Week 12

While reading Marshall and Rossman for this week, I thought about my own struggles to map-out and determine the scope of the project I'm proposing this semester. I know that looking at how marketing discourse affects interactions in the writing center will be a huge undertaking that will take a few years to really understand, study, and write about, especially if I plan to incorporate some grounded theory into this research, but how do I define the technical perimeters of my research so that everything runs smoothly and efficiently? I'm used to only taking myself and chosen texts and secondary research into consideration, because I come from a literature background. The expectations of this research are much different and less isolated.

I know that I will be relying a lot on secondary research for this project as well, but because I will be conducting interviews, etc, I know that I will have to be mindful of many other factors that come into play. I actually do not know what my budget concerns should be, or what personnel to consult, for instance, other than fellow writing center administrators and tutors. And because I foresee this project as a potential dissertation topic, I know that I will have to consider factors such as personal costs. Thus, I find myself becoming increasingly overwhelmed. I feel as though I have to be prepared to account for every variable, each obstacle, and be quick to come up with a Plan B if things fall through.

There's also the matter of considering connections or lack thereof between myself and my human participants. While reading Barton, I find myself questioning my "closeness" to the project and the participants; I'm also thinking about some of my CITI training and issues of convenient populations. I'm interested in writing center pedagogy and first-year composition studies, but how much does my interest stem from an intimacy with those communities and the problems they face? Naturally, that's a leading question; it's easy for anyone to become interested in doing research in areas with which they are intimate. But while reading for this week, I've thought about how collaborative research is potentially problematic. In other words, in what ways can we safe-guard ourselves against navel-gazing and doing research that affords us the opportunity to self-congratulate? Part of that anxiety comes from my identity as a newbie researcher. I am uncomfortable and, frankly, scared. I want to do research that is exciting to me and to the field. How distant should I be from the topic in order for there to still be excitement, along with rigor? The correspondence between the two learners at the end of Chapter 9 in Marshall and Rossman was actually refreshing to read for some of these reasons. Issues of time and narrowing the focus of research questions are problems I've been encountering. I'm still struggling with knowing "my place" as well as whether what I'm asking is worthwhile and researchable.

With regards to King's questions of ethics and closeness, I suppose I struggle with some of those dynamics as well: for instance, I appreciate his ah-ha moment on page 485, that the researcher tends to have "dialectical relationship" with one's research. I feel very close to my research interests, as if they are a part of me, and I have no clue whether that's a "dangerous" prospect, although I do tend to think that we can't help but become intimately involved; that intimacy begins and ends during different stages of one's research, but I think it's impossible to conduct worthwhile research while also being completely detached. One has to at least be in constant dialogue with one's topics, participants, etc, in order to get anything meaningful out of the exchange. How close is too close, however? That is the main question. I know with a reasonable amount of certainty that a Vulcan-like absence of emotion does not inherently make a researcher's undertakings more ethical. But what about the flip-side; how can a researcher prevent himself or herself from getting too attached, especially with regards to long-term studies?

I know that this entry had more questions than usual; I guess the readings brought up more questions than answers for me. These matters will probably continue to be interesting to me as I continue my research journey.