Posted on behalf of Kathryn Alexander, Jay Dolmage and Graham Smart (Dissertation Awards Committee)

The winner is Patricia Kelly, April 2012, English Department. Simon Fraser University. “Textual Standardization and the ‘Common Language’ of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”

Patricia Kelly’s dissertation has been praised for the care and quality of its writing and the thoroughness of its research. It represents a new and important approach to texts in rhetorical studies. Patty’s work on psychiatry’s “common language” makes an important and novel contribution to research in the rhetoric of health and medicine. It is an outstanding example of PhD research that integrates rhetoric, writing studies, and discourse studies.