Our questionnaire-based study explored the perceptions and reported practices of students about using GenAI in writing-intensive (WI) courses and instructors’ perceptions of those student-held perceptions and reported practices. The data were collected from a large state university in the Southeastern United States. We administered two parallel versions of a questionnaire to 6,000 student emails and 390 instructor emails across two semesters. Using SPSS 29, we analyzed the data to calculate descriptive statistics, multivariate analyses of variance, post hoc analyses, and factor analyses. Our analysis revealed numerous significant differences between the students and instructors in how students use GenAI as a writing assistance tool and as a source of feedback, among others. Our results provide important insights into the divergent perspectives students and instructors hold about the role of GenAI in writing-intensive classes and recommend increased communication between instructors and students to achieve common understanding about GenAI’s applicability to writing processes.

This article explores how public writers view rhetorical decisions in their use of quantitative information to educate, inform, and move audiences toward action. Using the concept of “statistical framing” to describe how writers signal evaluations of numbers to their readers, we set out to learn how these writers connected their rhetorical goals to how they framed quantitative information. We interviewed 14 writers using the discourse-based interview method and found that, for various reasons, writers valued speeding up and slowing down evaluations of numbers.

This State of the Inquiry (SotI) critically investigates the implications of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) for interdisciplinary research and scholarly communication within the global English-medium knowledge economy (GEMKE). Anchored in three guiding questions, the article interrogates (1) the extent to which GAI facilitates genuine interdisciplinary knowledge production versus reinforcing entrenched disciplinary silos; (2) how GAI’s dependence on established academic infrastructures influences the visibility and legitimacy of particular interdisciplinary fields; and (3) the impact of automated cross-disciplinary synthesis on the epistemic agency and intellectual labor of human scholars. While GAI holds potential to enhance research efficiency and foster new forms of interdisciplinarity, the outcomes of its integration depend largely on how scholars employ these tools; without critical and contextually informed use, it may contribute to epistemic homogenization and the marginalization of nondominant knowledge systems. The SotI advocates for a critically reflexive and contextually informed approach to the integration of GAI in academic practice, while also recognizing the capacity of scholars—particularly those on the (semi)periphery—to actively shape, adapt, and resist these tools in ways that foster inclusive and transformative interdisciplinary scholarship.

Combining keystroke logging, screen recordings, interviews, and text quality assessment in two mixed-methods studies with technical writers, this research (1) identifies defining variables of technical writing processes and (2) examines their correlations with and predictive power for text quality. Study 1, an exploratory investigation with 10 participants, identified 22 distinct writing behaviors under six categories of information searching, information reusing, content shaping, organization structuring, language styling, and layout designing during planning, translating, and reviewing sessions. These behavioral variables, together with time-related variables, were subsequently analyzed as “process indicators” in a comparative experiment with 43 participants across experience levels. Results of Study 2 revealed significant differences among experience levels in writing speed, planning duration, pause, search, reuse, content shaping, and structuring. Detailed planning and systematic content/structure editing were strongly associated with higher-quality texts. Building on these findings, we propose a process model of technical writing, explain its correlations with writing score, and depict process profiles of different experience levels. We also highlight the importance of information processing skills in enhancing writing efficiency, offering empirical guidance for technical writing instruction and professional training.

This article reports a case study of teachers’ enactment of writing instruction for adult learners in Swedish as a second language at lower secondary level in municipal education. It highlights instructional practices and discourses surrounding writing in three classrooms. The analysis centers on literacy events initiated by teachers to support adult learners’ final individual assignments. Data consist of classroom observations (24 hours) and informal interviews with teachers. The findings reveal that teachers adopt different positions in their teaching. There are varying levels of support for students, with varying numbers of literacy events occurring both inside and outside the classroom. Teachers universally adjust their methods based on contextual factors, including diverse student groups, local agreements on content, and time constraints, raising questions about equality. Furthermore, a text-focused approach prioritizes templates and models over content. As a result, writing assignments emphasize genre awareness rather than personal views, thoughts, or experiences. In sum, teachers' pedagogical choices in writing instruction are shaped by their beliefs about writing, learning to write, and contextual factors. These differences in teaching practices seem to provide students with partly unequal opportunities for writing development. This is further elaborated in the discussion.

This article draws on narratives of 45 career-change professionals and explores the use of models as onboarding tools through the lens of writing transfer and the crucial rhetorical thinking and metacognition that it requires. These interviews show that the use of models often limits the opportunity for writing transfer for these professionals by deemphasizing the “invention” phase while they learn to write new documents in their new workplaces. The article argues that invention, rooted in rhetorical thinking, in the workplace can be a prompt for writing transfer, which is often difficult for new communicators in professional settings. The author suggests ways to position students as advocates of invention-related practices in their future workplaces, so that writing transfer might happen more seamlessly.

On Friday morning, December 2, 1955, less than 18 hours after Rosa Parks’s arrest, copies of an anonymous, half-page leaflet began circulating in Black neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. It called for a 1-day boycott of city buses on Monday, December 5. The leaflet was the work of the Women’s Political Council (WPC), namely, its president, Jo Ann Robinson. After drafting the text on the night of December 1, she drove to her office at Alabama State College (ASC) to copy it, then, the next day, with helpers, distributed those copies across the city. By evening, nearly everyone in Montgomery’s Black community knew of the boycott plan. This article offers the fullest examination yet of that leaflet, one of the most impactful texts of its kind in U.S. history. It analyzes its composition, which drew on years of activism by the WPC; its reproduction, using a mimeograph machine at ASC; and its distribution, by car, foot, and hand, across a divided urban landscape. Rhetoric and writing studies help us uncover the material resources, social context, and situated processes that enabled that text; history reminds us of its extraordinary mobilizing power.

This case study of three female Chilean scientists with distinct levels of scientific writing expertise—novice, competent, and near-expert—investigates their notions about drafts. Interrogation of data—that is, document analyses, an entry questionnaire, a set of semistructured interviews, and member-checks—identified seven different notions about drafts: (1) draft as a canonical structure of scientific research articles, (2) draft as influenced by medium/time, (3) draft as an incomplete text, (4) draft as a process, (5) draft as product, (6) draft as a nondefinitive version, and (7) academic writing as a draft from scientific writing. Findings show that some shared notions about drafts transcend writer profiles and that these notions are rooted in writer identity, their writing practices, and the context of producing scientific research articles.

Using multilevel modeling, the current study examined student-level predictors of compositional quality and productivity in Grade 2 Australian children ( N = 544), including handwriting automaticity, literacy skills, executive functioning, writing attitudes, and gender; and classroom-level ( n = 47) variables predicting students’ writing outcomes, including the amount of time for writing practices and the explicit teaching of foundational (handwriting, spelling, grammar) and process writing skills (planning and revision strategies). Multilevel analyses revealed that student-level factors, including gender, general attitudes, and transcription skills (handwriting automaticity and spelling), were key predictors of writing outcomes. Interaction analyses showed that spelling and word reading influenced writing outcomes, with effects varying by gender. At the classroom-level, time spent on planning had a positive effect on students’ compositional quality, and time spent on spelling instruction had a negative effect on students’ compositional productivity. Implications for research and education are discussed.