Time, the Written Record, and Professional Practice: The Case of Contemporary Social Work

Written Communication Oct 2020 OA PDF

Time, the Written Record, and Professional Practice: The Case of Contemporary Social Work

Theresa Lillis The Open University ; Maria Leedham The Open University ; Alison Twiner The Open University

Abstract

Drawing on a three-year ethnographically oriented study exploring contemporary professional social work writing, this article focuses on a key concern: the amount of time taken up with writing, or “paperwork.” We explore the relationship between time and professional social work writing in three key ways: (a) as a discrete, measurable phenomenon—how much time is spent on writing? (b) as a textual dimension to social work writing—how do institutional documents drive particular entextualizations of time and how do social worker texts entextualize time? (c) as a particular timespace configuration of lived experience—how is time experienced by professional social workers? Findings indicate that a dominant institutional chronotope is governing social work textual practice underpinned by an ideology of writing that is at odds with social workers’ desired practice and professional goals. Methodologically, this article illustrates the value of combining a range of data and analytic tools, using textual and contextual data as well as qualitative and quantitative frames of analysis.

Journal: Written Communication
Published: 2020-10-01
DOI: 10.1177/0741088320938804
Open Access: OA PDF Bronze
Topics: multilingual writers

Citation Context

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