In this book, the first published in the #writing series, Derek N. Mueller offers a methodological response to recent efforts by scholars in rhetoric and composition/writing studies to account for patterns indicative of the discipline's maturation. Influenced by work on distant reading (Moretti, 2005) and thin description (Love, 2010 & 2013), this monograph attends to forms of knowledge newly available via computationally mined, aggregated data from large collections of texts, which is then used to build experimental models for discerning non-obvious relationships. By shedding light on large-scale patterns, the models promote what Mueller refers to as a network sense of the field, which regards these as crucial structures of participation for orienting newcomers to the shifting terrain of disciplinary knowledge and for sustaining a generalist's wherewithal in the midst of a growing archive of increasingly specialized scholarship.

Derek N. Mueller is Associate Professor of Written Communication and Director of the First-year Writing Program at Eastern Michigan University. A graduate of Syracuse University's Composition and Cultural Rhetoric (CCR) program, Mueller teaches courses in visual rhetoric and information design, rhetorics of science and technology, and computers and writing. His research interests include digital writing platforms, networked writing practices, theories of composing, rhetorical aspects of computational methods, archiving and databases, and discipliniographies related to rhetoric and composition/writing studies. Mueller's work has appeared in College Composition and Communication, Kairos, Computers and Composition, Composition Forum, and JAC. For more information, visit derekmueller.net.