RE October 20: One Summary of Sullivan & Porter

The Classroom Interaction

After the break we decided to return and process the remaining article as one large facilitated group working initially as synchronously composing dyads.

The Actual Output

We had one final collaborative output.

Real Time Collaboration and Synthesis of Dyadic Contributions

Synopsis

The basic gist of the article is this …
Concepts such as “theory,” “practice,” and methodology are socially constructed; therefore, “research methodology should not be something we apply or select so much as something we design out of particular situations and then argue for in our studies” (301).

Defining a research method as theory or practice keeps research in the realm of “academic” (theory) or workplace (practice). The merging of these methodologies should illustrate a symbiotic relationship between the academy and industry. Method is a pattern of action based on observation of theory or context--the pragmatic aspect of life.

Research methodology is (or should be) heuristic, i.e., learning by discovery. Multi-modality serves as a partial answer because theoretically it stitches together the different methodologies in a more comprehensive and iterative research approach. The downside to this is that it can complicate the balance of theory, practice, and methodology by overemphasizing methodology; also, a multiplicity of methodologies limits one’s ability to develop the requisite familiarity for effective use.

The authors are moving away from the binary of theory and practice and instead argue for a praxis where methodology, theory, and practice are equal parts of triangulation.

Methodology itself is also considered theory and because of this it becomes problematized and researchers need to consider how methodology operates in the context of practice and theory.

All of these aspects of the triangulation model should be considered in relation to the ongoing social construction process, which me might call a heuristic. The authors provide a case study which demonstrates the dangers of privileging a specific aspect of the praxis over the other aspects.

Implications for researchers include: more flexible terms for research types or categories, be open to new/different theories of method, be self-critical of the methodologies themselves and how they are used.

Theory, practice and method should be utilized in research methodology, and that rhetoric/argumentation justify using particular methods in particular situations. They warn against leaning too far in one category or the other. They admit that the three categories should not be diametrically opposed, but rather integrated into a whole, and justified by rhetoric.

Noteworthy Quotes

• “We cannot just uncritically accept research methods as given to us in a ‘valid’ form by the social sciences” (312).
• “Theory alone, by its very nature as abstraction, as generalization, cannot account completely for the situational, the specific instance of practice. That is not to dismiss theory, but simply to say that it ought not be perceived as all-determining or all-explaining” (303).
• “A writer can never know precisely what the reader will bring to the communication setting. Here is the limit of theory” (303).
• “The limitation of the practice warrant is the difficulty of arguing the should from the is” (304).
• “Our study of the developing documentation writer demonstrates that we always apply some kind of rhetorical orientation or critical judgement; we always observe practice through the lens of some kind of rhetorical theory, whether we are conscious of it or not” (225)#
• “Theory itself is a type of practice and always already involved in the practices of both the researcher and writer being studied. From the other side, practice cannot be atheoretical, though it can be unconscious of its theory” (306).
• “Methodological rules are socially constructed as well as situationally adjusted as they are invoked” (308).
• “We can accept these frameworks as given by the community or we can argue to the community that one or more particular frameworks, justifiably reshaped by this situation, provide helpful filters/guides for this, and perhaps other, workplace research. Our preferred approach is the second, which we call methodology as praxis” (310).

Issues Addressed/Assertions Made

1. Traditional View
1. Theory explains practice
2. Practice is observed by methodology
2. Proposed View
1. Theory describes (organizes and generalizes) the practice.
2. Theory points to new practices.
3. Practice disciplines the theory
4. Methodology is a dynamic set of heuristic filters through which we view practice
3. Praxis is phronesis: prudential thinking, informed thinking or conscious practice.
4. Research Methodologies
1. Method-Driven Research
   Method must be problematized (choice of method and judgement of quality)
2. Problem-Driven Research
1. Practice
2. Theory
3. Problematized Research
1. Multi-modal
2. Praxis
5. Question the “validity” of accepted research forms. (312)
6. “Approach research as praxis, as a design activity involving the construction of a method worked out from the intersection of theory and situation” (312).

Making Meaning

Well folks, we ran out of time to fully digest the process and the content.

To fully realize the value of these interactions will require participants to process reflectively and post their own observations on their construction of knowledge here in the form of comments. I hope they'll all consider doing so.

References

Sullivan, P., & Porter, J. E. (2004). On Theory, Practice, and Method: Toward a Heuristic Research Methodology for Professional Writing. In J. Johnson-Eilola & S. A. Selber (Eds.), Central works in technical communication (pp. 300-316). New York: Oxford University Press.