Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines: Research on the Academic Writing Life

any book that tries to define academic writing bites off more than most can chew. Chris Thaiss and Terry Myers Zawacki defining academic writing is one part of a larger goal in their book Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines. Not only do they develop a definition of academic writing, they also build a developmental model for stages students move through to enter the academic conversation. I admit to being skeptical when I read the introduction of the book and saw how ambitious Thaiss and Zawacki were. If one has read David Russell’s Writing in Academic Disciplines, one knows the long, slow march academia has taken toward disciplinary specialization. Still, I hear WAC program directors and faculty reify academic writing without ever being able to adequately describe it. Instead, the more concrete their description, the more problematic the definition becomes. Thaiss and Zawacki tackle the challenge of defining academic writing through a large-scale study involving surveys, case studies, assessment workshops, focus groups, department rubrics, and writing samples. There is no suspense in the book; Thaiss and Zawacki define three standards for academic writing on pages five and six. I will spare you the suspense as well. Here are their findings: “1. Clear evidence in writing that the writer(s) have been persistent, open-minded, and disciplined in study ... 2. The dominance of reason over emotion or sensual perception ... 3. An imagined reader who is coolly rational, reading for information, and intending to formulate a reasoned response.” Of course, these