ABSTRACT
In the contemporary neoliberal environment, writing is readily recognized as a commercially useful skill and service. Thus, along with other social practices, writing may be increasingly evaluated in terms of its instrumental properties and potential: as a quantitatively assessable function, and as a means of achieving measurable results. This perspective on writing may be further reinforced by means of various writing technologies, such as grammar and editing software, whose use within and outside the academy is now widespread. Taking a critical cosmopolitan perspective, the chapter argues that the concentration on the mechanical and measurable aspects of writing encouraged by the use and prevalence of such technologies demands that we pay continued and careful attention to writing’s qualitative—social, ethical, rhetorical and discursive—dimensions. Drawing on the example of grammar and editing software Grammarly, the chapter considers a cosmopolitan orientation to writing as a challenge to potentially reductive, largely technical assessments of its value and significance as social practice.
