Re: WC Research

[00cljohanek@bsuvc.bsu.edu]

Next week, I'll defend my dissertation, "A Contextualist
Research Paradigm for Rhetoric and Composition."  In it,
I do not separate WC research from composition research--
for me, they both inform my work/life.  I agree with
both Harvey and Neal that methods should NEVER guide our
inquiry, though Neuleib and Scharton argue as much in
their chapter of INTERSECTIONS.  Donald Bushman summarized
the CCCC Roundtable (1990) that Neal mentioned--it's in
The WC:  New Directions (Simpson and Wallace).

A most unfortunate hatred for numbers has developed in
our field.  Add to that, a preference for forms that
are more "literary" (storytelling, personal narratives,
ethnography) than the traditional research report, and we
are in a climate that rejects and resents experimental/quantitative
designs, even though they can be ever-so-valuable for
exploring questions in numerous contexts.

For me, CONTEXT is the key.  In my dissertation, I develop
a scheme by which research issues (the question, purpose,
method, publication) intersect with rhetorical issues (writer,
subject, audience) in a matrix-like form that has general
questions that should always guide researchers--questions 
about the research question itself, our own experience, other
available methods/instruments (etc), available literature,
our own limitations/strengths, etc., etc., all focusing
not on politics or numbers vs. narratives or personal preferences,
but on the context and a genuine "desire to know."  For
me, this might be what Aristotle meant by antistrophos:
Rhetoric is the antistrophos to dialectic.

OK, so I'm rambling.  And, yup, I'm nervous as hell about
my upcoming defense, but I'm excited about my project.
I believe it in.  My background is a dual one:  a composition
emphasis as an undergrad English major and a double major
in cognitive/experimental psychology.  (Hello, Judy Kilborn,
at SCSU.)   I'm taking my 4th statistics course this summer, and 
I'm struck by the intensive language study these courses provide 
and even more struck by the different modes of decision-making 
(quite rhetorical-looking in nature) that we keep discussing 
in these classes.  

If we keep limiting our questions to those answered only by
narratives, only through ethnography, etc., we will surely
get nowhere in comp/writing centers.  And our presentation of ourselves
to "others" outside the "business" will be quite poor:  after all,
most personal accounts/stories require that we be insiders 
in order to understand them.

Cindy Johanek
Ball State University
DEFENSE DATE, GOD-HELP-US-ALL: JULY 1, 3:00PM (BALL STATE TIME)  :)
                    


You wrote:  
>
>	Harvey, I'm going to turn your thought-provoking questions back
>at you in a way.  I was reading that you chaired a 1990 4C's session on
>WC Research, and the account of that session sounds quite dynamic with
>lots of hope for the future.  So . . . what, in your view, has taken
>place since then?  You asked, "Given the strengths and limitations and
>unique rituals of the writing center setting, what type of research
>questions most lend themselves to being answered here?"  Have we made
>any progress on figuring out the questions, much less the answers?
>Anybody else care to jump in on this?
>
>	Neal
>
>> Neal Lerner
>> Mass. College of Pharmacy & Allied Health Sciences
>> nlerner@mcp.edu; 617-732-2824
>> 
>> ----------
>> From: 	Harvey_Kail@umit.maine.edu
>> Reply To: 	wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu
>> Sent: 	Friday, June 19, 1998 3:16 PM
>> To: 	wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu
>> Subject: 	Re: WC Research
>> 
>>     	  I  appreciate the comments that have come in so far on
>> conducting research in the Writing Center. I hope there are more as I
>> am finding both solace and inspiration.
>> 	 Neal Learner makes a good point when he says that it shouldn't
>> be the
>> methodology that drives the research but rather the question that is
>> being posed.  What does one want to find out? While I agree with this
>> in principle, in practice I can't help thinking that because I do work
>> everyday (and everyday and everyday) in a writing center, I need to
>> finally develop a research modality that takes into account the unique
>> environment of the writing center itself, with its emphasis on one to
>> one collaborations, on revision, on the processes of academic
>> acculturation, etc.-- events and practices which get repeated over and
>> over and over in front of my face every day.   It seems to me that the
>> question isn't exactly what one wants to know,  but rather what will
>> one's setting most likely permit one to find out. 	Given the
>> strengths
>> and limitations and unique rituals of the writing center setting, what
>> type of research questions most lend themselves to being answered
>> here? 
>> 	 I hope that doesn't sound overly mercenary.  It does seem to
>> me,
>> though, that the question of methodology is inextricably linked to the
>> kind of questions that get asked and that those questions necessarily
>> get shaped by the research setting in which they are enacted.  I feel
>