First-year Writing and Research Journals: How Online Publication Redefines Student Writing and Scholarship in Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies

Abstract

Many accounts of student writing exist in the field of Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies (RCWS) in the form of writing textbooks, readers, and articles across decades of professional journal volumes (Grobman 2009; Kinkead 2011; Robillard 2006; Sommers 2015).. Some argue that discussing student writing is foundational to RCWS and its identity as a discipline (Goggins 1997; Harris 2010; Lauer 1984). And for 24 years, first-year student writing has been published in online academic journals with no discussion from RCWS scholarship. In part through establishing academic journals, RCWS professionalized and developed an expertise paradigm that promotes published first-year scholarship yet does not cite that scholarship within its journals - all while non-RCWS scholars cite the same work as legitimate scholarship 366 times, creating a stark citation disparity. This dissertation provides a first-ever account of published first-year writing and research (FYWR) journals and argues that the presence of these journals simultaneously reaffirms and unsettles the claim that student writing remains central to RCWS practice and identity. This account analyzes FYWR journal features, statements of purpose, and citations, and it finds FYWR journals engage in academic publishing practices, position FYWR articles as writing models, and circulate in interdisciplinarity, not RCWS disciplinarity; thus, the presence of FYWR journals possesses the potential to redefine what counts as 'student writing' and 'scholarship' in the discipline.