Educating doctoral writers at the intersection of industry and academia

Other conference contribution, 2024

The objective of this roundtable is to generate discussion around the writing challenges that industrial and professional doctoral students face during their education, and identify pedagogical practices that can support these doctoral candidates. Although universities still generate discipline-focused research, a great number of new programs and research directions embrace the idea that universities should prepare the workforce of the future, a workforce that can collaborate with colleagues from different disciplinary backgrounds and colleagues working in industry, to solve problems that impact society (Sarrico, 2022). This vision has resulted in an increasing number of doctoral students with one foot in the professional world: either they are returning to university from a professional career, or they are a doctoral student combining a professional job with a PhD, partially funded by industrial actors. Research on doctoral writing has identified a need for a broader range of communication skills in doctoral students, and a greater variety of learning pathways (Inouye, & McAlpine, 2022; Negretti et al. 2023; McAlpine, Castelló, & Pyhältö, 2020). However, very little research has examined the role of writing pedagogy in doctoral education, and how it is adapting (or not) to this new state of affairs. At this roundtable, we will discuss questions such as: who are industrial/professional doctoral students writing for? What kind of challenges do they face? What kind of pedagogical interventions exist today that target the needs of this population, and what type of interventions would be effective? In sum, what kind of writing research is needed to meet this transformation in doctoral education?