Secondary core

• Pedagogical courses include Teaching Composition (503), Teaching Business and Technical Writing (504), and Advanced Pedagogy in Rhetoric and Composition (603).
• History courses include History of Rhetorical Theory (547-548) and Topics in the History of Rhetorical Theory (611).
• Practice courses include Writing Proposals and Grant Applications (509), Multimedia Content Management (529x), Production Processes for Technical Documents (542x), Multimedia Design for Business Communication (549x), Usability and Legality in Manuals and Other Workplace Communication (583), Editing Principles and Practices (584), Visual Communication in Professional Writing (586), and Internship in Business, Technical, and Professional Communication (587).
• Research Methodology courses include Research Design in Rhetoric and Professional Communication (602) as well as methodology courses in allied disciplines (e.g., ethnography, statistics, historiography).

Any of these four areas in the secondary core might include English 592, 611, and 621 special topics courses as designated by their instructors or the student's program adviser/major professor. These courses can be taken for credit more than once when the topic differs. Documentation of these courses as POS equivalencies must be attached to the signed POS Planning Sheet.

Linguistics requirement

All RPC students fulfill a language/linguistics requirement by taking 6 credit hours of linguistics.

Electives

RPC electives constitute a coherent group of courses selected by the student and approved by the faculty. Electives might feature, for example, courses centering around a topic such as professional writing or corporate training or rhetorical theory. The student provides a rationale for the POS itself and for each course within that program. Students are encouraged to consult with their program advisers about ideas for designing individual programs. Students may, under special circumstances, transfer in elective credits.

Concentration

As a part of their doctoral program, RPC students select a concentration that represents a coherent focus of their work. Whether the courses are selected from a single department or from several, they should form an identifiable field of study (e.g., international communication, history of technology, document design). Often these 12 credit hours are taken outside the English Department, but they also can be taken within the department-even within the RPC area.

Each RPC student creates an argument (presented in the form of a petition) that defines the concentration, explains the relevance of that concentration to the student's POS, and discusses the contribution to the POS of each course taken in the concentration. The Petition for Approval of Concentration form and explanatory guidelines must be completed, signed by your program adviser/major professor, and submitted to the Graduate English Office for approval by the Director of Graduate Education for approval (required before POS form will be approved). The approved petition will be filed in the Graduate English Office with copies given to the student and adviser/major professor.

600-level courses

The POS must include at least two 600-level RPC courses taken at ISU (cannot be transfer credits). These courses may not include 601 or methodology courses such as 602, but can include other secondary core courses as well as electives. If 602 is taken as an elective and a different course is taken as an advanced methods secondary core course, then 602 can be counted.