Writing and Rhetoric: Classical and contemporary rhetorical theory, digital rhetoric, composing with AI, digital scholarship and electronic publication, web authoring and design, technical and scientific writing
Douglas Eyman is Director of Writing and Rhetoric Programs at GMU. He teaches courses in digital rhetoric, technical and scientific communication, web authoring, new media, and professional writing. His current research interests include the affordances and constraints of composing with AI/LLMs, new media scholarship, teaching in digital environments, and video games as sites of composition. With Dr. Nupoor Ranade, he is currently co-editing both a special issue of Computers and Composition on "Composing with AI" and an edited collection on AI in Writing Studies.
Prior publications include Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice (University of Michigan Press, 2015), Play/Write: Games, Writing, Digital Rhetoric (co-edited with Andrea Davis), and Games and Play in China and the Sinophone World (co-edited with Li Guo and Hongmei Sun, 2024). His scholarly work has been published in Enculturation, Pedagogy, Computers and Composition, and Technical Communication, as well as chapters in Digital Writing Research (2007), Rhetorically Rethinking Usability (2008), Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities (2015), Global Academic Publishing (2018), Playing with the Rules (2021), Editors in Writing (2022), and TextGenEd (2023), among others.
Eyman is the senior editor and publisher of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, an online journal that has been publishing peer-reviewed scholarship on computers and writing since 1996.
Douglas earned his PhD in Rhetoric and Writing at Michigan State University (2007).
Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice. (2015). University of Michigan Press, Digital Culture Books series, http://www.digitalculture.org/books/digital-rhetoric/
Play/Write: Digital Rhetoric, Writing, Games. (2016). co-edited with Andrea Davis. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press.
(2023 – In Press) Before Wireless Networks: Foundational Works in Computers and Writing. In Deborah Holdstein, (Ed.), Lost Texts in Rhetoric and Composition. MLA Press.
(2022) Everything is Rhetoric: Design, Editing, and Multimodal Scholarship, with Cheryl Ball. In Greg Giberson, Megan Schoen, & Christian Weisser, (Eds.), Editors in Writing: Behind the Curtain of Scholarly Publishing in Writing Studies (pp. 164-180). Utah State University Press.
(2021) Ethos and Interaction in Elder Scrolls Online, with Wendi Sierra. In Matthew S. S. Johnson, Richard Colby, & Rebekah Colby Playing with the Rules: The Ethics of Playing, Researching, and Teaching Games in the Writing Classroom (pp. 213-241). Palgrave Macmillan.
(2019) Text/Design/Code – Advice on developing and producing a scholarly webtext. In John Gallagher & Danielle DeVoss, (Eds.), Explanation Points: Publishing in Rhetoric and Composition (pp. 206-209). Fort Collins: University of Colorado Press.
(2018) Text, design, code: Digital rhetoric in academic and professional writing. In Shirley Logan and Wayne Slater, (Eds.), Perspectives on Academic and Professional Writing in an Age of Accountability (pp. 221-233). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
(2018) The rise of multimodal languages in academic publishing. with Cheryl Ball and Andrew Morrison. In Mary Jane Curry and Theresa Lillis, (Eds.), Global Academic Publishing: Policies, Practices, and Pedagogies (pp. 117-136). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Publishing.
(2016) Digital rhetoric as evolving field: Traditional and contemporary practices. Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, Culture, 23: http://enculturation.net/looking-back-and-looking-forward
(2016) From player to maker: The value of rhetoric in an age of ubiquitous gaming. (2016). PRE/TEXT: A Journal of Rhetorical Theory, 21: 45-57.
(2016) History of a Broken Thing: The Multi-Journal Special Issue on Electronic Publication. with Cheryl Ball. In Bruce McComiskey (Ed.), Microhistories of Composition (pp. 117-136). Utah State University Press.
