This work provides an examination of the relationship between written communication in academic and workplace contexts. It is aimed at writing researchers, teachers, programme designers, and others concerned with writing in academic and business arenas.

i Worlds Apart: Acting and Writing in Academic and Workplace Contexts /i offers a unique examination of writing as it is applied and used in academic and workplace settings. Based on a 7-year multi-site comparative study of writing in different university courses and matched workplaces, this volume presents new perspectives on how writing functions within the activities of various disciplines: law and public administration courses and government institutions; management courses and financial institutions; social-work courses and social-work agencies; and architecture courses and architecture practice. Using detailed ethnography, the authors make comparisons between the two types of settings through an understanding of how writing is operative within the particularities of these settings. br br Although the research was initially established to further understanding of the relationships between writing in academic and workplace settings, it has evolved to examining writing as it is embedded in both types of settings--where social relationships, available tools, and historical, cultural, temporal, and physical location are all implicated in complex ways in the decisions people make as writers. Readers of this volume will discover that the uniqueness of each setting makes salient different aspects of writers and writing, resulting in complex, and potentially unsettling implications for writing theory and the teaching of writing. br

Part 1: Researching Writing at School and at Work
Situating Writing. Part 2: University Writing
The Social Motive of University Writing
Complications and Tensions
Writing and the Formation of the Architect. Part 3: Workplace Writing
The Complexity of the Social Motive in Workplace Writing
Distributed Cognition at Work
From Words to Bricks - Writing in an Architectural Practice. Part 4: Transitions
Students and Workers Learning
Virtual Realities - Transitions From University to Workplace Writing
Contexts for Writing - University and Work Compared.