Editing Writing (section)

== Contemporary uses ==
Some professions are typically associated with writing, such as literary authors, journalists, and technical writers, but writing is pervasive in most modern forms of work, civic participation, household management, and leisure activities.{{sfnp|Smith|2001|p=160}}

=== Business and finance ===
{{See also|Professional writing|Professional communication}}
Writing permeates everyday commerce. For example, in the course of an afternoon, a wholesaler might receive a written inquiry about the availability of a product line, then communicate with suppliers and fabricators through work orders and purchase agreements, correspond via email to affirm shipping availability with a [[drayage]] company, write an invoice, and request proof of receipt in the form of a written signature. At a much larger scale, modern systems of finances, banking, and business rest on many forms of written documents{{snd}}including written regulations, policies, and procedures; the creation of reports and other monitoring documents to make, evaluate, and provide accountability for decisions and operations; the creation and maintenance of records; internal written communications within departments to coordinate work; written communications that comprise work products presented to other departments and to clients; and external communications to clients and the public.{{sfnp|Yates|1989}}{{page needed|date=June 2023}}{{sfnp|Smart|2006}}{{page needed|date=June 2023}} Business and financial organizations also rely on many written legal documents, such as contracts, reports to government agencies, tax records, and accounting reports.{{sfnp|Devitt|1991|pp=336–357}} Financial institutions and markets that hold, transmit, trade, insure, or regulate holdings for clients or other institutions are particularly dependent on written records (though now often in digital form) to maintain the integrity of their roles.{{sfnp|Yates|2005}}{{page needed|date=June 2023}}

=== Governance and law ===
Many modern systems of government are organized and sanctified through written [[constitution]]s at the national and sometimes state or other organizational levels. Written rules and procedures typically guide the operations of the various branches, departments, and other bodies of government, which regularly produce reports and other documents as work products and to account for their actions. In addition to [[legislature]]s that draft and pass laws, these laws are administered by an [[executive branch]], which can present further written regulations specifying the laws and how they are carried out.{{sfnp|Kerwin|Furlong|2019}}{{page needed|date=May 2023}} Governments at different levels also typically maintain written records on citizens concerning identities, life events such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces, the granting of licenses for controlled activities, criminal charges, traffic offences, and other penalties small and large, and tax liability and payments.{{cn|date=May 2025}}

=== Science and scholarship ===
Research undertaken in [[academic discipline]]s is typically published as articles in journals or within book-length [[monograph]]s. Arguments, experiments, observational data, and other evidence collated in the course of research is represented in writing, and serves as the basis for later work. Data collection and drafting of [[manuscript]]s may be supported by grants, which usually require proposals establishing the value of such work and the need for funding.{{sfnp|Tardy|2003|pp=7–36}} The data and procedures are also typically collected in [[lab notebook]]s or other preliminary files.{{sfnp|Latour|Woolgar|1986}}{{page needed|date=June 2023}} [[Preprint]]s of potential publications may also be presented at academic or disciplinary conferences or on publicly accessible web servers to gain peer feedback and build interest in the work. Prior to official publication, these documents are typically read and evaluated by [[peer review]] from appropriate experts, who determine whether the work is of sufficient value and quality to be published.{{sfnp|Hyland|2004|pp=1–19}}

Publication does not establish the claims or findings of work as being authoritatively true, only that they are worth the attention of other specialists. As the work appears in review articles, handbooks, textbooks, or other aggregations, and others cite it in the advancement of their own research, does it become codified as contingently reliable knowledge.{{sfnp|Bazerman|1988}}

=== Journalism ===
{{Main|Journalism}}

News and news reporting are central to citizen engagement and knowledge of many spheres of activity people may be interested in about the state of their community, including the actions and integrity of their governments and government officials, economic trends, natural disasters and responses to them, international geopolitical events, including conflicts, but also sports, entertainment, books, and other leisure activities. While news and newspapers have grown rapidly from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, the changing economics and ability to produce and distribute news have brought about radical and rapid challenges to journalism and the consequent organization of citizen knowledge and engagement.{{sfnp|Conboy|2007|pp=201–216}}{{sfnp|Perrin|2013}}{{page needed|date=October 2024}} These changes have also created challenges for [[journalism ethics]] that have been developed over the past century.{{sfnp|Pavlik|2001|p=82}}

=== Education and educational institutions ===
Formal education&nbsp;is the social context most strongly associated with the learning of writing, and students may carry these particular associations long after leaving school.{{sfnp|Wingate|2012|pp=145–154}} Alongside the writing that students read (in the forms of textbooks, assigned books, and other instructional materials as well as self-selected books) students do much writing within schools at all levels, on subject exams, in essays, in taking notes, in doing homework, and in [[Writing assessment|formative and summative assessments]]. Some of this is explicitly directed toward the learning of writing, but much is focused more on subject learning.{{sfnp|Klein|Arcon|Baker|2016|pp=245–246}}{{sfnp|Williams|Beam|2019|pp=227–242}}