University of Minnesota
Department of Writing Studies
612-624-3445
writ@umn.edu


Department Name

Department of Writing Studies

Students on the East Bank Campus

Writing in the 21st century is global, social, and digital. An e-mail message or Twitter post can span the entire globe in mere seconds. A common scholarly goal in this department is the sustained study of all aspects of writing and literacy practices—history and theory, production and circulation, material and digital, social and collaborative, textual and visual. Our work coheres around a common set of questions about the global, social, and digital literacies of our time.

Photo by Matt Buchanan

Welcome to the Department of Writing Studies. Part of the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts, we are an academic department with nationally recognized strengths in teaching and scholarship in rhetoric, writing, and technical communication.

The department touches the lives of nearly every undergraduate on campus through the First Year Writing program, as well as popular courses including technical writing and communication, professional writing, rhetorical theory, and digital communication. We are also the administrative home of the Center for Writing and the Second Language Studies program.

Graduates from our B.S., M.S., and certificate program are prepared for successful careers in scientific and technical communication and are in high demand by companies both local and national. Our M.A. and Ph.D. graduates pursue careers in academic settings, becoming college and university professors.

If you have any questions, please email or call us. Or stop in and visit us in Nolte Hall on the Minneapolis campus.



Featured Items

  • EPortfolio 2.0: Networked Learning in CLA

    Professors Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch and Ann Hill Duin, along with Kathleen Hanson (Journalism) and Celina Byers (CLA-OIT) had their E Portfolio proposal funded by the Provost's eLearning initiative.

    They proposed the addition of an EPortfolio 2.0 to the curriculum in the Journalism Bachelor of Arts program and the Writing Studies / Technical Communication Bachelor of Science program. "The EPortfolio 2.0 program will allow all participating students to create a portfolio of finished work that demonstrates key abilities and activities critical to their respective major programs of study. This dynamic "2.0" version of EPortfolios will also include unique articulation of a Personal Learning Network (PLN), or arrays of people and social networking tools that connect students with information, knowledge and perspectives that enrich their undergraduate educations across and beyond the curriculum."

     May 3rd, 2013

  • 'Lynda.com' online training now available for U of M students, faculty, staff

    Lynda.com online training now is available at no cost to University of Minnesota students, faculty, and staff systemwide on all campuses.

    Lynda.com is a library of online training videos that provides access to more than 1,700 courses for all skill levels in more than 140 specialties including:

    * 3D + Animation
    * Audio
    * Business
    * Design
    * Developer
    * Photography
    * Video
    * Web

    University users will log in using their University Internet ID and password in order to access training videos available on lynda.umn.edu. Lynda.com's vast library is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and contains thousands of professional-grade Windows and Mac video tutorials, on a vast array of topics from design principles, to web content management systems, to software for printing and much more.

    Lynda.com utilizes expert instructors that are experts in their fields, and whose mission is to impart knowledge regarding correct workflow and to teach users how to develop skills required to solve problems. The partnership between the University and the experts at lynda.com allows us to provide a level of professional development and expertise the University alone could not otherwise provide.

    Organized by subject software and instructor, lynda.com's content is constantly growing, and is updated weekly and sometimes daily. University users can attend the training they want and need, when and where they want it, with the assurance that the information they receive is the newest and most up-to-date available.

    There's even a free iPhone/iPad app to enable users to learn on-the-go is available. As displayed in the screen capture below, simply click on the option for Web Portal Access and type umn.edu. You will be directed to log in with your University credentials.

    View image

    Information about lynda.com, and other University online and in-person training opportunities is available on the University technology training website.

     April 30th, 2013