International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Volume 1, Number 2, 2007
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Abstract
Qualitative Research on What Leads to Success in Professional Writing
This article examines the experiences of advanced students and of graduates in a non-traditional MA in professional writing program to discover how faculty may assure student success in professional writing occupations. The study investigates the knowledge domains and habits of mind that foster student success in writing. The research is the collaborative effort of three rhetoric and composition specialists. Their research discovered that successful writers (1) define success as gaining a response from readers; (2) master six knowledge domains—genre, writing process, rhetorical, subject matter, discourse community, and metacognitive knowledge; (3) put their knowledge into action through eight similar habits of mind—persevering, embracing learning, attempting challenges, responding positively to critique, engaging in collaboration, understanding how to write in complicated contexts, and engaging in metacognition; and (4) acquire these abilities from a range of personal, professional, and academic experiences.
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Margaret Walters
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA
mwalter1@kennesaw.edu
I teach applied writing in the M.A. in Professional Writing Program at Kennesaw State University, including courses in Issues and Research in Professional Writing, Intercultural Communication, Web Content Development, and Technical Editing. I earned my Ph.D. from Arizona State University (1996) in Rhetoric and Composition. My research interests include the scholarship of teaching, English studies, and multimedia development. In an earlier career, I was a technical writer for several aerospace companies, including the NASA Johnson Space Center. My current projects include a collaborative paper on teaching the gateway course introducing students to English studies and an article for a book that discusses the uses of multimedia to disseminate research. I am also completing a biography of former Georgia politician, A. L. Burruss.
Susan Hunter
Clayton State University
Morrow, Georgia, USA
susanhunter@clayton.edu
I received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside. As a rhetoric and composition specialist and professor of English, I have published and made conference presentations focusing on my research in collaborative writing and professional writing as well as administrative issues in higher education and curricular innovations in English Studies. I present annually at the national Conference on College Composition and Communication. In addition to articles in refereed journals such as Rhetoric Review and JAC, I have coauthored four books: Writing Ourselves into the Story: Unheard Voices in Composition Studies; The Place of Grammar in Writing Instruction; Foregrounding Ethical Awareness in Composition and English Studies; and Collaborative Writing in Composition Studies. As founding director of the Master of Arts in Professional Writing degree program at Kennesaw State University, I taught graduate courses for ten years before becoming Head of the Language and Literature Department in 2005, at Clayton State University in metro Atlanta.
Elizabeth Giddens
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA
egiddens@kennesaw.edu
Elizabeth Giddens teaches courses in managing writing in organizations, grant and proposal writing, organizational writing for external audiences, organizational writing for internal audiences, technical writing, speech writing, and nature writing in the English Department and the Master’s in Professional Writing program at Kennesaw State University. Her research focuses on the rhetoric of social change and on how to help students develop the knowledge and habits of mind essential for a writing career. Dr. Giddens has previously worked as an editor, technical writer, communications analyst, and communications director at two nonprofit research organizations.