WRTG 261/ENGL 288/DMST 250

Course Title: Writing in a Digital World

Liz Tinelli

M/W 10:25-11:40

4 credits

Prerequisite: Successful Completion of the Primary Writing Requirement


Why take this course?

  • You’re interested in how data, design, and digital media shape the way we communicate
  • You want to explore topics connected to your own interests, major, or future career through digital projects

Key skills you’ll gain

  • The ability to make intentional choices about writing, visuals, design, and medium
  • The ability to use and attribute sources responsibly across academic, professional, and digital contexts
  • Experience collecting, analyzing, and visualizing data
  • Experience creating digital and multimodal projects for different audiences and purposes

Full course description


The purpose of writing in a digital world is to engage with a broader community around a topic of interest and contribute to public knowledge. In this course, students are invited to dig deeply into a question of interest, write for a public audience, and use the Internet as an archive of information waiting to be discovered, analyzed, and written about. Students can draw on pre-existing research interests from their majors or develop a line of inquiry stemming from class discussions, writing, and research. In order to gain experience writing to a range of readers, students will engage in a writing process informed by peer review, self-assessment, and revision. Shorter writing assignments will help students develop and refine ideas as they transform texts for different audiences. The final research project will be multimodal, published for a public audience, and should demonstrate your ability to think critically about a topic and effectively communicate that knowledge to a range of readers.