Information for Current MA and Certificate Students

Course Sequences

While there are few requirements regarding the general sequence of your coursework, the department strongly recommends that you take 501 Introduction to Professional Writing and Rhetoric during your first semester, and 502 Research Methods in Rhetoric and Writing during your first year. Both courses are prerequisites for the 797 project and 799 thesis courses, but they also provide an important introduction to the program and the field, as well as providing theoretical and methodological tools that will assist you in future coursework.

Scheduling Considerations

  • English 501 is only offered in the Fall semester.
  • English 502 is only offered in the Spring semester.
  • English 508 and 612 are currently offered every other year.
  • English 615 is only open to students who are not graduate TAs in the fall semester.
  • English 797 is offered as an independent study and can be taken in fall or spring.

Specific courses may require completion of prerequisite courses before you can enroll in them. Consult the course catalog to see which courses have prerequisite requirements.

Not all courses are offered each semester or year, and some special topics courses are taught only once. Many courses are on a two-year rotation, some on a one-year rotation, though even in these the content may vary from semester to semester. Few courses are offered in the summer (usually ENGH 507 - Web Authoring and Design, as well as one or two Literature courses and a selection of Linguistics courses that may be taken as electives); you should plan carefully if you include summer classes in your planned sequence of coursework. You should also discuss with your advisor when classes will be available and how you should plan your coursework in order to fulfill the program requirements

Project/Thesis

The capstone project or thesis represents the culmination of your work in the PWR program. You will take the 797 Capstone Course or 799 thesis option in the last year of your curriculum. Either option will focus on the fields of rhetoric, professional writing, or technical communication and will likely grow out of a project or question from one of your PWR courses. See the listing of past theses and projects for examples.

          Project
The capstone project should address a question or problem of writing or communication that grows out of work experience, coursework, or a new interest. It should demonstrate your ability to apply academic knowledge to practical problems as a reflective practitioner and, conversely, to build academic knowledge by assessing theory in light of practical situations.
         
          Thesis
If you plan to go on to a doctoral program, you may choose to complete the thesis option instead of the capstone project. The thesis should contribute new knowledge to the fields of professional writing, rhetoric, or technical communication. It can be about professional or public discourse in a general sense or it can focus on a particular aspect of professional or technical writing. The thesis will pose a question, often motivated by and situated within previous coursework, and through research, pursue answers through appropriate research methods. If you choose the thesis option, you will not need to fulfill the elective course requirement.

See Finishing your MA for more information on the thesis and project requirements.

Foreign Language Requirement

The concentration in Professional Writing and Rhetoric no longer includes the foreign language requirement.