communication

Navigating Your Collaborative Project

Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck Volume 5 Chapter Description From school to the workplace, managing team projects isn’t always easy, but this chapter aims to prepare students for success. In this chapter, we guide students through different tools for working with others, maintaining project goals, and completing projects where technology is at the forefront. We […]

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Read the Room! Navigating Social Contexts and Written Texts

Sarah Seeley, Kelly Xu, & Matthew Chenn Melzer Volume 4 Chapter Description This chapter is a collaboration between a professor (Sarah Seeley) and two former students (Kelly Xu and Matthew Chen). We begin with a discussion of a key concept: the discourse community. In doing so, we illustrate why it is necessary to examine the

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Understanding Discourse Communities

Dan Melzer Volume 3 Chapter Description This chapter uses John Swales’ definition of discourse community to explain to students why this concept is important for college writing and beyond. The chapter explains how genres operate within discourse communities, why different discourse communities have different expectations for writing, and how to understand what qualifies as a

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What is Academic Writing?

Lennie L. Irvin Volume 1 Chapter Description This chapter explores the task of writing in college. It details common myths about academic writing and the importance of developing a “writer’s sense” within the writing situation. It identifies features of the complex “literacy task” college writing assignments require and decodes elements of the academic writing situation

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Storytelling, Narration, and the “Who I Am” Story

Catherine Ramsdell Volume 2 Chapter Description This chapter focuses on the importance of storytelling to successful personal and professional communication in the 21st century. Because narration transcends experience, and because stories “can be found anywhere from a movie theatre to a corporate boardroom, everyone should know how to tell a good story.”  While the chapter

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Writing “Eyeball To Eyeball”: Building A Successful Collaboration

Rebecca Ingalls Volume 2 Chapter Description Collaborating on a written project can be one of the most beneficial, and challenging, strategies to include in a writing class. While all students have likely worked in groups before, many do not yet know how to mindfully prepare, manage, and negotiate the conflicts that may arise in group

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