If you know someone interested in a small but cohesive Ph.D. program in English Linguistics with faculty who work well together and are known to value mentorship and interdisciplinarity, share our program flyer with them. …
News
Becoming a class
As I walked into my classes yesterday (first classes of the new semester), the room was very quiet. Nobody was talking to anyone else. Most students were checking their phones. At the end of the …
Ready for the new semester
Just in time for the start of the semester next week: My dog Willy and I passed our team evaluation for Dogs On Call, a local animal therapy organization, with flying colors this weekend. Willy …
Greetings from Aix-en-Provence!
I know a lot of care goes into organizing big national conferences, but they’re not for me. With 15 concurrent sessions going on, it’s hard to make good choices, and there is a …
A night out at Olin House
Great night out at the Chancellor’s residence (Olin House) to celebrate the Hilldale Awards. I’m honored to be in the company of such distinguished colleagues and loved being able to invite friends to the reception. …
Hilldale Award
I’m grateful to be in the company of such brilliant colleagues! The Hilldale Award is special because it recognizes work in the three domains of research, teaching, and service (many other awards at UW-Madison focus …
5 Words, 5 Lessons, 0 Phonics
I had the pleasure to meet the winners of the 2024 Madison All-City Spelling Bee and to share some thoughts on English spelling at a recent event with the Madison Rotary Club. We cannot …
New semester, new syllabi
New semester, new syllabi: This semester I’ll be teaching two classes I have taught many times before, an introduction to they study of English syntax and a more advanced course, introducing students to working with …
Another Grammar Badgers Student Project
Today, just in time for the beginning of the new semester, I updated the Grammar Badgers website with student projects from the fall, including a survey-based one, created by Katalina, Carly, Maggie, Haru, and Naamon. …
Books of the year
Every December, someone from the Cap Times asks UW faculty members about their books of the year. This year, I recommended two books. Only one made it into the article, so here is what I …
Grammar Badgers Student Projects
It’s the time of the semester when students present their projects. Most of my classes have an engagement component — students will create a podcast of video geared towards the general public. We call this …
Publication out (well, almost): Bad grammar and metalinguistic awareness
Lynn Zhang and I have a paper in the soon-to-appear volume New Horizons in Prescriptivism Research. The book is now available on advance orders (alas, not to customers in the US yet), at a whopping …
PhD in English Language and Linguistics
It’s grad school application season! Our department offers a PhD in English with tracks in Composition & Rhetoric, Literary Studies, and English Language and Linguistics. We are also home to a highly ranked MFA program …
Collaboration
It’s wonderful to co-publish with a former graduate student! Difei (Lynn) Zhang and I collaborated on a survey of grammar items that are still listed as ‘bad grammar’ in many style guides or are presented …
Back to school!
Back to school! It’s never easy to jump into a new semester after a year-long leave, but it’s made easy for me because I get to teach two new courses related to my research. English …
Greater Madison Writing Project
As department chair during the pandemic, I had less opportunity than I thought I would have to overhaul programs and build more efficient and more equitable structures in the department. There were just too many …
Learning from Volunteering with Dogs on Call
Since I was on leave this past year, I had more time to do daytime visits on campus (and other places) for Dogs on Call, an all-volunteer local therapy animal organization. Many of these visits …
Remembering Susan Stanford Friedman (1943-2023)
The English Department mourns the loss of Susan Stanford Friedman, trailblazing scholar and program builder, former department chair, and generous mentor to many who are now leaders in the global study of literature. As a …
Remembering Rebecca M. Blank (1955-2023)
I was deeply saddened to hear of Chancellor Emerita Rebecca ‘Becky’ Blank’s passing this weekend. She had shared the crushing news of her cancer diagnosis just as she was ready to become the first female …
Book trailer!
The book trailer for Discourse Syntax is out! Thanks to Difei (Lynn) Zhang’s design skills, it looks really good.