1. Why or in what ways is writing important to your discipline/field/profession?
The ability to communicate clearly is central to each concentration in the Communication Department. Writing is at the heart of good journalism, broadcasting, documentary film-making, public relations, advertising, and public, professional and academic discourse. Whether you create speeches, films, content for the web, advertisements, brochures, or academic articles, it is important to communicate information clearly and persuasively.
2. Which courses are designated as satisfying the Writing in the Discipline (WID) requirement by your department? Why these courses?
The courses described below satisfy the WID requirement for the different concentrations within the Communication Department.
All concentrations: COMM 251: Research Methods in Communication
Journalism concentration: COMM 201: Writing for News
Media concentration: COMM 243: Preproduction for Digital Media and COMM 340: Media Ethics
Public and professional communication concentration: COMM 351: Persuasion
Public relations/advertising (select one from the following):
- COMM 201: Writing for News
- COMM 311: Public Relations Strategy
- COMM 312: Advanced Writing for Public Relations and Advertising
- COMM 339: Creativity for Public Relations & Advertising
Speech, language and hearing science concentration: COMM 255: Introduction to Language and COMM 320: Speech and Language Development
3. What forms or genres of writing will students learn and practice in your department’s WID courses? Why these genres?
Students will practice and experiment with many different genres of academic, journalistic, and professional writing in the Communication Department. The genres students produce will depend on their chosen concentration.
4. What kinds of teaching practices will students encounter in your department’s WID courses?
Students will encounter active and experiential teaching practices in the Communication Department’s WID courses. Most writing assignments include written feedback from instructors, some involve several drafts with individual face-to-face feedback, and others involve peer evaluation and feedback. Learning to write well is a life-long process. Instructors in the Communication Department take pride in nurturing students’ creativity and skills as part of that process.
5. When they’ve satisfied your department’s WID requirement, what should students know and be able to do with writing?
Students who have completed the WID requirement should feel confident in their ability to communicate effectively through writing in their field. They will have experiential, portfolio-building writing exercises to demonstrate their proficiency. Specific skills will vary by concentration.
In PHIL 351 and PHIL 356, students practice formal writing with clear analysis and evaluation of philosophical positions. They receive instruction and feedback about using good grammar and good reasoning to defend or criticize philosophical positions, and they are introduced to the responsible use of relevant scholarly resources.
In PHIL 460, students receive guidance and feedback on a substantial term paper that engages with recent scholarship and follows disciplinary conventions of philosophical publications.
4. What kinds of teaching practices will students encounter in your department’s WID courses?
Cumulatively over the course of this plan, students receive lots of instruction and feedback from their teachers on the forms and contents of their philosophical writing. They exercise their skills frequently in shorter writing assignments and have multiple opportunities for longer papers. They also engage in peer collaboration and peer review under the teachers’ supervision.
5. When they’ve completed your department’s WID requirement, what should students know and be able to do with writing?
When students have satisfied philosophy’s requirements for writing in the discipline, they should understand the typical goals and forms of philosophical writing, and they should have practiced using common conventions of philosophical publications. More generally, they should have sustained practice in using clear academic prose to analyze and evaluate arguments about reality, knowledge, ethics and other basic aspects of human experience and thought.
