Writing for Professional Development: A Book Review

Abstract

Professionals from a variety of fields, ranging from nursing to engineering, write on the job
to communicate effectively in their respective fields. Writing to Learn the Profession and
Learning to Write Professionally are two key approaches that are brought into conversation in
this book. With an audience that includes vocational education teachers, teacher trainers
across the disciplines, professional training programmes, and authors of pre-professional
curricula, the book's subtitle, "Creating a professional identity at work through reflective
writing," could have been a good fit. As part of the latest volume in their Studies in Writing
series, Ortoleva, Bétrancourt, and Billett bring together an international group of scholars to
examine the writing skills and rhetorical sensitivities that students need to develop as they
progress through the stages of their professional development. With a particular emphasis on
vocational education courses in fields ranging from midwifery to baking, this book provides
one of the first comprehensive examinations of what students require, what employers expect,
and how teachers are attempting to assist students in better realising their professional
aspirations through writing.