Writing Studies

Strong written communication skills are crucial for success in your undergraduate studies and your long-term career. According to a recent survey report of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the majority of business executives are seeking college graduates with excellent communication and critical inquiry skills as well as strong problem-solving abilities. The Writing Studies Minor develops your skills and versatility as a writer, furthering your success in your undergraduate courses and giving you a competitive edge in graduate school and the job market.

The Minor's sustained study of writing in its historical, theoretical, cultural, and practical contexts will bring you these benefits:

• A rhetorical understanding of the relationship among language, literacy, culture, identity, and power.
• An opportunity to explore rhetorical traditions, the material impacts of writing, including the roles of technological advances, and writing and rhetoric's role in ethical deliberation, civic engagement, and social change.
• An understanding of argumentation through practice with diverse skills of argumentation.
• Dexterity as a writer through tailoring your writing to different rhetorical situations and genres such as creative nonfiction, personal essays, professional writing, and others.
• The ability to produce clear, coherent, effective prose through extensive practice with sentence-level and style issues and the ability to use writing process knowledge to revise and edit your own writing.
• The creation of an electronic portfolio for assessment and use in your graduate or professional careers.

The Writing Studies Minor is appropriate for undergraduate students from a great variety of majors across our university, but particularly for students planning career paths in law, business, teaching, the arts, the non-profit world, or government. Learn more about the offerings within the minor by reading these select course descriptions.

Degree offered: Minor