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.

RE October 20: Three Summaries of Harrison

The Setup

Following the initial posting, some of the class participants provided the following raw content to facilitate the group activity for the evening:

Synopsis

The basic gist of the article is this ...

a rather repetitive statement that writing is context and that the context in organizations is not the same as writing in classroom context.

Most Important Quotes

1. “Writing in organizations differs from that done in classrooms in that, as initially experienced by the writer, the organizational context is unknown” (Harrison, 2004).
2. “It appears that the process of writing in organizational contexts is quite different from what occurs in classroom contexts” (256).
3. “Studying the process of writing as it occurs in organizational life ... might establish more precisely the nature of any interrelationships between organizational processes and composing” (256).

Questions/Specific Topics for Classroom Discussion in October 20

1. How would you respond to Harrison’s own critique of her work in retrospect as to its derivative nature, then concluding, “But with the benefit of advanced age and many subsequent attempts to theorize, I realize now that the primary activities of communication theorists are to derive and synthesize” (255)?
2. What particular strategies might take Harrison’s advice by better equipping, “their students with analytic capabilities that will guide them in this particular writing context” (256)?

The Classroom Interaction

So we had three groups:

1. Real Time Collaborators. Instructed to process and compose online synchronously via GoogleDocs.
2. Bottleneck/Gatekeepers. Instructed to allow one member to type while others contributed verbally.
3. Total Freedom. No constraints on process.

The Actual Outputs

And we had three initial outputs.

Group 1: Real Time Collaborators

Writing takes place in a socially constructed milieu-- often in an organization that is a “culture-like” phenomenon. Therefore, the discipline should rhetorically analyze its exchanges in organizational contexts, using the lenses of “Organization as Systems of Knowledge” and “Organizations as Patterns of Symbolic Discourse” to inform our research, practice, and pedagogy.

... OR IN FRENCH [just for fun] ...

Rédaction a lieu dans un milieu socialement construit - souvent dans une organisation qui est une «culture comme" phénomène. Par conséquent, la discipline devrait rhétorique analyser ses échanges dans des contextes organisationnels, en utilisant des lentilles de "Organisation des systèmes de connaissances et les organisations comme des modèles de discours symbolique" d'informer notre recherche, la pratique et la pédagogie.

Group 2: Gatekeeper/Bottleneck

Context as situation: rhetorical situation doesn’t incorporate what the organization is about

Context as community: encompassing dynamics and rituals and discourse of organization.

Organization as systems knowledge and symbolic patterns

1. Systems of knowledge: evolutionary and social information processing
2. Evolutionary: idea of organization as whole not focused on individual
3. Social Information processing: thinking is linked to action, Analysis of what they think is how they act.

Patterns of symbolic discourse: part of organizations have a defined way of talking about things.

Implications for research: we need to think about organizations when doing research on communication: i.e. don’t look at the document, look at people behind it.

Group 3: Total Freedom

Organizations present specialized contexts different from the classroom. They can be analyzed in terms of culture and rhetorical contexts. Analyzing organizations in this way can illuminate “constructed realities” both in organizations and other social communities. Organizations are rhetorical contexts with their own discourse and epistemologies which are mediated by the culture of the organization. Analyzing organizations also helps writers assign meaning within the context of the organization. Teachers should emphasize the audience and culture within organizational contexts and that (by extension) the analysis is a valuable rhetorical asset to understanding writing in these contexts.

Making Meaning

By comparing and contrasting the processes utilized in and content created by the different composition groups, we sought to thoughtfully analyze and become aware of our own variations in standards of discourse and the implications of these variations in our individual and collective meaning-making processes.

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

Harrison, T. M. (2004). Frameworks for the Study of Writing in Organizational Contexts. In J. Johnson-Eilola & S. A. Selber (Eds.), Central works in technical communication (pp. 255-267). New York: Oxford University Press.