Writing in the Academic Disciplines

David R. Russell is a professor of English at Iowa State University, where he teaches rhetoric and professional communication. He has published many articles on writing across the curriculum and has coedited Landmark Essays on Writing Across the Curriculum, a special issue of Mind, Culture, and Activity, and Writing and Learning in Cross-National Perspective: Transitions from Secondary to Higher Education. He has given workshops and lectures on writing across the curriculum nationally and internationally, and he was the first Knight Visiting Scholar in Writing at Cornell University.

Writing in the Academic Disciplines is fascinating reading. The research is thorough and detailed. Along with contemporary and historical articles and books about writing instruction, Russell reviews and quotes from articles and books written by educators at the time, from college catalogs, and from personal reports of instruction. The personal accounts add human interest to the historical analysis, and the discussion of the cross-curricular writing programs as reflective of educational movements broadens the focus beyond English studies. In the depth and variety of its coverage, Writing in the Academic Disciplines adds dimension to other historical accounts of twentieth-century writing instruction. - Journal of Technical Writing and Communication