Writing in the Disciplines


The Dial Center offers a wide array of writing courses designed to enhance the communication skills of students within specific disciplines.  These courses are governed by two principles developed in the cognitive sciences and the fields of  rhetoric and composition.

The first principle is that we learn better (meaning that we retain more information and apply skills more effectively) when a skill is leaned in the context of its use.  This is particularly true of writing skills.

The second principle is that many aspects of effective writing, including style, logic,  form, and audience, are to a certain extent specific to particular groups of writers, which are known in composition studies as writing communities.  For example, law students learn to reason by syllogism and analogy, whereas psychologists learn to reason according to the scientific method.

Guided by these principles, and others,  students in writing in the disciplines courses learn to write among their peers within majors or academic areas of interest and by composing the types of documents (reports, literature reviews, proposals, briefs, etc.) typical of their disciplines.

For more information about specific courses, please see our descriptions of Writing in the Disciplines Courses.







Dial Center for Written and Oral Communication

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Dial Center for
Written and Oral Communication

402 Rolfs Hall
P.O Box 112032
Gainesville FL 32611-2032
Phone: 352-392-5421
Fax: 352.392-5420