Use
Rhetmap’s JIL visualization is updated between Thursday-Sunday each week (Generally Thursday night/Friday afternoon) and notifications/updates to rhetmap are posted to Twitter.
It is recommended that job seekers use the open data (Google Docs) spreadsheet at the top of each job market page. Some job seekers may find it useful to copy and export the spreadsheet and used it for keeping track of their job applications.
For job seekers, rhetmap may be a useful resource to share with dual career partners, interested family and friends.
For faculty, rhetmap’s job market visualization may be useful to keep track of market trends. Combined with the PhD map, rhetmap may be a useful resource to communicate realities about doctoral programs and the job market to potential and current graduate students.
Institutions may list jobs on rhetmap at http://rhetmap.org/list . As of 2023-2024, about twenty percent of listings on rhetmap.org did not appear on the MLA JIL.
The following is an excerpt from Ridolfo & Lindgren (2019), where Ridolfo notes the limitations of rhetmap listings.
The rhetmap data originally mirrored the MLA JIL’s Composition & Rhetoric (C/R) listings (2012-2013), then both the C/R and Technical and Business Writing (TBW) listings (2013-2014). It did not begin as a long-term data collection project. In 2014-2015, rhetmap began accepting listings for a donation to a field fund that are not on the MLA JIL. By 2018-2019, direct listings on rhetmap.org now make up approximately 11% of advertisements.. There are thus a few specific limitations to the evolving dataset over time. First, different silos are measured (with some overlap) on the MLA JIL between 2012-2014. While some 2012-2013 TBW jobs are cross-listed in the CR category, not all were. As rhetmap.org began to accept job advertisement submissions in 2014-2015, the project no longer became a direct mirror of the MLA JIL. That said, neither the combined MLA JIL or rhetmap listings are a complete snapshot of the total market. While rhetmap.org maintains a low barrier to job submissions (a small field donation to a fund on the honor system), some jobs will only be listed on sites such as InsideHigherEd, Chronicle, local HR websites, or field listservs. The comparative usefulness of the data, long-term, should be viewed with those concerns in mind.
Rhetmap should not be considered a fully comprehensive market listing resource. Job seekers should take that into consideration and look at multiple listing sources.
If you find other uses for Rhetmap resources, please e-mail me at ridolfo at gmail dot com..
History
rhetmap.org started in the first half of 2012 as a project to map doctoral programs in Rhetoric and Composition. In September 2012, I began to map the Rhetoric and Composition category of the 2012-2013 MLA Job Information List in response to a blog post by Collin Brooke.
If you want to keep up with rhetmap developments, you can follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/ridolfoj. I also welcome any e-mail feedback, suggestions, additions, or requests: ridolfo at gmail dot com.
Regards,