Call for proposals

We invite a variety of contributions that address any of the following topics:

• Pedagogical issues of teaching, tutoring and counselling academic writing across and in the disciplines:
  • General writing courses vs. discipline-specific writing courses
  • Genres taught in higher education: contemporary developments and challenges
  • Progression in the development of academic writing skills
  • Transitions between writing in school and at the university
  • Intercultural aspects of teaching academic writing
  • Plagiarism: teaching appropriate source use and dealing with inappropriate source use
  • Supervision of academic writing: techniques and challenges
  • Teaching, supervising, counselling and coaching academic writing: differences, similarities and transitions
  • Multimedia support in teaching academic writing
  • Overcoming writer’s block

• Organisational issues of implementing the teaching of academic writing
  • Writing programmes across and in the disciplines
  • The role of writing centres for writing programmes
  • Collaboration between writing teachers and university teachers/departments/faculties
  • Addressing institutional resistance and indifference to writing support
  • Adapting models and theory from elsewhere to meet European needs in teaching and tutoring academic writing
  • The Bologna Process and its possible effect on teaching academic writing

• Research issues concerning
  • the efficiency of teaching academic writing
  • academic writing processes and products
  • the development of academic writing skills
  • historical aspects in the development of writing pedagogy
  • future research into academic writing: what is necessary?

• Political issues of teaching academic writing
  • Changes in writing policies through the Bologna process
  • Writing and European language politics
  • Other political issues welcome!

Deadline for submissions of  proposals: January 15, 2007

Review and notification of acceptance: February 15, 2007

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Quality and types of contributions

In order to reach these conference goals, we plan a variety of contribution types which meet the following criteria:

• Contributions should be new and not yet published. They should provide/demonstrate practical application to the educational environment, but should at the same time be grounded in and make reference to writing and teaching theory.
• Contributions should relate to practical problems or educational contexts and, at the same time, refer to the existing body of writing theory and research.
• Contributors should bear in mind that participants from other parts of the world may not be familiar with their educational systems, national organizations, terminologies and abbreviations. Please be explicit with regard to all cultural assumptions your presentation may contain.
• While English is the lingua franca of EATAW and of the conference, many EATAW members teach writing in their own language and many do not have native-speaker proficiency in English. We ask you to bear this in mind when preparing and giving your contribution.
• In order to ensure a stimulating programme we plan to connect related single contributions to meaningful groupings. Contributors should be prepared to get some organizational suggestions to fit into those groupings. (These suggestions will only concern the organizational framework and will not intrude upon the contribution’s content and autonomy).

We look forward to receiving the following types of contributions:

Workshops: Participant-centred workshops that offer practical/experiential activities and discussion. Workshops will last 80 minutes. Workshops should not be seen as 'long presentations', but should actively involve the audience in writing activities, discussions and an exchange of experiences.

Presentations: The standard length for presentations will be 35 minutes (20 minutes presentation plus 10 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes introduction, conclusion etc.). Presenters are expected to present in a vivid and comprehensible way and make their contribution an appropriate basis for the discussion with a culturally diverse, international audience.

Symposia: Within 80 minutes three or four contributors present related subjects and discuss them with the audience guided by a chair person (60 minutes presentation maximum, discussion time 20 minutes minimum). Symposia can be

• jointly proposed
• or put together by the organizers.

Round table discussions: Within 80 minutes three or four contributors discuss a common subject under the guidance of a chair person. In order to prepare a cohesive discussion, each discussant has to send his/her main statements (1 – 2 pages) to a given chair until 1 June.

• Round table discussions should be jointly proposed.

Other forms of interactive contributions: If you would like to work on a subject in another way than the suggested contributions types above, please do not hesitate to contact us informally in advance.

• The organization team will support you to find an adequate setting for your special interest. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Conference language

The conference language will be English. All conference correspondence, all official announcements prior to and during the conference, all keynote presentations, the EATAW meeting and other plenary events will be held in English. There will be no translation or interpreting service. Participants are expected to have sufficient competence in English to participate receptively in all conference events.

Individual Presentations in French and German

Given that English is the lingua franca of EATAW, though not the working language of many of its members, and given the importance of other languages in Europe, for the 2007 conference we would like to invite individual presentations in languages other than English. As this is a pilot, we would like to limit this possibility at present to French and German.

Participants may propose presentations or workshops in French or German with the following provisos:

a)      An abstract/proposal must be submitted in both English and the language of the presentation.

b)      During the presentation, visuals such as PowerPoint should include subtitles or a summary in English.

c)      If there are handouts, a handout in English should also be provided.

d)      The person chairing the session will be prepared to propose solutions for multi-language situations. Although there will be no official interpreting service, bilinguals may offer ad-hoc interpreting to those who need language assistance.

e)      The presenter may submit the final paper for publication in the proceedings in the language of the presentation, but an English abstract must be provided

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Abstracts

Abstracts for workshops and presentations should not exceed 200 words.

Abstracts for jointly proposed symposia, round table discussions or other forms of interactive contributions should not exceed 300 words.

Guiding questions for all proposed contributions:

• What is the problem, need or knowledge gap that prompted this contribution? In what way is this a problem other institutions/teachers in Europe may share?

Guiding questions for workshop abstracts:

• What is the intended result of the workshop?
• What input (theoretical or other) from the workshop leader (you) will help participants to address the problem?
• How will the workshop participants work together to address this problem (i.e. which didactic methods will be used: brainstorming, group activities, role play, etc.)?

Guiding questions for presentation abstracts:

• What solution did you find to address this need?
• What theoretical principles guided your choice of solution or your inquiry?
• How does your presentation relate to previous research?
• If you conducted empirical research, what methodology did you use?
• What did you discover?
• How applicable may your findings be to other contexts? What is the value of your research for your potential audience? What implications, if any, does your work have for the evaluation of existing theory?

Guiding questions for jointly proposed symposia abstracts:

• What is your joint problem, need or knowledge gap that prompted this symposium?
• What are your individual attitudes towards this problem? Please outline your individual contribution along the guidelines for presentations.

Guiding questions for jointly proposed round table discussion abstracts:

• What is your joint problem, need or knowledge gap that prompted this round table?
• What are your individual attitudes towards this problem? Please outline your statements along the guidelines for presentations.

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Publication of articles from the conference

Information about the procedure will be sent around in time.

Contact

If you wish to offer a contribution, please download and complete a contributor proposal by

clicking here

If you have any further queries, please contact us at:

• eataw2007@schreibzentrum.de
• Phone: (0049) (0)234 32 28646

Download Call for Contributions (PDF)

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