Lindsay Steiner graduated with a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, on Aug. 17.

Steiner successfully defended her dissertation, “The available means of design: A rhetorical investigation of professional multimodal composition,” in July 2013. She is currently working as Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Professional Writing in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Steiner’s dissertation describes how four professional graphic designers use rhetoric in their design processes. While the classical understanding of rhetorical arrangement refers to the ordering of elements within oral discourse, Steiner argues, instead, that arrangement is a creative and guiding tool for making meaning in these graphic design processes.

This perspective suggests that arrangement is used horizontally and vertically instead of in a static, linear fashion. Ultimately, Steiner describes how rhetorical arrangement in professional graphic design processes is layered and dimensional—a rational reconstruction of the classical understanding of arrangement as the organization of the parts of verbal discourse (Schiappa, 1990).

An underlying theme of Steiner’s dissertation is the invisibility of these composing processes and their respective technologies and techniques.

Steiner earned a Master of Arts in Literature and Writing from Kent State University in 2009, a Bachelor of Science in Visual Communication from Ohio University in 2004, and graduated from Bluffton High School in 2001.

She is the daughteer of Fred and Mary Pannabecker Steiner, Bluffton.