ABSTRACT
In some ways it is harder to rewrite than to write; one is constrained by the frame of the original yet there are things which need changing, others to delete, and more to discuss. But while the subject of writing has advanced through research and debate in the seven years since the first edition of this book, much of what we know about it, and about studying it, have remained more or less intact. Analysts have widened the scope of what they study to recognise the role of writing in areas such as conveying expertise and structuring identity, and have acknowledged its importance in fields such as forensic linguistics and rapidly changing internet communications such as blogs, wikis and twittering. Teachers too have moved on, making greater use of genre approaches to writing instruction and bringing computer communication more centrally into their work. Essentially, however, we are still concerned with writers, with readers, and with texts, although these may interact now in very different ways.
