Last year went very well, though not exactly as I predicted at its outset. I took three classes a semester last year, up from the 2-per of the previous year. This meant that I dropped my activity in my law firm from about 2/3 time to about 1/2 time. That proved not to be a… Continue reading Looking back on 2011-2012 school year
(Updated Aug 19 to add picture and correct typos!) Below is the bibliography of the 150 or so books, book chapters, and articles I’m studying for my PhD qualifying exams in spring 2013. I need to pass these exams to be permitted to write my dissertation. The texts are actually divided into four groups,… Continue reading My qualifying examination reading list
… and why even (or especially) flat-earth fundamentalists should not be threatened by it On January 13, 2012, on the 23rd anniversary of our first date—which was also a Friday the 13th—Bob and I got married in New York City. This union has little legal significance: Minnesota does not recognize it, and if some folks… Continue reading Why I got gay-married in NYC…
I attended my first colloquium hosted by the Center for Cognitive Sciences at the University of Minnesota. (Information about the weekly series is available on CogSci’s web site.) Today’s presenter was Michael Mensink, a PhD candidate in Educational Psychology. He presented the results of research (by him and his colleagues) into the ways that the… Continue reading Preparing readers for texts… my first CogSci colloquium
This week we’ll have a visit from Drs. Tom Reynolds and Patrick Bruch to talk about research in pedagogy. We had several readings to prepare for this discussion. Here they are: Herndl, C. G. (2004). Teaching discourse and reproducing culture: a critique of research and pedagogy in professional and non-academic writing. In J. Johnson-Eilola &… Continue reading Readings for 8011 for November 29
We had four readings for this week, focused on feminist criticism and theory in technical communication research: MacNealy, M. S. (1998). Qualitative Research with Special Lenses: Feminist and Teacher Research (Chapter 12). In Strategies for Empirical Research in Writing. Longman. Schuster, M. L. (2006). A Different Place to Birth: A Material Rhetoric Analysis of Baby… Continue reading Readings for November 22 in 8011
I received a link from friend and colleague Trent Kays to this article: Williams, J. M. (1981). The phenomenology of error. College Composition and Communication, 32(2), 152-168. (I UPDATED this post 11/22 with notes from Prof. Sihler below.) It’s a good read, and points up a key problem: Self-appointed arbiters of writing style, unofficial state… Continue reading The Phenomenology of Error
One of our readings this week gets special treatment from me, as I have to lead discussion of it. This post includes my summary and questions about it. (Full disclosure: Mary Schuster is my PhD adviser, so I make no claims of objectivity.) Propen, A. D., & Schuster, M. L. (2010). Understanding genre through the… Continue reading Propen and Schuster reading for 8011
In today’s class, we’re having visits from Dr. John Logie and Dr. Christina Haas, both professors in the department. Logie will be talking about rhetorical analysis and Haas about grounded theory. We read two studies for today; not surprisingly, they employed rhetorical analysis and grounded theory. Here they are: Harper, F. M., Weinberg, J., Logie,… Continue reading Readings for November 15 in 8011
Tom Wright, a PhD candidate in my department, has asked me to come and speak to his students in “WRIT 3001 Introduction to Scientific and Technical Communication” on November 29 about technical communication in the law. I had originally suggested to Tom that we have the students read an interesting article about the denial of rhetoric in… Continue reading Thoughts about making a guest visit to WRIT3001