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Argues for an eclectic and pragmatic model of academic development. Such a model encourages inquiry into, and conversations about, academic problems and practices. The intention is to produce more or less useful, though tentative, suggestions for action and intervention. These would reflect Rorty’s pragmatic rationale for “nonideological, compromising, reformist muddling through”, or what Dewey called “experimentalism”. Examines each main term: “towards”, “pragmatic”, “scholarship”, and “academic development”. For example, “pragmatic” is characterised as wanting to promote a liberal, democratic, consensual, just, and even a Utopian society. “Scholarship” is examined as a broad conception following Boyer. “Academic development” is viewed as promoting useful (rather than, say, true or correct or best) approaches to teaching and learning, as encouraging experiments and inquiries, as being more anti‐managerial than managerial, as arguing for a conversational and contestational approach, and as claiming only “tentative responses, possible readings and suggested ideas for action and intervention”.

Outlines a series of initiatives at both national and institutional levels which suggest that British higher education is becoming more serious about improving the quality of university teaching. National initiatives include the Teaching Quality Assessment exercise, the Teaching and Learning Technology Programme and the Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning. The establishment of the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education is also briefly highlighted. At the institutional level initiatives include the creation of more effective units or centres to promote learning and teaching, many of which intend to offer teacher development programmes accredited by the new Institute for Learning and Teaching. Such units also provide a valuable range of workshops, consultancy and project support in order to help universities improve their understanding of the practice and the theory of teaching in higher education. Many such units also promote research, especially action research, into university teaching and learning.

This paper seeks to consider whether academic writing should be regarded as knowledge in the making and why all such writing should be continuously challenged.

The approach is that of a reflective discussion which considers academic writing in context, knowledge, reflectiveness and helping others to contest academic writing.

The paper concludes with the view that all academic writing and concept‐mongering are properly open to rigorous challenge.

The paper is limited by its presentation of one writer's stance or point of view. Some may also consider this a strength.

Academic developers and those interested in helping train academic writers especially, but not exclusively, at the postgraduate level should find the ideas presented useful sources for further conversations.

The main value of the paper is that it summarizes a view of academic writing not as objective or neutral but as personal stance and counter‐stance.

The purpose of this paper is to present pragmatism as a useful way for supervisors to help their research students become effective research writers.

I first provide a brief overview of pragmatism, paying special attention to key figures such as John Dewey and Richard Rorty. Second, I suggest ways in which pragmatist supervisors might help research students improve as research writers by focusing on a set of issues including developing an andragogical relationship, adopting a pragmatist approach to ethics and discussing writing styles.

Pragmatism is not offered as an approach which must necessarily be adopted by supervisors but, rather, as a useful set of resources for them to use as they try to help doctoral students develop as thesis/research writers.

Pragmatism is rarely, if ever, discussed as a potentially fruitful and valuable way of helping students develop as doctoral writers.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a reflective essaying model as a useful way of encouraging learning in higher education. It aims to define reflective essaying as the free and serious play of mind on an interesting topic in an attempt to learn.

Reflective essaying is first introduced as a unifying concept in the model. Second, the model is introduced and justified especially in connection with De Montaigne's invention of the essai as a process of trying out opinions and testing responses. Third, the role of teachers as essaying mentors is discussed. Fourth, mentoring for essaying is examined as a learning transaction which exemplifies Dewey's transactional theory of experience and knowing.

Reflective essaying is promoted as an important way of letting students try to learn. Reflective mentors should promote student learning through reflective essaying which would encourage students to develop their own criticality.

The paper has implications for both teachers and students. Teachers are urged to become more like mentors and less like didactic instructors. As mentors they should be encouraging students to see academic writing as trying out, as essaying, as experimenting with, and as learning through the ideas and materials they reflect upon.

The paper is original in its approach in that it draws on a wide range of historical and contemporary sources on essaying in order to re‐evaluate and resurrect essaying as an experimental process of learning.

Ten strategies are offered as collectively making a case for an educational conception of professional development in higher education. These strategies, it is argued, should help the system to resist the various forms of academic drift that are discernible, and especially those described as “research drift” and “teaching drift”, which could, unless stemmed, lead to a fragmentation of higher education. Educational development is also promoted as a set of conditions and as a series of strategies which could help higher education institutions counter the deleterious effects of “managerial shift” which is characterised as a more or less deliberate attempt to move universities away from the values of collegiality towards those of a contrasting ideology which strongly features bureaucracy and efficiency. By adopting an educational approach to professional development, higher education institutions would be helping to establish themselves more effectively as learning organisations and would be contributing to the Dearing aim of creating a learning society.

The purpose of this paper is, first, to provide a brief account of the PhD by published work focusing especially on quality assurance issues such as eligibility of candidates, the nature of the submission itself, supervision and assessment procedures. Second, it seeks to offer a discussion of the criteria to be met by candidates in writing a critical appraisal as a central feature of the submission.

The approach taken is that of an analytical, conceptual and discursive essay.

There is still a lack of commonality in higher education about the nature of the PhD by published work. One way of gaining greater commonality would be to strengthen the use of the critical appraisal as an academic text which also should be required to meet the admittedly problematical standards of publishability.

The paper's main limitation is that many of its ideas and much of its information are derived from sources within the UK's higher education sector. Nevertheless the issues raised should have relevance to practice in other systems.

A case is made for the usefulness of the PhD by published work as an important route for achieving doctorateness especially when the critical appraisal is given greater priority and supervisory support.

Papers discussing the use and value of the PhD by published work are still relatively rare in academic journals. The emphasis on the critical appraisal in this paper is an original contribution to the debate.

This paper seeks to consider whether the notion of authenticity is useful or meaningful in the context of developing academics as writers.

The approach taken is that of a reflective essay. Recent texts on authenticity in higher education are examined whilst a transactional theory of writing is also considered as a potentially valuable way of helping develop academic writers.

The tentative conclusions reached include the desirability of moving away from the concept of authenticity as an ideal in academic writing and towards the notion of developing academics as mature or even expert writers.

The main limitation of this paper is that it is merely an essay. It is one researcher's attempt to analyse a difficult conceptual issue and, as such, only provides a provisional analysis, not a final analysis. Other scholars using different sources may well come to different conclusions. But, at least, this essay is a contribution to the conversation about how academics might be helped to develop as writers.

There are at least two: a move away from a somewhat metaphysical conception of academic writing towards a more practical approach; and the potential usefulness of adopting a transactional theory which directly links reading and writing.

The main value of the paper is that it offers a critique of some current views of authenticity in higher education and it suggests and outlines the usefulness of a Deweyan or transactional theory of writing for higher education.