Research Programs

Students in the rhetoric and scientific & technical communication (RSTC) MA and PhD programs engage with the intersections of language and society through interdisciplinary research, teaching, and community engagement. Drawing from fields including rhetoric, technical communication, and writing studies—and complementing these with students’ chosen areas of specialization—our students and faculty pursue transformative research with local, national, and global significance.

We are a community committed to writing, teaching, and research that matters in our communities, classrooms, and disciplines. Our alumni hold leadership and tenure-track positions in academia, and professional positions that require deep understandings of writing, rhetoric, and technology in a contemporary context. 

Students graduate from our programs prepared to:

  • Plan, conduct, and communicate research that intervenes in the program’s core areas of rhetoric, writing studies, and technical communication.
  • Take on leadership roles in academic, professional, scientific, and civic contexts connecting discourses, identities, and power relations.
  • Make justice-oriented contributions as scholar-teachers and professionals.
  • Create innovative pedagogies to enable student engagement, agency, and transformative learning.
  • Empower students as writers, teaching their students to skillfully compose texts that will help them to shape their worlds. 

Learn more!

We invite you to learn more about our programs and the opportunities that the Department of Writing Studies provides our graduate students. We welcome your questions! Please contact Allie Cooperman, Graduate Programs Coordinator by:

We also invite you to register to attend an information session to learn more about our programs and how to apply. If you are considering applying for one of our programs, review our application requirements.