A native of Salt Lake City, Utah, Gideon attended the University of Utah briefly before attending and graduating from Brigham Young University in 1989. At the University of Southern California he received an M.A. in English (1992), a Master of Professional Writing (WPM) degree (1995), and his PhD.(1994) in Rhetoric, Linguistics, and Literature in 1994. He joined the BUY English Department faculty in 1994.
