ABSTRACT

The Handbook of Research on Writing ventures to sum up inquiry over the last few decades on what we know about writing and the many ways we know it: How do people write? How do they learn to write and develop as writers? Under what conditions and for what purposes do people write? What resources and technologies do we use to write? How did our current forms and practices of writing emerge within social history? What impacts has writing had on society and the individual? What does it mean to be and to learn to be an active participant in contemporary systems of meaning? 
 
This cornerstone volume advances the field by aggregating the broad-ranging, interdisciplinary, multidimensional strands of writing research and bringing them together into a common intellectual space. Endeavoring to synthesize what has been learned about writing in all nations in recent decades, it reflects a wide scope of international research activity, with attention to writing at all levels of schooling and in all life situations. Chapter authors, all eminent researchers, come from disciplines as diverse as anthropology, archeology, typography, communication studies, linguistics, journalism, sociology, rhetoric, composition, law, medicine, education, history, and literacy studies. The Handbook’s 37 chapters are organized in five sections:
*The History of Writing;
*Writing in Society;
*Writing in Schooling;
*Writing and the Individual;
*Writing as Text
 
This volume, in summing up what is known about writing, deepens our experience and appreciation of writing—in ways that will make teachers better at teaching writing and all of its readers better as individual writers. It will be interesting and useful to scholars and researchers of writing, to anyone who teaches writing in any context at any level, and to all those who are just curious about writing.

chapter 1|4 pages

Origins and Forms of Writing

part I|2 pages

History of Writing

chapter 1|20 pages

Origins and Forms of Writing

chapter 2|14 pages

History of Writing Technologies

chapter 3|37 pages

History of Typography

part II|6 pages

Writing in Society

chapter 7|20 pages

On Documentary Society

chapter 8|16 pages

Writing, Text, and the Law

chapter 12|17 pages

Writing as Art and Entertainment

chapter 14|21 pages

Writing in the Professions

chapter 15|22 pages

History of Writing in the Community

chapter 17|15 pages

Writing and Social Change

part III|2 pages

Writing in Schooling

part IV|2 pages

Writing and the Individual

chapter 32|24 pages

Multilingual Writing Development

chapter 33|16 pages

Writing and Speaking

chapter 36|20 pages

Persuasion, Audience, and Argument