Professor of Instruction, The Cook Family Writing Program and the Kellogg School; Director, The Writing Place
PhD, Northwestern University; MA, Northwestern University; BA, Simmons College
Email: bshwom@northwestern.edu
Barbara Shwom is director of the Writing Place and Professor of Instruction in Writing at the Cook Family Writing Program. During her career at Northwestern, Barbara has trained hundreds of undergraduate writing consultants to work productively with their peers and has taught more than a thousand students to be more confident and articulate writers.
In addition to writing center work, Barbara’s main area of expertise and research is business communication. She is the co-author of the textbook: Business Communication: Polishing Your Professional Presence (Pearson), now in its fourth edition. Her article “Formal Communications’ Role in Knowledge Work: Evidence From Projects,” coauthored with colleagues from the University of Michigan, was published in April 2020 in the Journal of Business and Technical Communication. She has also served as president and on the board of directors of the Association for Business Communication.
In both her Writing Center and business communication work, Barbara is motivated by a desire to help students use writing both as a tool for learning and as means of gaining a voice in the world.
To read more about Barbara and her work on campus, click here.