Higher Education Drafting Practices in Professional Communication and Identity Formation

Terri Grant 
(School of Management Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa)

Abstract: This article demonstrates the usefulness of introducing draft planning devices such as topic outlines to help students crystallize their thinking and deliver better constructed and balanced final reports to real-life clients. This topic outlining exercise is used on a professional communication course offered to senior students in a commerce domain in tertiary education. The course is embedded within an environmental scenario which provides the context and backdrop to all communication practices in and out of the classroom. It aims to show how authorial stance and modality or “truth value” cum credibility are instantiated through student products and processes and how their design choices contribute to their growing professional identities in higher education and beyond.

Key words: professional communication and identity, sustainability, topic outlines, authorial stance and modality, higher education