Research

Read more about my research on my Metawriting blog.

My recent professional presentations include sessions at KADE and KEC. My most recent publication was “Writing Self-Efficacy and Written Communication Skills” published June 2013 in Business Communication Quarterly and a book review for the December 2013 issue of Teaching English in the Two-Year College.

My current works in progress include a number of presentations for the 2013-2014 academic year, including a Writing Studio roundtable at 2014 CCCC and session for 2014 Computer Connection (at CCCC) plus two sessions at KCTE (Creating a Community of Writers Using Social Capital and Low-Stakes Writing and Bridging the Writing Gap), and a book chapter about the Writing Studio program. I am also working on an article about creating community in the online classroom but this is very much a work in progress.

Read dissertation abstract: Fostering Agency and Writing Self-Efficacy: The Making of a Writer

Blog posts about research on my old blog

My research interests are:

My writing pedagogy is influenced by Peter Elbow and Anne Beaufort as well as my experience with the National Writing Project. I am interested in learning more about the best ways to teach writing and learning more about how and why those methods are most effective.

My dissertation studied rhetorical agency and writing self-efficacy in a community of adult professionals. As I continue this study, I am also researching the rhetorical agency and writing self-efficacy of undergraduate writers both in and out of traditional composition classes.

Teaching, communicating, and connecting with technology — in particular the ideas of collaboration and negotiation in communities of practice and learning communities — are major areas of interest for me. As both a teacher and the leader of a a professional network, I want to study these issues in terms of technical communication and pedagogy. I am currently engaged in three research projects in this area: one focused on a professional community, another focused on undergraduate writing classrooms, and a third project studying Appalachian culture.

My Research Statement

I define myself as a rhetorician. Much like Wayne Booth in The Rhetoric of Rhetoric, I consider myself a student of rhetoric. I agree with Booth that the quality of our lives – indeed our survival – depends on the quality of our rhetoric. Rhetoric has the power to change the world. However, decades of working with writers has also taught me that the lack of agency and efficacy too often impedes the power of their rhetoric. The lack of confidence in their ability to communicate effectively and the lack of power to enact rhetorical agency results in an inequitable distribution of power in communities both large and small. This is what drives me to study the interplay of agency and efficacy with community and collaboration on communication in general and digital rhetoric in specific. Today, many communities and much collaboration involves digital communication and social media. As a rhetorician, technical communicator, and teacher, I am interested in the ways that communication is helped and hindered by digital rhetoric in the classroom, in the workplace, and in the world.

Read my Research Statement