ABSTRACT
It is common to pay attention to the identity of the writer of fiction, autobiography and ‘creative’ writing (see, for example, Mace 1992, Chapter 5; Mace 1995), but many books about academic writing say little about the writer. They take it for granted that the writer produces the written product, but they do not say much about the presence of the writer in that product. We think it is important to focus on the writer as well as the writing: how authoritative s/he feels, what s/he wants to say, how s/he wants to represent herself in the writing, and the conflicts s/he faces between what s/he might ideally want and the constraints imposed by conventions. Writing cannot be separated from the writer’s identity.
