Issues in Writing

Volume 15 Number 2, Spring/Summer 2005: Contents

Interview

Plain Language and Legal Writing: A Conversation with Joe Kimble

Joseph Kimble chairs the Research and Writing Department at Thomas Cooley Law School, where he has taught legal writing, research, and drafting since 1984. He is the Editor in Chief of The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, the Editor of the �Plain Language� column in the Michigan Bar Journal, and President of Clarity (an international association for plain legal language). His most recent publication is Lifting the Fog of Legalese: Essays on Plain Language, published by Carolina Academic Press in 2006. On 3 February 2006, IW Editors Mary Bowman, Dan Dieterich, Wade Mahon, and Sarah Pogell of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point spoke with Kimble by telephone.

Articles

- Addressing the Sociocultural-Socioeconomic Dimensions of Graduate Writing Instruction Amidst the �Crisis in Academic Publishing.� Lyn�e Lewis Gaillet

Abstract: This article builds on the author�s earlier description of a graduate course in academic publishing [Issues in Writing 9 (1998): 43-65]. Citing student responses to the current course configuration and based on a wide range of interdisciplinary scholarship addressing academic writing and publishing, this work examines the ethical responsibility faculty must adopt in mentoring students who are preparing to go on the academic job market. The appendix includes a 146-entry bibliography of interdisciplinary works addressing scholarly publishing and graduate student writing.

- Writing by the Book: The Emergence of the Journaling Self-Help Book. Anne Whitney

Abstract: In the last thirty years, and with particular vigor in the last ten years, a new genre of self-help literature has emerged: the self-help journaling guide. In this article, I analyze publication records to track the emergence of this genre and then analyze the content of a representative group of such texts. The analysis shows that writing, as presented in self-help journaling guides, is a tool not only for doing work in the world (as traditional school- or business-informed models of writing might be) but also a tool for inner work. Specifically, it is construed as a tool for discovering a true or authentic self, a tool for self-construction, and a tool for �dialogue with the self.� That journaling works toward serious aims, touching on centers of identity and selfhood (rather than toward aesthetic or leisure purposes as arts and crafts might), is further reflected in the books� presentation of journal writing as risky or daring or as a kind of meditative or spiritual practice.

Reviews

Composition Studies in the New Millennium: Rereading the Past, Rewriting the Future, edited by Lynn Z. Bloom, Donald A. Daiker, and Edward M. White

Reviewed by Carmen Christopher

Language Diversity in the Classroom: From Intention to Practice, edited by Geneva Smitherman and Victor Villanueva

Reviewed by Beth Bir

Genre By Example: Writing What We Teach, edited by David Starkey

Reviewed by William J. Carpenter

Minor Re/Visions: Asian American Literacy Narratives as a Rhetoric of Citizenship, by Morris Young

Reviewed by Asao B. Inoue

The Allyn & Bacon Teaching Assistant�s Handbook: A Guide for Graduate Instructors of Writing and Literature, by Stephen W. Wilhoit

Reviewed by Beth Buyserie

Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. 2^nd ed., edited by Victor Villanueva

Reviewed by James H. Wilson

Volume 15 Number 1, Fall/Winter 2004: Contents

Interview

Personal Statements: A Conversation with John Swales and Chris Feak

John Swales is Professor of Linguistics and former Director of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan. His work on genre analysis is well-known in composition studies, applied linguistics and ESL. His books include Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings (Cambridge, 1990), Other Floors, Other Voices: A Textography of a Small University Building (Erlbaum, 1998); and Research Genres (Cambridge, forthcoming). John Swales and Christine Feak have co-authored a number of books and texts on academic writing for non-native speakers, including Academic Writing for Graduate Students (2^nd edition, Michigan, 2004) and English in Today�s Research World: A Writing Guide (Michigan,2000). Chris Feak is a lecturer in the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan. In addition to her co-authored work with John Swales, she has published on legal writing, medical writing, and English for Specific Purposes. On June 15, 2004, Ellen Barton and Matthew Aldridge visited John and Chris in the English Language Institute, and Robert Brown joined in by telephone for the following interview. Sound and transcription were handled by Matthew Aldridge, a graduate student in the Composition Program at Wayne State University. Somewhat unusually for this speech event, one of the interviewees, John, wanted to start out the discussion since he had done some preparatory fieldwork on personal statements the previous evening.

Articles

- Tales of the Professional Imaginary: Personal Statements for Medical School at Johns Hopkins, 1925 to the Present. Steve Newman

Abstract: Personal statements for The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1925 to 1995 show a surprising consistency in their commitment to �science and people� and their gesture toward a liberal education. I argue that these and other characteristics reveal a bifurcation in �the professional imaginary� between medicine-as-art and medicine-as-science and a corollary rift between vocational and humanistic views of pre-medical education. Although neglected by compositionists, personal statements also have much to teach us about �the professional imaginary� of composition as well, including the undertheorized and vexed relationship between writing, undergraduate education, and professional school.

- The Personal Statement in Medical School Applications: Rhetorical Structure in a Diverse and Unstable Context. Linn K. Bekins, Thomas N. Huckin, and Laura Kijak

Abstract: Genre analysis reveals much about a discourse community�s epistemology and ideology. While the Personal Statement (PS) in medical school applications functions to illustrate and reflect upon the goals of a particular discourse community, it is unusual in the sense that it is not practiced by central members of the community, but rather by apprentices. This study surveys medical school applicants (60% from underrepresented minorities), interviews evaluators, and conducts a genre analysis of PS samples. Results provide insight into gatekeepers� role in this discourse community, a tentative set of rhetorical moves characterizing the genre, and evidence of the genre�s instability in this particular sociorhetorical context.

- The Professional in the Personal: The Genre of Personal Statements in Residency Applications. Ellen Barton, Jennie Ariail, and Tom Smith

Abstract: One crucial transition in medical education is the move to residency after graduation from medical school. In this article, we present a genre analysis of a corpus of 169 personal statements written as part of applications for residency in the specialties of Surgery, Internal Medicine, and Family Medicine. The genre analysis is contextualized by a reading protocol study of personal statements with members of residency selection committees in these specialties. We argue that the rhetorical imperative of this genre is to present a professional self in highly personal terms and that the genre functions as a mutual construction of the profession and specialties of medicine by its experienced and apprentice members performed under the exigency of reflection upon transition.

Reviews

Writing Genres, by Amy Devitt

Reviewed by Linda Mercer Learman

Tracing Genres Through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design, by Clay Spinuzzi

Reviewed by Matthew Aldridge

Writing Power: Communication in an Engineering Center, by Dorothy Winsor

Reviewed by Thomas G. Smith