Course Listing

The Writing Program offers writing courses designed to meet the needs of a wide array of students, from beginning writers to those who seek advanced business and technical writing skills. Many of the 200- and 300- level courses will fulfill the second writing requirement. Every semester also offers the opportunity for students to participate in classes that may help to advance their future careers, whether they plan to become lawyers, doctors, environmentalists, or business professionals.

Students interested in Creative Writing or other English courses should refer to the website for Rutgers English Undergraduate Studies.

Please see Requirements and Placement for more information regarding which classes are best suited to meet your graduation requirements.

Students interested in other English courses—in Creative Writing (course code 351), Literature (358), and Theories and Methods courses (359)—should refer to the website for Rutgers English Undergraduate Studies.

The Writing Program's courses are designed to meet the needs of a wide array of students, from beginning writers to those who seek to become better researchers or refine their technical writing skills. We also offer courses that help students advance their future careers, whether they seek to enter a humanities, healthcare, or business profession, and more!

WC Core Learning Goal Requirement
All of our 100-level courses (College Writing 355:101, College Writing Extended 355:104, and Exposition and Argument 355:103) fulfill the WC core requirement. Students are required to take—and will receive credit for—only one of these WC courses throughout their university career. Based on the results of the Placement Test, students can place into one of those WC courses or into our English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses, which are pre-requisites for the WC requirement.

WCr, WCd and other Core Requirements
Our 200- and 300-level courses fulfill additional core writing requirements.

Note on "Semester(s) Offered"

Please note that the "Semester(s) Offered" entry does not guarantee that the course will always be offered in that semester. Please consult the online Schedule of Courses to verify whether a course will be offered in an upcoming semester.

Course Code: 01:355:103
Semester(s) Offered: Fall
Credits: 3
SAS Core Certified: WC

Note: three Writing Program courses are certified to meet the WC core requirement: College Writing (355:101), Exposition and Argument (355:103), and College Writing Extended (355:104). 103 is reserved for students in the Honors College. Students enroll in 101 or 104 based on their placement exam results, but 101 and 104 share the same curriculum (the only difference is that 104 meets three days a week and is 4.5 credits). Students must not enroll in more than one WC certified course across their university career, as they will only receive credit for either 355:101, 103, or 104.

Course Description:
Exposition and Argument (355:103) is a 3-credit intensive writing course for first-year students who demonstrate advanced reading and writing skills.

In this course, students will encounter a variety of nonfiction texts exploring a range of fascinating contemporary issues. By completing a series of essay assigments -- each of which involves peer review and revision -- students learn to pose interpretive questions, structure complex ideas, and make original claims that contribute to ongoing intellectual conversations. By the end of the course, students will direct their own intellectual inquiry by using library sources and other research tools to develop a cogent, interpretive position about a puzzle, problem, or question of their own design.

Ultimately, the course's overarching goal is for students to come to regard writing as a form of critical thinking that is a life-long pursuit, not something that can be perfected in a single semester. Exposition and Argument helps students establish a foundation in writing and critical thinking practices that will serve them throughout their college careers and beyond. Students will come to recognize the value of creativity and intellectual risk-taking in an interdisciplinary context while learning to compose compelling arguments substantiated by thoughtful analysis of a range of sources.

Students may not drop Exposition and Argument from their course schedules. This is true both during the semester’s initial Add/Drop period and later when students may withdraw from other courses with a ‘W’. Exposition and Argument is a course that must be taken each semester until it is completed. In rare cases of verifiable emergency, the Director or Executive Director of the Writing Program may grant permission for students to withdraw from the course, but only before the withdrawal deadline.

If you have experienced an emergency or other extenuating circumstance, please make an appointment with the Office of the Dean of Students – Student Support area. That office can document your emergency and direct you to the appropriate resources in the Writing Program and elsewhere in the University. Please note that contacting the Office of the Dean of Students will not automatically result in permission to drop Exposition and Argument.

Course Code: 01:355:395
Semester(s) Offered: Fall
Credits: 3

The Editing Internship runs every Fall semester and is open to students who have strong writing skills and an interest in learning about academic publishing. The course culminates in a yearly volume of the scholarly journal Dialogues@RU. Spring 2022 marked the 16th edition of this entirely undergraduate endeavor - from content to finished product, this internship is unique in every way.

