Professional Writing
Dear Students of 3171,
Depending on where you are in your program, you may have a limited number of samples. Do the best you can. However, you should have at least three samples. Those who are farther along in their program should have more samples than three. The whole point of doing this is to show your breadth and depth of skill gained from the courses and the potential of this skill to be applied to your internship. This is an internship portfolio, primarily.
What follows is some sample writing that can be adapted, but not taken wholesale.
Readers can find on this page links to my "recent" publications. Abstracts summarize the work and describe the primary audience. The research presented on this page involves writing program administration and writing center theory and practice.
Selected Publications
- Rendleman, Eliot, Judith Livingston, and Sundi Rose. "A 'Quick-Fire' Study on Mandatory Writing Center Visit Effective Frequency Thresholds." Southern Discourse in the Center: A Journal of Multiliteracy and Innovation, vol. 23, no. 2, 2019, pp. 42-54.
Abstract: The article contributes to an ongoing debate that may be one of the most contentious issues in writing center practice: the advisability and value of mandatory appointments for students. Required appointments are often thought to be counterproductive. This study, however, explains why Rendleman abandoned his "long-held resistance to mandatory visits" and provides empirical data supporting "a system of mandatory visits that ensures students visit the writing center at least three times."
- Rendleman, Eliot, and Judith Livingston. "The Dynamics of Collaboration and Hierarchy: Developing, Assessing, and Revising a First-Year Composition—Writing Center Partnership." Writing Program and Writing Center Collaborations: Transcending Boundaries, edited by Alice J. Myatt and Lyneé Lewis Gaillet. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 67-94.
Abstract: Collaboration represents one of the catchphrases of composition studies. Compositionists promote collaboration among their students, and they expect it among their faculty and program administrators. But collaboration inevitably involves risk and the very real possibility of failure. In this chapter, the authors interrogate best practices of collaboration to help readers better develop, assess, and sustain their own successful partnerships. Synthesizing the elements and processes of successful collaborations from existing WPA scholarship, the authors present two administrative models that account for shifting circumstances and fluctuating power dynamics related to postsecondary writing programs. These models offer readers workable frameworks to view the dynamic relationships between elements and processes of collaboration and within collaborative hierarchies and to nurture the sustainability of their partnerships.
- "Lexicography: Self-Analysis and Defining the Keywords of Our Missions." WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, vol. 37, no. 1-2, 2012, pp. 1-5. Reprinted in The Best of the Independent Rhetoric and Composition Journals 2013, edited by Steve Parks, Morris Young, and Elisabeth Miller. Parlor Press, 2015.
Abstract: This article encourages colleagues to reflect formally on most, if not all, of the key terms found in their own mission statements, online descriptions, assessments, training material, marketing documents, and, even, boilerplate speeches. The article also shares a method for such a reflection, and offers a narrative that illustrates the study of the open compound word “independent writer." In the conclusion, the author shares how this type of reflection can be used for consultant training.
- "Balancing Act: Student Valuation and Cultural Studies Textbooks for Composition." Composition Forum, vol. 24, 2011.
Abstract: Composition scholars have contributed many theoretical analyses that WPAs and teachers might apply to first-year composition textbooks in order to make informed decisions about book adoption and implementation. As they offer critiques of the ideological effects of FYC books, many of these studies call composition textbooks “tools” without exploring the implications of textbook qua tool. The following essay addresses this unexamined area by developing a theory of valuation, a linguistic and rhetorical process of assigning worth to students and textbook instructional apparatuses as student-readers might engage with the texts. An analysis of valuation by WPAs and teachers has the potential to foster the empowerment of students, the instruction of critical thinking and writing, the autonomy of new teachers, and the coherence of local writing programs.