Obituary: Carol Berkenkotter (Obituary by Thomas Wright)

Two weeks ago today, Carol Berkenkotter, one of the world's most highly respected scholars of scientific genres, signed the last of the papers needed for me to receive my PhD. One week ago, she underwent a medical procedure at the Mayo Clinic. She did not survive.

I knew of Carol's work before I enrolled at the University of Minnesota, and I mentioned when I applied that I wanted to work with her. I'd been thinking she might be my professor for a class or two. Like so much else about her, I got far more than I expected.

She attended a talk I gave in San Antonio two months after I joined the RSTC program. I didn't expect her to know me. She did, and made clear that she liked my work.

After I took a class from her in the rhetoric of science, she hired me to help her wrap up a book she was working on. The book had been written; all she needed was a copy editor. But we spent many hours and many lunches going over the content, talking about what to leave in and what to take out. These talks were far more for my benefit than hers. She already knew what she wanted to say. She also knew I needed training in that kind of thinking. She was paying me to give me private lessons on how to write an academic book.

When we finished, I handed back to her the copy of the Chicago Manual she had bought for the project. "Oh, no," she said. "That's yours. But wait." Then she opened the book and wrote, "To Tom, without whose help, there would be no book. Carol Berkenkotter 7/21/07."

She presented me with a copy of her book after it was published. That is one book I do not loan out to my students, no matter how relevant it is to their work.

We continued working together for the year I spent as her research assistant. I still have boxes of notes and documents that came out of that. When Hurricane Matthew was approaching, the first thing I did to prepare was cover the window above those boxes.

For all her brilliance, she could be wrong. She told me I had among the most potential of anyone to go through our program. To anyone familiar with the work of my peers, this is a really strange thing to say. But she clearly believed it, and that encourages me to continue my career as if she were right.