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University Writing Program

Columbian College of Arts & Sciences

Jessica McCaughey

Jessica McCaughey

Jessica McCaughey

Associate Professor of Writing (ON SABBATICAL)

Contact:

Jessica McCaughey's Personal Website
Ames Hall 2100 Foxhall Road, NW, Ames 234 Washington DC 20007

Dr. Jessica McCaughey is an Associate Professor in the University Writing Program and the co-founder and co-director of the Archive of Workplace Writing Experiences, a collection of interviews and resources about workplace writing in America. Dr. McCaughey developed and then directed GW's Workplace Writing Program for more than a decade. In this role, she worked with teams of writers at organizations like Amnesty International, the Department of Labor, the FDA, the Democracy Fund, the American Legion, the Department of Homeland Security, and many others.
 
At GW, Dr. McCaughey teaches academic and professional writing courses in the University Writing Program and in the department of Communication and Organizational Sciences. She also teaches in GW's Global Bachelor's Program. 

Her research focuses primarily on the transfer of writing skills in professional settings, and in September 2026 her book, Communicating Across Careers: Writing Transfer and the Experiences that Shape a Professional Life, will be published by Routledge.

Dr. McCaughey was a 2026 Fulbright Scholar. This award took her to the Seamus Heaney Centre for Creative Writing at Queen's University Belfast, where she taught creative nonfiction and researched workplace writing development in post-conflict Northern Ireland.

Watch Dr. McCaughey's Faculty Highlight video to learn more about her teaching style, current research, work with the Global Bachelor's Program, and more!

 

 

Writing Pedagogy, Workplace Writing, Writing Transfer, Technical and Professional Communication, Post-conflict Workplace Communication

  • “'I Tried to Live, but I got Distracted': How to Think, Act, and Write in a World that Wants to Sidetrack You" (UW1020)
  • "What is College For?" Writing about Complex Issues and Contradictions in Higher Education" (UW1020)
  • "Please Like Us: Selling with Social Media" (UW1020)
  • Professional Communication in International Social Enterprises: A Community Engaged Scholarship Course in Partnership with Clinic+O (UW1020)
  • "Introduction to Workplace Writing" (UW2020)
  • "Writing IRL: Composing Texts in the University and at Work (and What Happens in Between)" (UW1020)
  • "Telling True Stories: Truth and Memory in Creative Nonfiction" (UW1020)
  • "Internships and Workplace Writing" (UW2020)

McCaughey, J. (2025) “Model as Missed Opportunity for Writing Transfer During Career Change.” Written Communication.

McCaughey, J. (2025) Organizational AI Policy Proposal Assignment. Continuing Experiments in Teaching with Text Generation Technologies—TextGenEd. Vee, Laquintano, & Schnitzler (Eds.). WAC Clearinghouse.

McCaughey, J. and B. Fitzpatrick (2023) “Authentic” Writing and Social Media. Dynamic Activities for First-year Composition. M. Reznizki and D. Coad (Eds.). National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

McCaughey, J. (2022) “This Seismic Life Change”: Graduate Students Parenting and Writing During a Pandemic. Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition.

McCaughey, J. and Fitzpatrick, B. (2022) “I’ll Try to Make Myself Sound Smarter than I am”: Learning to Negotiate Power in Workplace Writing. In J. Moore (Ed.) Writing Beyond the University: Implications for Fostering Writers’ Lifelong Learning and Agency. Center for Engaged Learning, Open-access Book Series.

McCaughey, J. and Fitzpatrick, B. (2021) Hidden Arguments: Rhetoric and Persuasion in Diverse Forms of Technical Communication. In M. Klein (Ed.) Effective Teaching of Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Application. WAC Clearinghouse/CSU Press TPC Foundations and Innovations book series.

McCaughey, J. (2021) The Rhetoric of Online Exclusive Pumping Communities: Tactical Technical Communication as Eschewing Judgement. Technical Communication Quarterly. Vol. 30(1).

McCaughey, J. (2020) Program Showcase: A Different Kind of Partnership: George Washington University’s Professional Writing Training Program. Programmatic Perspectives. Vol. 11(2).

McCaughey, J. (2020) Good Questions for Better Essay Prompts (and Papers). Faculty Focus.

McCaughey, J. (2019) Students as Social Media Consultants in Milthorpe, N., R. Clarke, J. Jones, and R. Moore (Eds). Digital English: An Open-access Online Handbook for Tertiary English Educators. Online.

Fitzpatrick, B. and McCaughey, J. (2019) The Archive of Workplace Writing Experiences: Using the Voices of Real-world Writers as a Bridge Between the Classroom and the Conference Room. Double Helix. Vol. 7. Online.

McCaughey, J. (2018) Authenticity and the Rhetoric of ‘Selling’ on Social Media: A Role writing Assignment Set. Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments. Vol. 2(2). Online.