Stuart C. Brown

Mapping a Landscape: The 2004 Survey of MA Programs in Rhetoric and Composition Studies

In 1999 Brown, Jackson, and Enos characterized doctoral programs in rhetoric and composition by virtue of their increased consolidation and maturity as well as the continued diversification of program components such as admission criteria and course offerings.1 This analysis, as well as other information about the status of doctoral programs in rhetoric and composition studies, was made possible as a result of work done by several surveys published in Rhetoric Review since the mid 1980s. The following survey replicates these studies for MA programs in rhetoric and composition. To date, there have been no similar surveys focused on programs at the MA level. Our data show that the number of these programs has increased dramatically in the last twenty years. Because of this increase, the information about them—program descriptions, admission criteria, curricula, financial support—illuminates the changing culture of rhetorical studies and more firmly identifies disciplinary development in rhetoric and composition as well as connections to doctoral programs. Our agenda also includes establishing a baseline of information about MA programs in their own right, to provide profiles of this burgeoning degree emphasis within English studies.

The Reader as Entity.

This study examines the reading apprehension, the writing performance, and the perceived job reading requirements of 91 students enrolled in an upper-division business writing course at the University of Arizona. To measure reading apprehension, the investigators used the Estes Scale (1971 ), and a modification of the frequently used writing apprehension measure developed by Daly and Miller (1975). The investigators used course grades to measure writing performance, and they used a single question to measure students perceptions of reading requirements in their future jobs. Results indicated that students with higher course grades exhibited lower levels of reading apprehension. Further, those students also anticipated higher reatlitig requirements in their future jobs. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed.