Professional Writing and Rhetoric Minor

The Professional Writing and Rhetoric minor provides a program of study that focuses on how language and writing are connected to identity and shape actions and attitudes. Students learn to analyze and understand others’ perspectives and acquire the skills to broaden and effectively articulate and defend their own perspectives. Students choose from classes that study professional writing; topics in current rhetoric, like disability rhetorics, environmental rhetorics or the language of race; contemporary and classical rhetoric and composition theory, and topics such as visual literacy, social media, or the history of authorship. This minor provides students the opportunity to hone analysis and writing skills, as well as to conduct original undergraduate research, to compose and interpret texts using multiple modes, to learn to tutor or teach writing, and to become effective nuance communicators.

Students need to complete a total of 18 hours, including 12 credits from the following categories, with at least 3 credits from each category: (1) Theory and Methodology, (2) Rhetoric, and (3) Professional Writing. In addition, students will take 3 credits from selected Linguistic courses and a final 3 credits from any ENG/LING prefix. At least nine credits must be upper division. A minimum passing grade is a C-.