Papers document the teaching, writing, and administrative work of twentieth-century American Boston College English professor Paul C. Doherty. The bulk of Doherty's papers are from his teaching, including course assignments, course descriptions, syllabi, notes, research, and teaching evaluations. Before University adoption of a standard questionnaire to evaluate teaching, Doherty experimented with a number of formats and incentives to obtain student... feedback. The course materials also demonstrate Doherty's pedagogical approach to preparing graduate students to teach writing, an approach that was used by the writing program into the twenty-first century. Topically, his courses covered composition, literary criticism, the short story, and the works of Shakespeare and James Joyce, as well as the teaching of writing.

Doherty's administrative files include correspondence, committee reports, external reviews, program proposals, self-studies, meeting minutes, and other topical files from English Department and University committees, including Faculty of the Senate and Arts & Sciences committees.

Also included are Doherty's research notes and manuscripts of his writing, as well as correspondence about published writings by others.