(2016) Introduction: Networks of Gaming and Writing. In Douglas Eyman and Andrea Davis, (Eds.), Play/Write: Digital Rhetoric, Writing, Games, (pp. 1-22). Parlor Press.
(2015) Digital Humanities Scholarship and Electronic Publication. with Cheryl Ball. In Jim Ridolfo & Bill Hart-Davidson (Eds.), Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities (pp. 65-79). University of Chicago Press. Winner of the 2015 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award.
(2014) Composing for Digital Publication: Rhetoric, Design, Code. with Cheryl Ball. Composition Studies, 42.1: 114-117.
ENGH 301: The Fields of English
ENGH 302: Advanced Composition
ENGH 375/507: Web Authoring and Design
ENGH 380: Introduction to Writing and Rhetoric
ENGH 388: Professional and Technical Writing
ENGH 501: Introduction to Professional Writing and Rhetoric
ENGH 503: Theory and Practice of Editing
ENGH 505: Document Design
ENGH 508: Digital Rhetoric
ENGH 613: Technical and Scientific Writing
ENGH 724: Professional Writing Theory and Research
ENGH 797: Projects in Professional Writing
ENGH 824: Topics in Professional Writing
PhD in Rhetoric and Writing, Michigan State University (2007)
MA in English, UNC-Wilmington (1995)
BA in English, Wittenberg University (1991)
(2022, June). Journals: Recognizing Peer Review, Association of University Presses, with Michael Cornett, Cheryl Ball, and Taylor Dietrich. Washington, DC.
(2022, May). DEI Efforts at Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. With Cheryl Ball. Computers and Writing: Practicing Digital Activisms. Greenville, NC.
(2022, January). The Shape of the Profession Post-pandemic for Faculty Members in Writing Studies. Modern Language Association, Washington DC.
(2021, March). The Internet as Writing Platform: Tracing and Comparing Histories of Writing in China and the US from BBS to WeChat. Writing Research Across Borders. Online.
(2021, April). Circulation and Open Access. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Online.
(2020, January). “Lost” Scholarly Texts in Rhetoric and Composition-Computers and Writing 1988-1992. Modern Language Association, Seattle WA.
(2020, January). When Texts Move: Teaching Digital Writing Projects. Modern Language Association, Seattle WA.
(2019, June). Explanation Points: Writing and Publishing in Computers and Writing. 35th Computers & Writing Conference. East Lansing, MI.
(2019, March). From Access to Accountability: Logics of Care in Technical Communication. Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, Pittsburgh, PA.
(2018, October). Holloway Lecture: Videogame Rhetorics Across Cultures:
Texts, Translations, and Multi-Player Games. McDaniel College, Westminster, MD.
(2018, March). Transforming Experience into Research: Empirical Methods for Game Studies in Writing and Rhetoric. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Kansas City, MO.
(2018, January). ‘All Your Base’: Linguistic and Cultural Challenges to Videogame Localization. 5th Annual Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies. Columbia, SC.
(2018, January). Plenary: The Matter of Writing, with Jonathan Alexander, Kris Blair, Doug Hesse, Deborah Holdstein, Shirley Logan, Andrea Lunsford, John Schilb, and Kathleen Blake Yancey. Modern Language Association, New York, NY.
Caitlin Dungan, “There’s no Way She’s Straight”: Towards a Heuristic of Positive Queer Representation in Gaming (2023)
Kyle Trott, A Rhetorical Analysis of Teacher Instructional Speech (2022)
Ashley Yuckenberg, Ethical Implications of Communicating Risk in the Media: A Heuristic for Reporting on Crisis Events with a Focus on Mass School Shootings (2021)
Kellie Gray, ’It Wasn’t Supposed to be Hairy’: From Variant Glyphs to Rendered Ecologies of Code, Constraint, and Culture (2019)
Colleen Reynolds, 21st-century Rhetorical Practices for Business-to-Business Sales Professionals and Sales Educators that Synthesize Shakespeare and Improvisation with Theories of Kenneth Burke (2017)