Glossary
English Professor Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential english professor terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key english professor vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in english professor training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Adjunct
- Part-time instructor.
- Annotated bibliography
- Sources with summaries.
- Canon
- Widely taught works.
- Close reading
- Careful analysis of text.
- Composition
- College writing course.
- Literary theory
- Frameworks for reading.
- MFA
- Master of Fine Arts.
- MLA style
- Citation format.
- Peer review
- Expert review of research.
- Peer review workshop
- Students critique drafts.
- Rhetorical situation
- Audience, purpose and context.
- Tenure
- Permanent faculty status.
- Thesis
- Main argument.
- Workshop
- Creative writing critique.
- Writing conference
- One-on-one feedback.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free English Professor practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see English Professor training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.