In this article, we explore how teachers who make their work public through talk and texts may find their composing complicated by issues of authority. These public composing acts include drafting articles, preparing workshop presentations, authoring op-ed pieces and letters to the editor, developing book manuscripts--creating any of the spoken…

Examines the transitions that writers (college seniors enrolled in a 12-week corporate internship program) make when moving from academic to professional discourse communities. Reports a consistent pattern of expectation, frustration, and accommodation as writers adjust to their new writing communities. (MM)

Rather than having established forms available to pour things into, forms frequently need to be built from the ground up. Practically, it is simpler to use assembly line production for academic work, and most of academic writing is relatively linear objective prose. However, boundaries are being crossed in diverse disciplines by a number of…

Peter Elbow's expressionist approach to rhetoric lacks the critical position that feminism requires. Expressionist rhetoric's focus on the personal does not make it a feminist rhetoric because its conception of the personal as well as its conception of itself as a rhetoric is uncritical and ignores the social context that subject positions,…

The metaphor of community has become central to discussions about reading, writing, and teaching. According to this metaphor, an individual learns a discourse through entering into the community that uses it, and by accepting the practices and values of those already in it. Yet an argument can be raised for a definition of discourse that is not…

Reflecting new development in the field of rhetoric and composition, this textbook's third edition incorporates major changes which propose to turn theory into practical advice. These additions in the third edition draw on a new theoretical understanding of how writers operate within a discourse community, on a new research-based view of the…

A study examined: (1) first-year college students and their perceptions of writing; (2) teaching assistants and their discursive preferences; and (3) possible limitations in the program's approach toward portfolio assessment. The study began with the examination of narration, persuasion, and analysis papers from six freshman portfolios. These…