The aim of this volume is to bring together contributions from international research on writing and motivation. It not only addresses the basic question of how motivation to write can be fostered, but also provides analyses of conceptual and theoretical issues at the intersection of the topics of motivation and writing. What emerges from the various chapters is that the motivational aspects of writing represent a rich, productive and partially still unexplored research field. This volume is a step in the direction of a more systematic analysis of the problems as well as an effort to present...

DAVID R. RUSSELL English Department of Iowa State University, U. S. A. I was fortunate to attend, as a visitor from the U. S., the first European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW) conference in 2001 at Groningen. I was struck by the similarities in the challenges higher education faces on both sides of the Atlantic in terms of developing students academic writing, and students learning through writing. It is indeed an international problem. But I was equally struck by the profound differences in responding to these challenges among - tions, institutions, disciplines,...

Debates about researcher education emphasise the dramatic changes facing higher education in the twenty-first century. Post/graduate students must learn often-hidden research literacies with very limited support. Research Literacies and Writing Pedagogies for Masters and Doctoral Writersexplores the challenges students face when engaging in research writing. The chapters offer insights into effective pedagogies, ranging from direct, scaffolded instruction to peer learning, in face-to-face and online interventions. Themes extend from genre approaches, threshold concepts and publishing...

In their edited volume Writing for Professional Development, Giulia Ortoleva, Mireille Betrancourt and Stephen Billett provide a range of contributions in which empirical research, instructional models and educational practice are used to explore and illuminate how the task and process of writing can be used as tools for professional development. Throughout the volume, two main perspectives are considered: learning to write professionally and writing to learn the profession, both for initial occupational preparation and ongoing development within them. The contributions consider a...

University Writing: Selves and Texts in Academic Societies examines new trends in the different theoretical perspectives (cognitive, social and cultural) and derived practices in the activity of writing in higher education. These perspectives are analyzed on the basis of their conceptualization of the object - academic and scientific writing; of the writers - their identities, attitudes and perspectives, be it students, teachers or researchers; and of the derived instructional practices - the ways in which the teaching-learning situations may be organized. The volume samples writing...

Service-learning and Writing: Paving the Way for Literacy(ies) through Community Engagement discusses service-learning as a teaching and learning method and its integration with writing. The various authors, from different disciplines and institutions, present service-learning as a means of having students practice writing in real world settings, and they show how relationship-building and partnerships between higher education and diverse communities produce benefits for all involved - the students, faculty, administrators, and the communities themselves. This volume demonstrates how...

This volume provides a state-of-the-art overview of theory, methodology and practices in the assessment of writing. The focus throughout the book is on the construct of writing and its assessment: what constitutes writing ability and how can it be defined (in various contexts)? This question cannot be answered without looking into the methodological question of how to validate and measure the construct of writing ability. Throughout the book, therefore, discussions integrate theoretical and methodological issues. A number of chapters discusses whether varying definitions and varying...

Writing as a learning activity offers an account of the potentials of writing as a tool for learning. Four aspects of writing emerge particularly clearly through the chapters. First, writing to learn depends on the cognitive strategies of the writer; instruction in such strategies contributes significantly to the ability to use writing as a learning tool. Secondly, strategies for writing and reasoning are largely specific to academic disciplines. Thirdly, writing is not, as traditionally conceived, only an individual ability, but also an activity that is social. It is a collaborative...

Learning and Teaching Writing Online: Strategies for Success takes a fresh look at the challenge of supporting writers online, and reports on research from around the world to offer a range of learning and teaching strategies. The main themes are feedback in online environments, collaboration through online environments, and course design for online environments. This book is designed for higher education practitioners who are interested in exploring pedagogic approaches for giving feedback and supporting collaborative writing online. It will also appeal to researchers of writing...

Multimodality in Writing attempts to generate and apply new theories, disciplines and methods to account for semiotic processes in texts and during text production. It thus showcases new directions in multimodal research and theorizing writing practices from a multimodal perspective. It explores texts, producers of texts, and readers of texts. It also focuses on teaching multimodal text production and writing pedagogy from different domains and disciplines, such as rhetoric and writing composition, architecture, mathematics, film-making, science and the newsroom. Multimodality in...