Scholarship has shown that writing groups are important sites of authority negotiation for student writers, yet little empirical research has examined how groups negotiate authority through conversation or how these negotiations influence students’ developing expertise. Drawing on observations and interviews of an undergraduate thesis and a graduate dissertation writing group, I use the concept of “presentification” to analyze conversational moments in which group members referenced advisors, “making present” advisor authority to influence group collaborations. Specifically, I analyze these moments to show how writing groups can serve as low-stakes communities in which students negotiate their emerging sense of authority. I found that whereas less experienced writers looked to advisors to solve writing problems and used advisor authority to stand in for disciplinary expertise, more experienced writers voiced advisor guidance to help pose writing problems and negotiate their own stance as disciplinary experts. This study thus theorizes one process through which student writers negotiate emerging authority across sites of literate practice and in collaboration with others who may not themselves be members of the same disciplinary community.

奖学金表明，写作小组是学生作家进行权威谈判的重要场所，但很少有实证研究研究小组如何通过对话来谈判权威或这些谈判如何影响学生的发展专长。通过对本科论文和研究生论文写作小组的观察和访谈，我使用“表现”的概念来分析对话时刻，其中小组成员参考了顾问，“使当下”顾问权威影响了小组合作。具体来说，我分析了这些时刻，以显示写作小组如何可以充当低风险社区，让学生在此交流他们新兴的权威感。我发现，经验不足的作家会寻求顾问来解决写作问题，并利用顾问的权威来代表学科专业知识，而经验丰富的作家则表达了顾问指导，以帮助提出写作问题并就自己作为学科专家的立场进行谈判。因此，这项研究从理论上推论了一个过程，在该过程中，学生作家跨文化实践场所并与本身可能不是同一学科团体成员的其他人合作，谈判新兴的权威。