Graduate
Certificate Programs
Professional Editing
The 15 credit hour graduate Certificate in Professional Editing, an interdisciplinary program administered for the School of Liberal Arts by the Institute for American Thought, can be taken as a standalone certificate or in conjunction with the M.A. in English or History. The program offers editing concentrations in English and History, i.e., critical editing and documentary editing.
Twelve credit hours of English courses comprise the Critical Editing core:
- ENG L501 Professional Scholarship in Literature (4 cr.)
- ENG L680 Topics: Textual Theory and Textual Criticism (4 cr.)
- ENG L701 Descriptive Bibliography and Textual Problems (4 cr.).
Eleven credit hours of History courses comprise the Documentary Editing core:
- HIST H501 Historical Methodology (4 cr.)
- HIST H543 Internship: Practicum in Public History (4 cr.)
- HIST H547 Topics in Public History. Specific topic in Historical Editing (3 cr.)
The final 3-4 credit hours required to complete the certificate are elective. For the Critical Editing track, they may take the form of a ENG W609 Directed Writing Project or an ENG L590 Internship supervised by the faculty editors of the Institute’s resident scholarly editions or a project course or internship approved by the student’s certificate advisor; for the Documentary Editing track, they may take the form of HIST H542 Public History, HIST H547 Archives, or HIST H575 Graduate Readings in History. Other appropriate courses in English, American Studies, History, and Library and Information Science may count as an open elective if approved by the certificate program director.
For the core of the Technical Editing concentration, students take:
- ENG W531 Designing and Editing Visual Technical Communication (4 cr.)
- ENG W532 Managing Document Quality (4 cr.)
- ENG W609 Directed Writing Project.
For the final course, it is recommended that students take ENG W525 Research Approaches for Technical and Professional Communication (4 cr.), but other relevant electives are available.
All of these courses will double-count for both the editing certificate and the English M.A. or History M.A. (Electives outside English and History are also available, but these will not normally double-count.) GRE scores are not required for admission to the certificate program, but foreign students are required to take TOEFL and receive a score of 550 or above. Students already admitted to the English or History graduate program can follow a more streamlined admission process.
Due to the unique nature of this program you must contact the program director for an interview before completing the Graduate Online Application. There is an application fee involved; so we do not want you to apply unless you qualify.
Student Consumer Information for the Professional Editing Certificate. For more information about our graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed the program, and other important information, please visit our website at, http://apps.usss.iu.edu/disclosures/?plan=IN04.23.1301.
