ABSTRACT
We have embraced the term nonacademic writing long before we have understood it. We have taught nonacademic writing long before we have studied it. Just as we design and use terms before we fully understand them, knowledge about nonacademic writing has traveled through accomplished practitioners in business, self-government, industry, and education. Depending on the discipline, teaching nonacademic discourse represents participation (Stotsky, chap. 10), liberation (Selfe & Selfe, chap. 14), oppression (Allen & Thompson, chap. 8), or enculturation (Winsor, chap. 7). Depending on the context, nonacademic discourse meets the needs of industry (Tebeaux, chap. 3), students (Winsor, chap. 7), publishers (Herndl, chap. 2), theorists (Bonk, Reynolds, & Medury, chap. 12), employees (Hansen, chap. 13; Selber, McGavin, Klein, & Johnson-Eilola, chap. 11), or educators (Burnett, chap. 6). In any case, nonacademic writing is surrounded by understanding and confusion, recognition and reduction, openness and surveillance, ownership and control, connections and boundaries.
