A Framework for Developing Research-Based Curricula in Professional Writing Programs  

For our field, these are times of significant change. Undergraduate and graduate professional writing programs are proliferating across the country. At the same time, our students are moving into anincreasingly broad range of workplace settings. To respond to this reality, we need to establish reliable frameworks for developing curricula that are aligned with the discursive, technical, social, and ethicaldemands our students will face in these settings. We are proposing such a framework -- i.e., a set ofguiding principles -- for designing research-based curricula for professional writing programs. More specifically, we will describe how this framework can be used to orient the empirical research that willallow us to 1) identify the knowledge, abilities, critical awareness, and aspects of identity that ourgraduates will need as practicing professionals and 2) develop curricula that respond to these needs.

Smart, Graham and Nicole Brown. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Education>Business Communication