I am a doctoral candidate in Purdue University's Rhetoric and Composition program. My areas of study include professional & technical writing and rhetoric, technology & digital writing. This year I am serving as the Assistant Director of Purdue's Professional Writing Program.

My dissertation, From Telling to Transforming: Invention, the Scientific Method, and the Research Paper, examines the problematic nature of the typical research assignment in composition courses. My work studies theories of rhetorical invention and the humanistic origins of the scientific method, chiefly Francis Bacon's work on the subject in Novum Organum (1620) and Giambattista Vico's delineation of a dialectical science of reasoning in New Science (1725). These historical investigations inform my argument for revising research instruction.

email: kkaiserl@purdue.edu

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