Current Research
Archive of Workplace Writing Experiences
Research Partner: Brian Fitzpatrick, Assistant Professor, George Mason University
This project is an online audio archive of interviews from working professionals across industries. Grounded in transfer research from writing studies as well as business, the project asks interviewees to discuss how and what they write in their specific workplaces, how they translated college writing skills into that field, what “successful” writing looks like where they are, and what students across disciplines need to develop in their writing as they look towards the future. The archive, which is available to students, professors, and the public, serves as a learning tool and as an ongoing repository, but perhaps most importantly it is as a crucial link between the university and the “working world,” as students hear the voices of those creating real workplace writing. Resources on the site are available for use in college classrooms ranging from first-year writing to WID or WAC courses. To learn more about the project, visit the archive or read this Double Helix article about the project.
Writing Transfer During Career Change
This book-length project is a qualitative study that will examine writing transfer as professionals transition between careers.
Past Publications
Below is a sampling of scholarly and professional publications. For a more detailed publication list, please see my CV.
Freelancers as a Growing Workplace Norm: Demonstrating Expertise Across Multiple Literacy Events in Unfamiliar Communities of Practice
with Brian Fitzpatrick, in Rewriting Work. WAC Clearinghouse/CSU Press TPC Foundations and Innovations book series (2023)
“I’ll Try to Make Myself Sound Smarter than I am”: Learning to Negotiate Power in Workplace Writing
with Brian Fitzpatrick, in Writing Beyond the University: Implications for Fostering Writers’ Lifelong Learning and Agency. Center for Engaged Learning, Open-access Book Series (2022)
The Rhetoric of Online Exclusive Pumping Communities: Tactical Technical Communication as Eschewing Judgement
Technical Communication Quarterly 30 (1) (2021)
Hidden Arguments: Rhetoric and Persuasion in Diverse Forms of Technical Communication
with Brian Fitzpatrick, in Effective Teaching of Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Application. WAC Clearinghouse/CSU Press TPC Foundations and Innovations book series (2021)
Good Questions for Better Essay Prompts (and Papers)
Faculty Focus (2020)
Authenticity and the Rhetoric of ‘Selling’ on Social Media: A Role-writing Assignment Set
Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments. Vol. 2(2) (2018)
What I Learned from My International Students: How Teaching English as a Foreign Language Made Me a Better Teacher of Everything
Diplomacy, Tone, and Emphasis in Business Writing
Writing Commons, a “free, global, peer-reviewed, open-education resource for college-level writers, college faculty, and the everyday writer” (2013)