The unresolved nineteenth-century debate--"is rhetoric an art or a science?"--hashindered our attempt to establish an inclusive research paradigm for rhetoric and composition. The newly dominant paradigm is quickly narrowing to prefer the qualitative designs that suit our literary ideals, relieve our math and statistics anxiety, and fulfill political ideologies. Such qualitative work has given us great insight into the mind of the researcher, a stronger voice to the individual, and a powerful tool for groups traditionally oppressed by our field.At the same time, however, our field needs quantitative research that examines the scope of certain issues or that tests the effectiveness of solutions to problems, and we should remain prepared to understand such research from other fields. But the quantitative/qualitative division in composition cannot be healed through "methodological pluralism" or by examining the epistemologies governing those methodological choices.A Contextualist Theory of Epistemic Justification (Annis, 1978) provides a new lens through which we may recontextualize the competing epistemologies our field has outlined, providing a new decision-making framework through which we may appreciate the intersection of research issues (issue/question, purpose, method, and publication) and rhetorical issues (writer, audience, and subject) that form the varied contexts for our work: contexts highlighted in a matrix of questions representing a Contextualist Research Paradigm for Rhetoric and Composition.To illustrate such a paradigm, Eileen Oliver's (1995) "The Writing Quality of Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Graders, and College Freshmen: Does Rhetorical Specification in Writing Prompts Make a Difference?" is reprinted with an interview with Oliver, in which she detailed the context for her study. To further demonstrate a Contextualist Paradigm at work, my own study--"Red Ink / Blue Ink: Does it Really Make a Difference?"--responds to the largely untested anecdotal evidence that discourages writing teachers' use of red pens.A Contextualist Research Paradigm is necessary for composition to heal the artificial divisions between qualitative and quantitative research, to direct our attention fully to context rather than politics, form, and numbers, and to conduct not only the research we like, but also the research we and our students need. / Department of English
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/177075 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Johanek, Cynthia L. |
| Contributors | Ranieri, Paul W. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | viii, 229 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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