Publication date: 13 May 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781806550746
Number of illustrations: 1
Critical Perspectives on Academic Writing
The politics and practices of writing development in UK higher education
Ayanna Prevatt-Goldstein (Editor), David Mallows (Editor)
Critical Perspectives on Academic Writing offers a timely, theoretically grounded examination of the often marginalised yet foundational role of academic writing in UK higher education. Based on the UCL Institute of Education’s Academic Writing Seminar Series, the volume brings together leading researchers and practitioners to interrogate the contested politics, practices, and pedagogies of academic writing development. Against the backdrop of internationalisation, widening participation, neoliberalisation, and the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence in higher education, the contributors consider how we value academic writing and how we support student writing development.
The first part of the book frames the choices we make when working with writing or with developing writers as inherently political rather than neutral. The second focuses on the implications of generative AI for student academic writing; and the third situates research on academic writing and literacies in the practices of learning and teaching. By examining the roles of writing specialists, subject lecturers, and institutional policy, the book highlights both challenges and possibilities for change. It combines critical insights with practical approaches to writing pedagogy, offering an essential resource for educators, researchers and policymakers seeking to rethink the place of writing in the modern university.
List of figures and tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
Ayanna Prevatt-Goldstein and David Mallows
Part I: Framing the politics and practices of academic writing
2 Academic writing as political
Julia Molinari
3 The turn to difference: doing academic writing and writing development differently
Amanda French
4 Multimodal and embodied approaches to writing for access and inclusion
Arlene Archer
Part II: Generative AI and academic writing
5 Progressive academic writing literacies: the constructive use of machine translation and generative AI as graduate competences
Mike Groves and Klaus Mundt
6 Student writing as ‘passing’ in a time of synthetic text
Helen Beetham
7 Generative AI, academic writing and learning differences: can ChatGPT scaffold writing development?
Adrian J. Wallbank
Part III: The practices of academic writing
8 Exploring writing pedagogy with subject lecturers
Gillian Lazar
9 Investigating feedback on students’ written work to understand subject lecturer expectations and support student writing
Lena Grannell
10 Creating time and space to write through social writing
Rowena Murray
Afterword
Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams
Index
DOI: 10.14324/111.9781806550746
Number of illustrations: 1
Publication date: 13 May 2026
PDF ISBN: 9781806550746
EPUB ISBN: 9781806550753
Hardback ISBN: 9781806550722
Paperback ISBN: 9781806550739
This book is an eclectic collection of chapters, with each providing a different approach, perspective or theoretical lens to the practice of writing and writing development in Higher Education. The editors’ introduction and the afterword prepare and then remind the reader that writing and writing development are indeed eclectic and at times incoherent practices, taking place in contested, liminal and varied spaces in the academy. Ultimately, this diversity becomes a key strength of the book. The reader is forced to consider their own position, to think about where their own practices lie politically, pragmatically, pedagogically, to question deficit narratives from a range of perspectives and to then revisit these questions again in the light of Generative AI. Through the questions raised in each chapter, an argument is carefully developed to support and reaffirm the main point of the first chapter that writing is political – in all senses of the word. And this is something that we need to remember.
Bee Bond, University of Leeds
How Alex Bloom Built Radical Democratic Secondary Education in Post-war London
Michael Fielding, Mark Erickson,
01 September 2026
Creating a Framework for Developing Sessional Teachers in Higher Education
Neil Sutherland, Alex Standen,
24 August 2026
Bringing Powerful Knowledge into Classrooms
Mark Hardman, Marie Nilsberth, Mikko Puustinen,
22 July 2026
Clive Young, Nataša Perović, Leo Havemann, Karen Shackleford-Cesare,
14 April 2026
Reading Randomised Controlled Trials
Robert Savage, Amy Fox, Anneka Dawson, Helen Gray, Clare Huxley,
03 March 2025
Inclusion, Diversity and Innovation in Translation Education
Alejandro Bolaños García-Escribano, Mazal Oaknín, Olga Castro,
01 October 2024
Critical Perspectives on Academic Writing
The politics and practices of writing development in UK higher education
Publication date: May 13, 2026
Open Access PDF ISBN: 9781806550746
Paperback ISBN: 9781806550739
Hardback ISBN: 9781806550722
Trim size (hardback): 23.4cm x 15.6cm
Trim size (paperback): 23.4cm x 15.6cm
Critical Perspectives on Academic Writing offers a timely, theoretically grounded examination of the often marginalised yet foundational role of academic writing in UK higher education. Based on the UCL Institute of Education’s Academic Writing Seminar Series, the volume brings together leading researchers and practitioners to interrogate the contested politics, practices, and pedagogies of academic writing development. Against the backdrop of internationalisation, widening participation, neoliberalisation, and the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence in higher education, the contributors consider how we value academic writing and how we support student writing development.
The first part of the book frames the choices we make when working with writing or with developing writers as inherently political rather than neutral. The second focuses on the implications of generative AI for student academic writing; and the third situates research on academic writing and literacies in the practices of learning and teaching. By examining the roles of writing specialists, subject lecturers, and institutional policy, the book highlights both challenges and possibilities for change. It combines critical insights with practical approaches to writing pedagogy, offering an essential resource for educators, researchers and policymakers seeking to rethink the place of writing in the modern university.
This book is an eclectic collection of chapters, with each providing a different approach, perspective or theoretical lens to the practice of writing and writing development in Higher Education. The editors’ introduction and the afterword prepare and then remind the reader that writing and writing development are indeed eclectic and at times incoherent practices, taking place in contested, liminal and varied spaces in the academy. Ultimately, this diversity becomes a key strength of the book. The reader is forced to consider their own position, to think about where their own practices lie politically, pragmatically, pedagogically, to question deficit narratives from a range of perspectives and to then revisit these questions again in the light of Generative AI. Through the questions raised in each chapter, an argument is carefully developed to support and reaffirm the main point of the first chapter that writing is political – in all senses of the word. And this is something that we need to remember.
Bee Bond, University of Leeds
