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.

Primarily contains materials from classes Doherty taught for the Boston College English Department. Also includes materials from courses taught through the Boston College Options Through Education Program, the AHANA Summer Program, the Evening College, and the Harvard Summer School.

Courses Doherty taught regularly over his career include: Advanced Writing; American Short Stories; Composition Theory and the Teaching of Writing; First-year Writing Seminar; Four Major Fictions (also called Four Novels); Homer, Dante, Joyce; James Joyce; Narrative and Interpretation; Problems in Literary Criticism; Prose Fiction; Shakespeare; Theory and Practice of Criticism; Rhetoric and Composition; and Writing Workshop: Imitation.

Contains correspondence, papers presented by Doherty, and conference programs, schedules, and ephemera for conferences organized or attended Doherty. Also includes one file of Doherty's applications for the editorship of two journals with associated conferences.

In addition to conference papers presented by Doherty, this file also documents his role as the local chair for the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) and as organizer of the 1972 CCCC in Boston.

Unsuccessful applications for editorship of two journals published by the National Council of Teachers of English: College English and College Composition and Communication.

Doherty has been blind-carbon-copied on the letter.