Congratulations to Dr. Patricia Kelly (English) who has received the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing award for the best Canadian dissertation on rhetoric, writing or discourse studies defended in 2012. 

Patty’s dissertation “Textual Standardization and the ‘Common Language’ of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” demonstrates some of the ways in which a medical profession’s written practices help to shape and constrain cultural expressions of mental illness across diverse communities of speakers and rhetorical situations.

Patty’s thesis was praised for the care and quality of writing and for thoroughness in research. Her dissertation was noted for making an important and novel contribution to research in the rhetoric of health and medicine, and as an outstanding example of PhD research that integrates rhetoric, writing studies, and discourse studies.

Patty defended her dissertation in December 2012, and will attend convocation this week. An article based on her dissertation research is forthcoming in the Journal of Medical Humanities, and she recently presented research findings at the 2013 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Victoria BC for a project on the American Psychiatric Association's newly published fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).