Extended abstract: Professional writing in the arts and media: Reports from the field

Although professional writing research has explored the key role of written communication shaping the American professions, this research focuses almost exclusively on the engineering profession and its workplaces. Inversely, no research investigates professional writing in art and design workplaces such as game development corporations; graphics design firms or radio stations. Furthermore, because the genres of professional writing are tied to specific professional contexts, our knowledge of engineers' writing practices does not automatically transfer to the writing that art and design professionals do. If the National Endowment of the Arts' recent report predicting job growth in the arts relative to other professions is accurate, professional writing research must immediately address the gap in our knowledge of writing in the arts in order to portray a complete and current picture of professional writing in North America [3]. This paper reports on a scholarly and pedagogical work-in-progress designed to solve the two interrelated problems: the research gap in empirical knowledge of creative professionals' writing practices, and the corresponding lack of textbooks and handbooks on this topic.