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Transferring Knowledge

You may have heard instructors speak of “knowledge transfer,” but what does this expression mean? Simply put, knowledge transfer involves taking what you already know and applying it to a new situation. For example, in your composition course you may have gained experience in proposing solutions to problems (a topic covered in Chapter 10 of this book). You might apply this experience to managing patients in a nursing program or to maintaining classroom order in a teaching program.

In other words, when your writing course ends, your days using the writing, reading, and thinking skills you’ve acquired there are not over. The assumption—and the hope—is that your experience in your writing class will equip you to write successfully in your future courses, workplace, and community. If your writing instructor has asked you to maintain a portfolio or a journal or to complete the reflective activities throughout this book, you’ll likely find an encouraging record of the skills you’ve mastered in the course. Your next task as a college student will be to tackle assignments in a variety of courses. This chapter will help you understand instructors’ expectations for writing assignments in those courses, identify the best approaches to meet those expectations, and translate your knowledge into successful papers and projects.

How to transfer learning from one situation to another—and how to do so effectively—often seems a puzzle. To help you solve that puzzle when you need to write different types of papers in different situations, this chapter covers three key questions you might ask:

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