CFP: Special issue of Written Communication on Writing in Global Context

If you're conducting writing research in global contexts, please consider this CFP:

Call for Papers: Special Issue of Written Communication - Writing in Global Context

The Editor and Editorial Board of Written Communication invite article submissions for a special issue on Writing in Global Context, tentatively scheduled for publication in October 2011. Submissions from established and new scholars of writing theory and research are welcome.

With continuing political, economic, cultural, and technological change, the world is becoming a smaller place. In many ways, contemporary life is, or is rapidly becoming, global. Questions about global context are no longer just about doing business internationally, but are increasingly about learning to live in a complex and connected global world. And, of course, one of the ways that we live and work globally is through written communication.

Assumptions about knowledge making, rhetorical action, identity and subjectivity, purpose and agency; about what counts as writing, what it means to a writer, or a teacher of writing -- all these assumptions are problematized and hence must to be reconceived in global context.

In this Special Issue on Writing in Global Context we invite authors to take up and extend ongoing discussions that situate, and interrogate, writing globally. Over the last four years, over a quarter of the manuscripts in WC have come from researchers outside North America. We hope this Special Issue will also draw contributions from around the world.

This special issue of Written Communication will publish original research on issues of writing in global context. Contributions might include, but are not limited to, methodologically rigorous studies that examine questions such as:

• What is the role of writing within the new realities of global context?

• What does it mean to be a writer in global context?

• What is literacy in global context?

• How do new global relationships constrain, reflect, or anticipate written genres? And how do genres shape global realities?

• What is the role of writing technologies in global communication? How can technologies bridge, undermine, or complicate writing in global context?

• How do issues of trust and ethos play out in writing in global context?

• How do regulatory environments and legal constraints impact global writers?

• How are problems and potentialities of global writing rhetorically constructed?

• How is writing implicated in technology transfer and technology diffusion, especially between the global north and the global south?

• What kinds of language questions complicate and inform writing (and the study of writing) in global context?

• What new research methods, or objects of study, does the study of writing in global context call out?

Ultimately, the articles published in this Special Issue will present new research findings and advance theoretical understandings about what writing is and can be in global context.

Consideration of mss for this special issue will begin January 1, 2011 and continue until April 1, 2011, or until a suitable number of publishable mss has been identified. Submissions for this special issue will follow the normal, peer-reviewed practice of WC.

Written Communication is the premier international multidisciplinary journal of research on writing. The scope of the journal is broad and encompasses writing in its myriad contemporary forms, both within and outside the academy. Theoretical and applied contributions of articles in Written Communication are made explicit and will be relevant to researchers, theorists, teachers, and policy makers from a range of scholarly disciplines. Published articles will collectively represent a wide range of methodologies, but the methodology of each study must be handled expertly and described explicitly.

Guidelines for submission: Please follow the regular guidelines for submission, published in each issue of the journal and on the WC page of the Sage website. Please confirm in a cover letter that the piece has not been previously published and that it is not under review elsewhere. Also indicate that you wish the ms submission to be considered for the Special Issue on Writing in Global Context.

Special issues of Written Communication follow these guidelines:

1. A CFP will be published and distributed widely at least 6 months before the proposed publication date of the SI.

2. Submitted mss will be accompanied by a letter, addressed to the Editor, noting that the submission is meant for the SI and explaining how the ms addresses the topic of the SI.

3. Members of the journal’s Editorial Board will be used as reviewers, but the editor will also solicit names of other appropriate reviewers on the topic of the SI from EB members and others.

4. Scholars submitting articles for review for the SI may not serve as reviewers for that SI.

5. Published articles will report original research on writing, with explicit attention to methodology.

6. Editorial control of the review process and the selection of published articles rest with the journal editor.

7. Manuscripts not accepted for the SI may be considered for another issue of the journal.

Questions should be directed to Professor Christina Haas, Editor, at writtencomm@umn.edu.