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July 22, 2006
on methodology
it's a simple question, really: for any given published results-of-study, what did the researcher do? what actions did he/she take to facilitate the answering of questions? how were those actions approached, conceieved-of, connected, contextualized, & framed? through what filters were their answers read, ordered, interpretted, selected-among, and presented?
in many fields, there are lists of terms that each stand for a nest of answers, a nest codified by years of use & thus predictable in its number & arrangement of sticks, its types of building-materials, its likely structural weaknesses, its best weather-patterns for successfully nurturing baby birds within.
in mine, there seems to be an open-ended agreement that we may borrow at will from other people's lists, so long as we apply appropriate qualifiers and read up on what we mean before we just toss the terms like salad. & i'm okay with the theory. but a nice list of potentially felicitous vegetables--you know, the kind that might go nicely with one another, or with a particular bottle of wine--would be handy as hell; having a whole world to rifle through is a little daunting!
and a number of people whose studies i'm thinking of doing things similar to are very murky about explaining the answers to the simple question up top, which causes an excess of the grrr.
i think all published study-results should come w/a few tear-out pages, like in elementary school workbooks, listing/explaining methodological terms applied/decisions made for the project. then i could have a file, like a recipe-box, to choose among browsily, depending on what ingredients are already in the fridge this week.
& that's officially too many metaphors for one post, so i'm going to go glare at another text instead of rattling about the possibility.
Posted by ttobryan at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
as an aside (Thompson's diss)
i have been reading this:
Thompson, Celia Helen. Plagiarism or intertextuality? A study of the politics of knowledge, identity and textual ownership in undergraduate student writing. Thesis. U of Technology, Sydney. 2006.
when it's published/finished/officially sanctioned, i'll make my notes public. meanwhile, treasured committee, trust that i have some. :)
Posted by ttobryan at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2006
welcome me...
"...to a haven given..."
not the work, exactly, but the breezy porch & the laptop back in working order (finally!) & the advisor-meeting on my schedule & the submitted list of starting-point research questions, & the borrowed diss on my coffee-table that i've read most of & haven't even minded...
see? i told you. everything's gonna be fine.
- writers and their texts
- how do more inexperienced academic writers talk/write about their inclusion of outside sources in their work?
- who is considered a "source," and why?
- are any outside works/workers/ideas mentioned that aren't considered sources? if so, how does the writer explain this distinction?
- how do more inexperienced academic writers talk/write about the influence of other thinkers & writers on their work?
- what influence can writers identify within the text of their writing?
- what influence can writers describe that isn't textually evident to readers?
- what textual features characterize more inexperienced academic writers' use of sources & treatment of external influence in academic papers?
- how are sources introduced, cited, contextualized, etc. within the writing sample?
- if other external influences are evident, by what evidence is this so?
- how do more experienced academic writers talk/write about their inclusion of outside sources in their work?
- who is considered a "source," and why?
- are any outside works/workers/ideas mentioned that aren't considered sources? if so, how does the writer explain this distinction?
- how do more experienced academic writers talk/write about the influence of other thinkers & writers on their work?
- what influence can writers identify within the text of their writing?
- what influence can writers describe that isn't textually evident to readers?
- what textual features characterize more experienced academic writers' use of sources & treatment of external influence in academic papers?
- how are sources introduced, cited, contextualized, etc. within the writing sample?
- if other external influences are evident, by what evidence is this so?
- educational practices
- what specific lessons, lectures, or educational practices do interviewed writers remember regarding the direct use (quoting, summarizing, or paraphrasing) of sources in academic writing?
- what specific lessons, lectures, or educational practices do interviewed writers remember regarding the indirect influence of other thinkers or writers on their work?
- what general educational or cultural explanations do writers offer as rationale for their decisions regarding source-inclusion and influence, if/when they don't recall specific practices?
- do—and if so, how do—the responses of more experienced writers differ in a patterned way from the responses of more inexperienced academic writers?
- beliefs about collaboration and authorship
- who does each writer believe "authored" the text shared with the interviewer?
- when introduced to the speculative premise that the originators of source materials or acknowledged influences may be considered "coauthors" or "collaborators" in the creation of the text, how does the writer respond?
- what rationale does each writer give for his/her response?
- for each of these questions, do—and if so, how do—the answers of more experienced writers differ in a patterned way from the responses of more inexperienced academic writers?
Posted by ttobryan at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)