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August 13, 2006
rymer (in jolliffe) quickly [methodology]
Rymer, Jone. "Scientific Composing Processes: How Eminent Scientists Write Journal Articles." Advances in Writing Research Volume Two: Writing in Academic Disciplines. Ed. David A. Jolliffe. Ablex: Norwood, NJ. 1988. 211-50.
methods: "this investigation of scientists' production of primary scientific discourse used two research methods: (a) interviews of several scientists to build a framework to conduct and interpret in-depth case studies, while identifying subjects for composing aloud; and (b) case studies of some scientists from the panel writing journal articles while composing aloud….the scientists were interviewed for 1 to 3 hours using an audiotaped open-questionnairre method. the conversations were guided by a set of questions focusing on attitudes toward writing, individual composing procedures, and criteria for writing scientific papers, but also dealing with contextual influences, collaborative authorship arrangements, and training graduate students to write. each scientist discussed his work (all the subjects are male) by showing drafts and finished products of journal articles in progress or recently completed. all the scientists were asked to participate in a case study using the method of composing aloud" (217). & only 1 of them actually ended up able to do the compose-aloud-simultaneous-to-writing thing; the others found it too inhibitive or difficult or frustrating, which means that you can only get writing data, using this method, from writers who can do both things—hardly representative of the mental processes of all writers! (218).
Posted by ttobryan at August 13, 2006 09:31 AM