Toward freer writing: A reconsideration of audience relationships in academic writing.
Item
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Title
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Toward freer writing: A reconsideration of audience relationships in academic writing.
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Identifier
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AAI3231951
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identifier
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3231951
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Creator
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Gaughan, Frank.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Sondra Perl
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Date
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2006
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Language, Rhetoric and Composition | Education, Higher
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Abstract
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This dissertation describes three audiences for writing in the humanities, generally, and in English studies, particularly: (1) the public, who is often either unaware or skeptical of academic arguments; (2) our colleagues, many of whom work for wages and benefits that are not commensurate with their responsibilities or experiences; and (3) our students, who sit with varying levels of interest in our classes. In each case, I describe reasons and suggestions for improving relations with these various audiences. I term the enactment of these suggestions "freer writing." In this phrase, many readers will recognize Peter Elbow's decades-long advocacy of "freewriting": writing without stopping for a set period of time without attention to one's audience (see, e.g., Writing Without Teachers). Elbow concerns himself, part, with the development of a method that helps writers discover what they want to say before they begin the long and hopefully joyful but always difficult process of communicating with readers. By contrast, freer writing is not so much a method as it is a commitment to working with academic ideas in rhetorically flexible ways, ways that bridge the divide between specialized and general knowledge of our discipline. Broadly defined, freer writing involves the construction of intellectual frameworks by which the public, our colleagues, and most especially our students may better understand the critical and affective significance of our disciplinary concerns. Freer writing recognizes that "critical thinking," a mantra for educators of all levels, may be expressed not only in analytical and argumentative modes but in imaginative, narrative, and descriptive modes as well.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
