Composing Processes

Be strategic and creative about how you manage writing tasks. Work productively with others. Experience the generative power of language. Use writing to advance your thinking and knowledge.

Courses

See how others use Writing Commons to teach writing at the undergraduate and graduate level. We offer interesting projects with robust resources for students. For instance, check out our Eight-Week, Team Consultancy Project or our Infographic Project.

Genre

Write strategically and more successfully:

• Reduce ambiguity and jumpstart composing by learning how to analyze how others have written about similar rhetorical situations.
• Understand the role of genre as a classification scheme for texts, a method of invention, a trait of discourse communities, and a tool people use to respond strategically to recurring situations.
• Understand the conventions and values undergirding academic, business, scientific, and literary genres.

Information Literacy

Avoid being duped. Learn to be a critical consumer and producer of information. Critically evaluate information (e.g, distinguish fake news from real news). Be aware of ethical and unethical uses of information, including plagiarism. Strategically weave sources into your text without undermining your purpose, voice or tone.

Mindset

Assume responsibility for your writing development. Master the intrapersonal competencies prized by employers. Adopt a growth mindset, intellectual openness, metacognition and self-regulation, professionalism and work ethic, and resilience.

Research

Being a competent researcher is empowering:

• Information Literacy skills are critical to being an informed consumer, citizen
• Research Methods empower you to investigate and solve problems, create solutions and applications, and develop theories

Learn the rules of the road for conducting Textual Research and Empirical Research in academic and workplace contexts.

Rhetoric

Better understand why people say what they say and do what they do. Learn to critically analyze rhetorical situations and engage in rhetorical reasoning. Write and speak more effectively by developing substantive content that is responsive to your rhetorical situation. Develop point of view, rhetorical appeals, stance, persona, tone, voice, and style in response to your rhetorical situation.

Style

Strategically engage in the language practices of effective communicators:substantive prose, concision, clarity, flow, and unity. Distinguish between topic-focused, audience-focused, and rhetor-focused styles. Understand diction, grammar, and mechanics. Replace vague language with concrete, sensory, figurative language.

Writing Studies

Learn to better manage writing tasks by familiarizing yourself with research on composing processes, assessment, grading, and learning theory. Become less rigid about how you develop ideas, collaborate with others, research claims, and publish in multiple media. Do a deep dive into theory that informs Writing Commons.