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Article published In:
The dynamics of academic knowledge production: Text histories and text trajectories
Edited by Theresa Lillis and Mary Jane Curry
[Journal of English for Research Publication Purposes 3:1] 2022
► pp. 51–77

Academic texts in motion

A text history study of co-authorship interactions in writing for publication

| Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
| Birkbeck, University of London, UK
Knowledge production in collaborative writing for publication has tended to be studied as fixed in time and place; few studies have focused on the drafting and redrafting of texts and the interactions among the co-authors involved. Using a text history approach to a research article co-authored by an exiled academic and his two more experienced co-authors, all using English as an additional language, this study investigates the impact of interactions during text production on the focal academic’s understanding of writing for English-medium international publication. We analysed the co-authors’ comments on the academic’s drafts, examining their Intervention Levels (levels of directness and explicitness) and Intervention Areas (disciplinary, writing, and publishing conventions) and the academic’s responses to these interventions. Analysis focused on interaction episodes (written interactions relating to a specific point in the text and relevant textual changes throughout drafts). Findings revealed that interventions focused on multiple areas, with the co-authors acting as knowledge brokers in all domains. The interaction dynamics changed across the drafts, in the focus of interaction episodes and the levels of co-authors’ interventions provided to the academic, which created a space to negotiate interventions and, consequently, to enrich his understanding of writing practices for international publication in English.
Keywords: co-authorship, English for Research Publication Purposes, international publication, textual interaction, text history
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.English for research publication purposes
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1Methods
      • 3.1.1Interaction episodes
      • 3.1.2Interviews
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Overview of textual interventions in the TH
      • 4.1.1Interaction episodes concerning disciplinary conventions
      • 4.1.2Interaction episodes concerning writing conventions
      • 4.1.3Interaction episodes concerning publishing conventions
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 2 June 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jerpp.22001.khu
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Khuder, Baraa & Bojana Petrić
2023. Intersectionality of marginalisation: EAL academics in exile writing for international publication. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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