Writing Studies Research in Practice

by Nickoson, Lee; Sheridan, Mary P.; Kirsch, Gesa E.

• ISBN13: 9780809331147
• ISBN10: 0809331144
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-08-17
• Publisher: Southern Illinois Univ Pr

Summary

An essential reference for students and scholars exploring the methods and methodologies of writing research. What does it mean to research writing today? What are the practical and theoretical issues researchers face when approaching writing as they do? What are the gains or limitations of applying particular methods, and what might researchers be overlooking? These questions and more are answered by the writing research field's leading scholars in Writing Studies Research in Practice: Methods and Methodologies. Editors Nickoson and Sheridan gather twenty chapters from leaders in writing research, spanning topics from ethical considerations for researchers, quantitative methods, and activity analysis to interviewing and communitybased and Internet research. While each chapter addresses a different subject, the volume as a whole covers the range of methodologies, technologies, and approaches-both old and new-that writing researchers use, and examines the ways in which contemporary writing research is understood, practiced, and represented. An essential reference for experienced researchers and an invaluable tool to help novices understand research methods and methodologies, Writing Studies Research in Practiceincludes established methods and knowledge while addressing the contemporary issues, interests, and concerns faced by writing researchers today.

Author Biography

Lee Nickoson is an associate professor of rhetoric and writing at Bowling Green State University. A coeditor of Feminism and Composition: A Critical Sourcebook, she has published on writing assessment and multimodal teaching and research. Mary P. Sheridan is the author of Girls, Feminism, and Grassroots Literacies: Activism in the GirlZone and a coauthor of Design Literacies: Learning and Innovation in the Digital Age. As a professor of English at the University of Louisville, she teaches and researches issues at the intersection of community literacy, gender studies, and digital media.

Table of Contents

Foreword: New Methodological Challenges for Writing Studies Researchers	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Introduction: Current Conversations on Writing Research	p. 1
Reimagining Traditional Research Practices
Narrative Turns in Writing Studies Research	p. 13
Reseeing and Redoing: Making Historical Research at the Turn of the Millennium	p. 25
Exceeding the Bounds of the Interview: Feminism, Mediation, Narrative, and Conversations about Digital Literacy	p. 36
Analytic Strategies, Competent Inquiries, and Methodological Tensions in the Study of Writing	p. 51
A Complicated Geometry: Triangulating Feminism, Activism, and Technological Literacy	p. 63
Making Ethnography Our Own: Why and How Writing Studies Must Redefine Core Research Practices	p. 73
Reclaiming the Mind: Eco-Cognitive Research in Writing Studies	p. 86
Revisioning Research in Composition
Revisiting Teacher Research	p. 101
Autoethnography in the Study of Multilingual Writers	p. 113
Racial Methodologies for Composition Studies: Reflecting on Theories of Race in Writing Assessment Research	p. 125
Writing Program Research: Three Analytic Axes	p. 140
Institutional Critique in Composition Studies: Methodological and Ethical Considerations for Researchers	p. 158
Longitudinal Writing Research in (and for) the Twenty-First Century	p. 171
Reconceptualizing Methodologies and Sites of Inquiry
Quantitative Methods in Composition Studies: An Introduction to Their Functionality	p. 185
Strategies and Passions in Empirical Qualitative Research	p. 197
Community-Based Research and the Importance of a Research Stance	p. 210
Conducting Writing Research Internationally	p. 220
The Role of Activity Analysis in Writing Research: Case Studies of Emerging Scholarly Communities	p. 231
The Ethics of Conducting Writing Research on the Internet: How Heuristics Help	p. 245
After Words: Postmethodological Musing	p. 261
List of Contributors	p. 271
Index	p. 279
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