Edited by Mireille Bétrancourt, Giulia Ortoleva, Päivi Tynjälä and Stephen Billett
The volume Writing for Professional Development is projected to be published in the edited collection Studies in Writing. Series Editor Gert Rijlaarsdam.
Brill: Studies in Writing Series

This volume will present empirical research, instructional models, and educational practice exploring and illuminating how writing can be used as a tool for professional development. A multi-faceted approach to and conception of writing will be taken here in recognition of the different ways that it can be used as a pedagogy/training tool/learning tool to create new insights, develop further procedural capacities and enhance professional identity formation.
The volume will address, among others, the following questions: In what ways and to what extent can writing support professional development and training? Does writing promote procedural learning and the acquisition of professional skills? What theories can explain the impact of writing tasks on professional practice and identity formation? How can Information and Communication Technologies support the practice of writing for professional development?
The edited monograph will comprise three sections, contributions to each of the three sessions will be considered.

The first section – Writing for professional development: Conceptions and purposes – will offer some accounts of the purposes of writing as a professional development activity and conceptions of which that activity might, can and does progress. Explanatory accounts of how acts of writing can be generative of developing further professional capacities will also be elaborated here.

The second section – Writing for learning professional practices – will comprise a series of chapters that draw upon studies in which writing has been used to generate professional capacities. The contributions will comprise studies from a range of occupations (i.e. professional practices) that are organized through different kinds of educational institutions or settings where professional practice is enacted.

The third section – Writing in practice – will comprise contributions on how practitioners learn to write for their professional requirements and how the writing contributes to further foster their expertise. This development often is required to respond to changing work requirements and ways of working within occupations.

Different kinds of contributions are sought from a range of fields of professional practice, across sectors of education (e.g. vocational secondary and tertiary education, continuing
education and training) and, importantly, also from the circumstances of practice themselves, that is, different kinds of workplaces and other settings where occupations are practiced.

The language of the volume will be English; a broad, international group of contributors is sought.
Please submit an electronic 400 word proposal for your intended contribution by 30 April 2013, to: Giulia.Ortoleva@unige.ch
The editors will review and respond to proposals by June 15, 2013.
If your proposal is accepted, the final chapter is expected to be 8,000 words, including references and is due by Dec 15, 2013.