This past October, the Symposium on Second Language Writing was held at Shandong University, in Jinan, China. The symposium is an annual international conference dedicated to the development of the field of second language writing. The theme of this year’s symposium, “L2 Writing in the Global Context: Represented, Underrepresented, and Unrepresented Voices,” was fully and successfully realized.

Plenary speakers were invited from different parts of the world to talk about the state of second language writing studies in their own country or region. The plenary speakers that spoke on the represented contexts were Tony Silva (the United States), John Bitchener (New Zealand), Alister Cumming (Canada), and Neomy Storch (Australia). The underrepresented voices were spoken for by Junju Wang (China), Yeon Hee Chol (South Korea), Icy Lee (Hong Kong), Yichun Liu (Taiwan), Melinda Reichelt (Germany), and Miyuki Sasaki (Japan). The unrepresented were given voice by Fatima Esseili (Lebanon), Diane Pecorari (Sweden), Lukasz Salski (Poland), and Tetyana Yakhontova (Ukraine).

In addition to the wide coverage of countries and regions, the symposium received more than 240 submissions from all over the world. In the end, the symposium had over 100 concurrent sessions with presenters from more than 20 countries and regions, including Australia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Macau, Madagascar, Malaysia, New Zealand, Qatar, Oman, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and United Arab Emirates. This wide range of presenters brought valuable insights on various topics related to second language writing from all over the world.

Topics discussed at this year’s symposium ranged from computer-mediated communication to writer variables, from curriculum development to writing centers, and from text analysis to corrective feedback. The represented, underrepresented, and unrepresented voices were all fully represented at the symposium. All attendees of the symposium were able to explore, communicate, and share in a professional, scholarly, and friendly environment.

Beyond mere academic communication, this year’s symposium also featured various activities for the attendees to socialize, to renew acquaintances, and to meet new friends. These activities included Chinese tea art performance and other traditional Chinese arts, such as calligraphy, painting, dancing, and traditional Chinese musical performance.

                      Plenary Speakers Learn Traditional Mongolian Dance

Attendees were also able to participate in sightseeing to Mount Tai or Qu Fu, both of which are strong representations of traditional Chinese culture and architecture. Mount Tai, a place of worship for at least 3,000 years, has historical and cultural significance, and Qu Fu is the hometown of Confucius.

Overall, the 2013 Symposium on Second Language Writing was a great success, with many important academic conversations taking place. These conversations have helped to expand the knowledge of the field of second language writing and to set up the 2014 Symposium on Second Language Writing for success. The 2014 symposium will be held at Arizona State University, in the United States, November 13–15, with the theme of “Professionalizing Second Language Writing.” For more information and updates, please visit http://sslw.asu.edu/2014.

Joshua M. Paiz is a PhD student in the English Department at Purdue University. He currently teaches in the composition program and is the content coordinator for the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). His research interests include professional identity and queer issues in TESOL and OWLs for L2 writing support.