Cecelia Musselman
Teaching Professor in English
Cecelia A. Musselman is Teaching Professor in the Writing Program and has a focus on writing for the sciences. She is a member of the NU team at the AAC&U 2025-26 Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. She has been teaching with Wikipedia since 2006 in close cooperation with the Wikimedia Education Foundation. She is a governing board member of the Boston Rhetoric and Writing Network, providing high-quality, locally-focused professional development to writing faculty in the Boston area. Her doctoral work was in Uralic Studies with a special focus on the history of the Finnish language. Her current research examines what happens when students contribute to Wikipedia and become knowledge makers with a global audience. Her publications include a co-written chapter in Wikipedia @20: Stories of and Incomplete Revolution by MIT Press.
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Education
PhD in Uralic Studies, Columbia University
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Contact
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Address
441 Holmes Hall
360 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115 -
Office Hours
Tuesdays 9:00 – 9:30 441 Holmes Hall AND 5:05 – 5:35 EV basement
Wednesdays 9:00 – 10:00 Zoom AND 2:30 – 3:30 Zoom
Thursdays and evenings by request -
Dialogues
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Associations
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Provides writing instruction for students in fields related to environmental studies. Students develop an in-depth analytic or recommendation report about a complex environmental concern related to their majors and/or their co-op or other personal or professional experiences. In a workshop setting, students evaluate scholarly and popular sources, practice a variety of professional and academic forms of writing and communication, and develop expertise in audience analysis, critical research, peer review, and revision.
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Explores the history, development, and roles of academic and popular science writing, beginning with a critical examination of the origins of scientific genres. Students describe, define, and contextualize science writing genres. Reviews the ethical foundations and problems of current scientific genres. Offers students an opportunity to participate in the global dissemination of scientific knowledge and knowledge creation through a variety of writing assignments.
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Explores the development and roles of social media writing. Asks students to describe, define, and contextualize current social media genre(s) using readings from social media sites, scholarship, popular/journalistic works, and fiction. Invites students to adopt a new social media platform and to produce social media writing in short, longer individually produced, and longer collaborative forms. Offers each student an opportunity to create a curated, reflective portfolio that works toward an integrated personal/professional digital identity.
Advanced Writing in the Sciences
ENGW 3307
Offers instruction in writing for students considering careers or advanced study in the physical or life sciences. By exploring research literature and reflecting on their own experiences, offers students an opportunity to identify issues of interest in their field and analyze how scientific texts make claims, invoke other scientific literature, offer evidence, and deploy key terms. Through analysis and imitation, exposes students to the challenges of the scientific project, such as the use of quantitative data and visual presentation of evidence. In a workshop setting, offers students an opportunity to evaluate a wide variety of sources and develop expertise in audience analysis, critical research, peer review, and revision.
