The Freshman Writing program works in collaboration with the Writing Across the Curriculum program to teach and develop the connection between writing well and thinking well.

By using “writing to learn” techniques to teach course material, faculty across the curriculum teach students how writing can clarify their thinking, connect and distinguish between technical terms and ideas, or sharpen their insight.

Professional researchers often use “writing to learn” for the same purposes, in journals, notes and rough drafts that are part of the revision process that makes new knowledge.

Scholars “write to communicate” when they prepare articles for publication. Faculty across the curriculum teach students the research methods, conventional modes of argument and style of documentation necessary to create finished documents necessary to support the culture of trust and integrity necessary to knowledge-making in the modern world.

Scholars write highly formal documents when they publish research because they need to show the method and procedures used to make knowledge. If it isn’t clear how knowledge is made, it cannot be evaluated.