literacy

What is information literacy? How should I identify, find, evaluate, apply, and cite information? Review research and scholarship on information literacy. Learn to think for yourself. Distinguish fake news from real news. Learn to distinguish appeals to ethos, pathos and ethos. Develop a nuanced understanding of information and literacy (e.g., critical, digital, quantitative, and visual literacy). Synonymous Terms: Data Information Literacy; Interpretation; Science Communication; STEM Literacy for Learning

Invention

What is invention? How can I realize my creative potential? Review research and scholarship on invention. Explore how successful writers, entrepreneurs, and product developers manage their creative processes.

Mindset

What is mindset? What habits of mind can improve my writing? 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.

Organization

What is organization? Review research and scholarship on organization. Explore the organizational schemas that writers, speakers, knowledge workers . . . use to communicate.

Research

What is research?  How can I use research to solve problems at work, school, and home? Review scholarship on research ethics and qualitative, quantitative, mixed, and textual research methods. Learn how research can help you develop new knowledge and new products and services.

Revision

What is Revision? What does research and scholarship say about the best ways to revise my communications? How do I determine when revision is necessary or when it's time to revise?  Learn how to systematize revision processes. Use our revision guidelines to improve your work.

Rhetoric

What is rhetoric?  How can rhetorical knowledge help me interpret information and communicate more effectively? Review research and scholarship on rhetoric. Develop your rhetorical stance by learn how to analyze your rhetorical situation.

Workplace Writing Studies

What is Workplace Writing? What's the difference between Workplace Writing and Professional and Technical Communication? or Business Communication? or Writing across the Curriculum? Review research and scholarship on the past and future of workplace writing. Learn the foundational concepts of writing in contemporary workplaces.

Writing Studies

What is Writing Studies? How can I learn from Writing Studies more flexible ways of composing texts? Learn about the research, theory, and scholarship that informs Writing Commons.

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.

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.

Rhetoric & Entrepreneurship

Rhetoric & Entrepreneurship is an undergraduate Professional Writing course. This course challenges students to work collaboratively throughout a semester to develop a business thesis, engage in customer discovery, and design a prototype for a new business. This was my first time teaching a solely online course, and I settled on entrepreneurship as a course theme after noting the robust resources for entrepreneurs that are freely available. I especially leaned on Alex Cowan's work on Venture Design and Steve Blank's Business Model Canvas. I thank Alex Cowan for permitting me to integrate some of his MOOC resources into the course schedule.