Grounded in rhetorical inquiry, the program provides students with advanced study in the communicative and cultural dimensions of artifacts, processes, and technologies.

Researchers in professional communication pursue knowledge about discourse and communicative practices in organized contexts, including business, academic, scientific, technical, and non-profit settings. They study communication as it is or has been practiced in actual, lived contexts. They primarily use theories and research methodologies associated with rhetoric and professional communication. These researchers are particularly interested in how communicative practices shape and are shaped by culture, technology, history, and theories of communication.

Our understanding of what professional communication encompasses is broad, embracing a diversity of rhetorical contexts and situations. Areas of study range from the everyday writing of the workplace to writing pedagogy of the nineteenth century, from the implications of new media on communicative practices to the theory and design of online learning, and from oral presentations to the production of CD-ROMs and websites.