Bradley Dilger

Professor, Department of English, Purdue University
+1-309-259-0328 ~ dilger@purdue.edu

I study and teach writing transfer, networks, and programs using mixed empirical methods. I’m in my eleventh year at Purdue University, where I direct our writing programs. Previously, I was professor at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. I earned my PhD from Florida in 2003.

Curriculum vita: brief (2pp PDF, Nov 2023) or abridged (15pp PDF, Dec 2023).

SIGDOC 2024

With Allegra Smith, I recently delivered a keynote address remembering SIGDOC Rigo award winner Bill Hart-Davidson, who passed away unexpectedly in April 2024.

Selected scholarship

I have two research projects. First, a methodological study of the discourse-based interview, including interview-based research with participants from universities and colleges across the USA. My collaborator Neil Baird and I recently edited a special issue of Composition Forum, and we’re now creating a Interview Craft, a web-based resource to help researchers new to the DBI.

I’m also developing Crow, the Corpus & Repository of Writing, with Shelley Staples, Michelle McMullin, Randi Reppen, Ola Swatek, Hadi Banat, and a team of graduate and undergraduate students from Purdue, Arizona, Northern Arizona University, and other universities. Our Crow platform is up and running! We have been awarded two major grants: a 2019 ACLS Digital Extension Grant, and a $142,000 grant from Humanities Without Walls. See our recent blog posts for more information.

Please contact me if you need access to any of the scholarship I describe here.

Other scholarship

With Crow’s grant writing team, I hosted a workshop at SIGDOC 2022 and published “Student Professionalization through Grant Writing” in the SIGDOC 2020 proceedings.
With the Crow distributed work team, I published “Assessing equity and inclusion in research teams through Constructive Distributed Work” at IEEE ProComm 2022, and Iterative, inclusive persona development at SIGDOC 2021.

Michelle McMullin and I documented Crow's approach to sustainable, ethical collaboration, which we call "constructive distributed work," in “Constructive Distributed Work: An Integrated Approach to Sustainable Collaboration and Research for Distributed Teams" from JBTC 35.4 (October 2021).
“People, programs, & practices: A grid-based approach to designing and supporting online writing curriculum,” written with Allegra Smith, Libby Chernouski, Bianca Batti, and Alisha Karabinus. This article describes the “grid” approach Introductory Composition at Purdue uses to semi-standardize online courses. In PARS in practice: Resources and strategies for online writing instructors.
Proposed changes in the Common Rule: CCCC Response, which I edited in cooperation with Heidi McKee, Joyce Locke Carter, and the CCCC Research Committee.
“The Unseen Weight of Class.” Review essay. CCC 65.3 (Feb 2014).
From A to <A>: Keywords of Markup, the collection I edited with Jeff Rice (Minnesota, 2010)
"Beyond Star Flashes: The Elements of Web 2.0 style"" in Computers and Composition 27.1 (March 2010).
Work on web standards at CCCC 2008 and CCCC 2010
“Extreme Usability as Technical Communication.” In Critical Power Tools: Technical Communication and Cultural Studies, J. Blake Scott, Bernadette Longo, and Katherine Willis, eds. SUNY Press, 2006.

Teaching & advising

In Spring 2025, I will teach ENGL 433, Writing Proposals & Grants. The course will be very similar to the Spring 2024 version.

In Fall 2024, I taught ENGL 515, Writing on Distributed Teams, and ENGL 591, Composition Studies: Theories and Practices.

I currently advise Jess Berchtold and Libby Chernouski. Purdue students Adrianna Deptula, Danielle Giles, and Ghada Seifeddiene participate in our research group.

Past advisees include Dr. Kailyn Shartel Hall, Dr. Marisa Yerace, Dr. Shelton Weech, Dr. Allegra Smith, Dr. Rebekah Sims, Dr. Hadi Banat, Dr. Michelle McMullin, and Dr. Derek Sherman.

Find my list of current, future, and past courses.

Conference presentation materials

Other stuff

Purdue English statement on mentoring
Materials for ICaP (Introductory Composition)
Professional development resources:
- Grant writing 101 for CLA graduate students
- Responding to student writing
- Building a web-based portfolio, a workshop for the Purdue Professional Writing Association (PWA, April 12, 2022).
- Branding with logotypes, a workshop for the Purdue Professional Writing Association (October 19, 2021).