Rewriting writing in higher education: the contested spaces of proofreading

Abstract

This article reports on a research project on proofreading, prompted by its proliferation in contemporary higher education. The article is framed by an academic literacies perspective and develops the concept of ‘writtenness’, which draws attention to both the underlying culturally and socially constructed values relating to the production and reception of written work, and the tendency to under‐acknowledge the academic achievement of writing well in the relevant discipline, especially in the case of students who do not already possess the requisite ‘cultural capital’. This includes international students whose first language is not English, as well as ‘non‐traditional’ students. The use of the term ‘proofreading’ is seen as masking the complexity of academic writing, on the one hand, and maintaining its status as relatively unimportant, on the other. Particularly in the latter case, this is seen as emblematic of a culturally deeply embedded predisposition to privilege knowledge or content over language.