Overview
Students must complete two Writing-Intensive Component courses in, and as specified by, their major discipline of study. Writing-Intensive Component courses emphasize professionally oriented writing within a particular discipline. The Writing-Intensive Component gives students the opportunity to practice and demonstrate the skills of written communication as they are specifically applied to their major field of study. The Writing-Intensive Component courses require at least 20 pages, or the equivalent thereof, of formal writing that has undergone significant revision based on peer or instructor feedback. The 20-page total may be attained through multiple assignments of varying page length.
Educational Goals:
Application and Synthesis
- To produce prose that is clear, coherent, correct and convincing for readers within the writer's major discipline of study; and
- To apply strategies for effective cross-cultural communication.
Synthesis and Evaluation
- To write papers that formulate original positions on a problem or issue within the writer's major discipline of study in the context of a synthesis of multiple primary and/or secondary sources;
- To assess the usefulness and reliability of potential print, electronic and primary research for a proposed research report within the writer's major discipline of study; and
- To plan, develop and write discipline-appropriately-documented academic and/or professional texts within the writer's major discipline of study.
NOTE: "Effective cross-cultural communication" here entails writers paying attention to how their texts might best be crafted for professional audiences (the usual case in discipline-specific writing) or general audiences (the occasional case).