“Academic Writing: Writing and Reading in the Discipline and Academic Reading: Reading and Writing in the Discipline” by Janet Giltrow

Abstract

Janet Giltrow's second edition of Academic Reading and third edition of Academic Writing are a handy set for writing and rhetoric courses and an essential for every composition library. The books mark an important advance over Giltrow's already classic earlier editions. Both volumes offer more than their titles may suggest. Academic Reading, apart from providing an abundance of materials and ideas for writing classes, gives insight into the functioning of social "interest" in academic discourse. Academic Writing, on the other hand, by far outstrips a traditional writing handbook. Rather than merely recommending proper or effective style and organization, it problematizes the underlying assumptions of such recommendations.Giltrow's approach is radically cognitive and social. She invites the reader to a thoughtful inquiry into the functional underpinnings of the genre of academic writing. Building on the idea that "style is meaningful", the author insists on the inherent and complex connectedness between thought, discourse, and society: I would argue that there is no surface in writing, and that the stylistic qualities which tax our capacity to name them are more than skin-deep. And, moreover, I would suggest that the "originality" academics readers value depends on styleon the typical ways of speaking that produce certain kinds of knowledge of the world.