The Social Uses Of Writing

Writing in Social Spaces addresses the problem of making time and space for writing in academic life and work of the professionals and practitioners who do academic writing'. Even those who want to write, who know how to write well and who have quality publications, report that they cannot find enough time for writing. Many supervisors are unsure about how to help postgraduates improve their writing for thesis and publication. Whilst the problem does presents through concerns with ‘time’, it is also partly about writing practices, academic identities and lack of motivation. This book provides a research-based, theorised approach to the skill of writing whilst retaining a link to writing practices and giving immediate yet sustainable solutions to the writing problem. It supplies new theory and practice on: socializing writing-in-progress and writing with others exploring the alternation of conscious and unconscious, internal and external processes in academic writing whilst in a social grouping Applying social processes in the writing process Using case studies and vignettes of writing in social spaces to illustrate the theory in practice, This book is a valuable resource for academics, scholars, professionals and practitioners, as well as researchers at all stages of their career, and in all disciplines.

This groundbreaking book brings creative writing to social research. Its innovative format includes creatively written contributions by researchers from a range of disciplines, modelling the techniques outlined by the authors. The book is user-friendly and shows readers: • how to write creatively as a social researcher; • how creative writing can help researchers to work with participants and generate data; • how researchers can use creative writing to analyse data and communicate findings. Inviting beginners and more experienced researchers to explore new ways of writing, this book introduces readers to creatively written research in a variety of formats including plays and poems, videos and comics. It not only gives social researchers permission to write creatively but also shows them how to do so.

Students and researchers all write under pressure, and those pressures—most lamentably, the desire to impress your audience rather than to communicate with them—often lead to pretentious prose, academic posturing, and, not infrequently, writer’s block. Sociologist Howard S. Becker has written the classic book on how to conquer these pressures and simply write. First published nearly twenty years ago, Writing for Social Scientists has become a lifesaver for writers in all fields, from beginning students to published authors. Becker’s message is clear: in order to learn how to write, take a deep breath and then begin writing. Revise. Repeat. It is not always an easy process, as Becker wryly relates. Decades of teaching, researching, and writing have given him plenty of material, and Becker neatly exposes the foibles of academia and its “publish or perish” atmosphere. Wordiness, the passive voice, inserting a “the way in which” when a simple “how” will do—all these mechanisms are a part of the social structure of academic writing. By shrugging off such impediments—or at the very least, putting them aside for a few hours—we can reform our work habits and start writing lucidly without worrying about grades, peer approval, or the “literature.” In this new edition, Becker takes account of major changes in the computer tools available to writers today, and also substantially expands his analysis of how academic institutions create problems for them. As competition in academia grows increasingly heated, Writing for Social Scientists will provide solace to a new generation of frazzled, would-be writers.

From the author of Stylish Academic Writing comes an essential new guide for writers aspiring to become more productive and take greater pleasure in their craft. Helen Sword interviewed 100 academics worldwide about their writing background and practices and shows how they find or create the conditions to get their writing done.

Why We Write provides a forum for scholars, activists, and novelists to reflect on the ways in which they use their writing and academic work to create social change. This volume uncovers the political agendas, social missions, and personal and professional experiences that compel writers to bring their stories to the page. Why We Write examines the dual commitment of writing articles and books that are committed to high scholarly standards as well as social justice. These essays will be of great interest to college and graduate students who currently lack a model of social justice scholarship.

This volume explores how a political and social theory of writing can inform pedagogy, including an analysis of how students' educational histories limit teacher and student roles, and how we might work to enlarge both. Through a critique of ethnography and an exploration of Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the author develops an interactive theory of teaching writing. In three central chapters, the volume treats gender, class and race issues in the teaching of writing by examining case studies of freshman writers. Within the case studies, the author shows how an interactive pedagogy helps students see how socially-held values, such as beauty, objectivity, upward mobility, and assimilation deeply affect how students write. The case studies give a sense of actuality to the author's ideas. Finally, the author argues that interpretation should replace evaluation as the central activity of writing courses.

Examines the impact of social media on three writing-related themes: publics and audiences, presentation of self and groups, and pedagogy at various levels of higher education.

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times