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 twelfth 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, May 2025) or abridged (15pp PDF, Dec 2023).

Countdown to sabbatical

I’m scheduled to begin my second sabbatical leave at Purdue on May 14, 2027, which is 416 days from today. Time to write some grants!

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 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 being used by researchers worldwide. 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

Neil Baird and I shared an update on Interview Craft at SIGDOC 2025 in Lubbock, TX, and made a request for participation at CCCC 2026 in Cleveland, OH.
With Allegra Smith, I delivered a keynote address at SIGDOC 2024, remembering SIGDOC Rigo award winner Bill Hart-Davidson, who passed away unexpectedly in April 2024.
Crow’s grant writing team co-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

This Spring, I am teaching ENGL 306, Introduction to Professional Writing. In Fall 2026, I will host the Hutton Lectures in Rhetoric & Composition (ENGL 681).

I currently advise Jess Berchtold. Purdue students Danielle Giles, Ghada Seifeddine, Mark Griffin, and Juan Carlos Montoya López participate in our Disseminar research group.

Past advisees include Dr. Kailyn Shartel Rogers (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.

Workshop and presentation materials

Oct 10, 2025: Grant writing: Structures & practices (slide deck) for Texas A&M Dept of History
Sep 30, 2025: Fall 2025 update for Professional Writing at Purdue
Feb 12, 2025: "Improving graduate student success through sustainable attention to teaching writing" for the Building Mentoring Capacities Workshop Series at Ball State University. Access the slide deck, or see all the workshop materials.
Nov 29, 2022: Slide deck for CIGSA grant writng workshop, November 29, 2022
Oct 5, 2022: Slide deck for UMass Boston grant writing workshop, October 5, 2022
Sep 12, 2022: Slide deck for ENGR 103, September 2022: Written communication in the workplace

May 2019: Crow mini-workshop, “Exploring a web-based archive of writing and assignments,” at Computers & Writing 2019
Surveying the field, coordinating research: presentation for CWPA 2017
Promoting RAD Writing Research through Inter-Institutional Collaboration at CCCC 2017
Dartmouth '66 Conference, August 2016
Computers & Writing, May 2016
CCCC 2016 (#4C16ACT) Action Hub: Knowledge Shaping
WIDE-EMU 2015: Archiving Writing: Supporting Research, Sustaining Sharing
CCCC 2015 (#4C15): Networks for Research
CCCC 2010: Mutualizing the mix
CCCC 2008: English studies journal standards

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).