The 15-week course begins with a call for papers from the Writing Program's Research in the Disciplines (355:201) sections. Each year, hundreds of submissions are reviewed, with the strongest essays chosen by the Selections Committee interns. Next, editing interns work one-on-one with the student-authors, offering comprehensive assistance in revising and refining their work. After going through both substantive and technical edits, the essays are proofread for source verification and organization. Associate Editors manage the workflow and communicate with interns and authors to endure each project's success. The Marketing and Promotions Committee develops material to advertise the journal on social media sites.

Students who participate in the Editing Internship learn real-life skills needed for careers in publishing. From time management to building relationships with authors, the editors acquire a deep appreciation for the process of producing scholarly work. Student interns are also surprised by the range of topics Dialogues essays span. Analyses of film, medicine, history, critical race theory, social justice, and environmentalism are only a few of the subject areas that each volume contains. And despite the wide array of topics, all essays, indeed every volume of the journal, have one thing in common: industrious undergraduate students.

Course Code: 01:355:396
Semester(s) Offered: Spring
Credits: 3

Spring 2026 Course Information

Topic: URWC Conference Creation & Publicity Internship
Course Number: 01:355:396:01
Section Index #: 12220
Meetings: Wednesdays, 10:20 - 11:40 am in Lucy Stone Hall B-wing 109
Instructors: Debra Keates (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) & Arete Bouhlas (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

CLICK HERE FOR THE SPRING 2026 INTERN APPLICATION

Course Description:

Interns will create the 14th Annual Undergraduate Research Writing Conference (URWC), taking place at Livingston Student Center on Tuesday, April 14, 2026. The URWC website is here.

Interns will select papers, organize, publicize, and run the URWC the day of the event. They will work closely with a RU Writing Program faculty member to read and evaluate submitted papers, serve as the final selection committee, and act as respondents/advisors to student-presenters as they develop their work for multimedia presentations. They will serve as marketing experts, creating press releases for RU news media, designing promotional materials, building a social media presence, and helping to design the multi-page conference on a permanent site at Rutgers. While some tasks will be mandatory, interns will have the ability to customize the experience and work on those projects that are most interesting to them. The conference is multidisciplinary: papers are drawn from the Humanities, Arts, Science, Business, etc.

Interns should be prepared to attend the full day of the conference (Tuesday April 14) at the Livingston Student Center, where they will assist at the reigstration table, the Poster Fair, and as Moderators in the panel rooms.

Requirements:

Students must apply for the internship. They must have received an A or B+ in a research writing course at RU; they must have a GPA of at least 3.0; they must be willing and able to follow through with independent work and be responsible to the students they are assigned to help.

Interns should plan on spending as much time in the internship as they would in a regular 3-credit course, somewhere between 5 and 8 hours per week, on average. The workload varies with the stages of conference planning. Most of the work will be done independently, though we will meet in groups, either in-person or on Zoom, throughout the semester.

This kind of internship looks great on a resume. It is well-suited for students interested in:

editing, publishing, conference planning, event production, web design, graphic design, communication and marketing
students planning on attending graduate school in a field where participation in academic conferences is expected
students who are interested in planning a large-scale event that serves the Rutgers University community.

URWC Archive @Rutgers Libraries

URWC in The Daily Targum

@rutgers_dialogues

@rutgersdialogues

@RUDialogues

LinkedIn: @RutgersURWC

Course Code: 01:356:152
Credits: 1

Course Description:

EAP Discussion and Presentation (356:152) offers students currently enrolled in EAP I or II to improve their English speaking and listening skills. It is a one-credit course that meets one day a week for 13 weeks, with no classes the first week of the semester. The class will focus on individual and collaborative projects that will promote discussion and presentation. Students will also create and present PowerPoint presentations, delegate roles for class presentations, research content for a panel discussion, answer audience questions, and learn to project confidence in front of a group. The class size will be limited to 16 students, a class size that will provide students with the opportunity to get to know each other and work well together in groups.