OVERVIEW

Why another book on research and writing? The short answer: the approach presented here is not addressed well elsewhere. Most texts on research lay out the step-by-step decisions starting with identification of the problem. Or they review the theories and methods involved in various kinds of research. Texts on writing provide guidance and exercises to improve your writing skills. In contrast, this book presents frameworks and tools to help you become more engaged in research and writing.

Suppose you have a specific question or a general issue that seems worth investigating. Now reflect on your level of engagement with that research. Is it important to you personally? Does the inquiry really flow from your own aspirations (as against being directed to meet the expectations of others—advisors, funders, trendsetters in the field)? Will it help you take action to change your work, life, or wider social arrangements? Will it help you build relationships with others in such action, in pursuing the inquiry effectively, and in communicating the outcomes?

If you've answered yes in each instance, that is good to hear given that these questions are not emphasized in other research and writing texts. If you answered no or maybe not to any of the questions, consider this analogy. For a car engine to move the wheels, the gears need to be engaged with each other. Similarly, for your research and writing to move along well, you need to align your questions and ideas, your aspirations, your ability to take or influence action, and your relationships with other people. These concepts can be shortened to head, heart, hands, and human connections. The frameworks and tools in this book can help you bring these 4H's into alignment. That is what we mean by engagement and by inviting readers to take yourself seriously.


One of us, Peter, has been teaching in interdisciplinary and non-traditional college programs since the mid 1980s. The approach presented in this book originated in a workshop-style research course in which his undergraduate students investigated issues about the social impact of science that concerned them, meaning they wanted to know more about it or advocate a change. The approach has been further developed through Peter's subsequent work in a mid-career personal and professional development graduate program where he has advised well over one hundred Master's students undertaking their final “synthesis” projects and has taught three research and writing courses that culminate in those synthesis projects. Students have brought to these courses very diverse interests and concerns—from demonstrating the routinisation of prenatal ultrasound screening to preparation for finding work as an editorial cartoonist; from adult education for low-income women to improving communication in the hospital operating room. (Jeremy was one of the mid-career Master's students; his interests at the time are illustrated in part 3.) Given the range of projects undertaken by students, the courses could not focus on specialized knowledge in any one discipline, nor could students expect the instructor to be an expert in all of their areas of interest. Addressing the challenge of supporting students with diverse projects to take themselves seriously has led to the development or refinement of many tools and processes. (Peter's pedagogical journey is captured in a series of snapshots that make up, Teaching and Learning for Reflective Practice, the first section of Part 4.) The five innovations to follow lie at the heart of what researchers or researchers-in-training will find assembled in this book.

Five innovations

1. A framework of ten phases of research and engagement that you move through, then revisit in light of two forms of feedback: responses by advisors and peers to the writing and oral reports you share with them; and what you learn using tools from the other phases. This sequence and iteration helps you as a researcher define projects in which you take your personal and professional aspirations seriously. (Doing so may mean letting go of preconceptions of what you ought to be doing.) These phases are presented in Part 1. Descriptions of the tools and processes, given in alphabetical order, make up Part 2. Part 3 includes illustrations of their use in the development of a project Jeremy undertook on engaging adult learning communities in using the principles of theater arts to prepare them to create social change.

2. A cycles and epicycles framework for Action Research that emphasizes reflection and dialogue through which you revisit and revise the ideas you have about what action is needed and about how to build a constituency to implement the change. Such reflection and dialogue adds “epicycles” to the traditional Action Research cycle (i.e., problem-> data-> action-> evaluate outcomes->next steps...). The cycles and epicycles framework is presented in overview in Part 1, which includes a list of tools useful for the reflection and dialogue, constituency building, evaluation and inquiry, and planning that contribute to Action Research. Descriptions of the tools are also included in Part 2. Part 3 includes excerpts from a second project of Jeremy's, involving collaborative play among teachers in curriculum planning, which illustrate the framework by conveying the experience of someone learning to use it.

3. Dialogue around written work: Written and spoken comments on each installment of a project and on successive revision in response to the comments. Dialogue creates the chance for you and your advisors (or instructors) to recognize and understand perspectives separate from your own, and then revisit your ideas by putting alternatives in tension with them. If your advisors assemble a portfolio of your installments and comments, they can look back over them when they interact with you. This makes it more likely—even when they are not an expert in your project's topic—that the unfolding dialogue helps you bring to the surface, form, and articulate your ideas as a researcher. Dialogue around written work is evident in the illustrations in Part 3 and discussed further in the snapshots on Teaching and Learning for Reflective Practice in Part 4. (You might choose to read that section first if, before jumping into the practical details, you want to have a view of Peter's development as a college teacher and the journey through which the tools and processes have emerged.)

4. Making space for taking initiative in and through relationships: Don't expect to learn or change without: negotiating power and standards (a “vertical” relationship); building peer (or “horizontal”) relationships; exploring difference; acknowledging that affect is involved in what you're doing and not doing (and in how others respond to that); developing autonomy (so that you are neither too sensitive nor impervious to feedback); and clearing away distractions from other sources (present and past) so you can “be here now.” These aspects of teaching-learning relationships do not always pull you in the same direction, so it is difficult to attend to all six aspects simultaneously. Instead, expect to jostle among them. (The idea that you keep many considerations in mind, but focus on a few at any given time informs the book's approach as a whole; see the discussion in Part 4 of Teaching and Learning for Reflective Practice.)


5. Creative habits for synthesis of theory and practice: A framework for that point in your life when you take up the challenge of writing something that synthesizes your theory and practice. Everyone has a voice that should be heard. The creative habits introduced in Part 1 and described in Part 2, together with the other frameworks and practices above, constitute a structure of support—including support from yourself—that enables you to find your voice, clarify and develop your thoughts, and express that voice in a completed written product.

How to use this book?

Like a field-book, it is something you might simply refer to from time to time, looking for tools and processes to adopt or adapt in your current endeavors. (For terms given in Bold Face or Capitalised readers can find details in the relevant section of Part 1, Phases, Cycles and Habits, or in the entries that make up Part 2, Tools and Processes.) We hope, however, that at some point you decide to move systematically through the Phases, Cycles, or Habits for Synthesis. These frameworks are structures intended to guide readers—whether you are a college student or a more experienced professional—as you develop as researchers, writers, and agents of change. (The frameworks also lend themselves to adaptation by teachers and advisors designing semester-length courses.)

Of course, the kind of help derived from the book depends on where in the spectrum of researcher or researcher-in-training you lie. Just as some children learn to read with little instruction, there are some students who have little trouble learning to define a hypothesis that can be studied with the methods of their discipline and are comfortable using the standard writing conventions and publication format to report on research. If you operate at that end of the spectrum, you may view the integration of the 4H's that emerges through the five frameworks and practices above as a way to help you branch out in new directions and to avoid simply continuing along previous lines. However, perhaps you are at the other end of the spectrum—you may feel alienated from the expectations of any one discipline and struggle to complete your research and writing assignments. If so, view this book as a way to keep your eye not on the supposed prize of the completed project, but on the possibility of developing a project that engages you. To find such a project you need to push the expectations of others aside for long enough to explore how to connect your head with your heart, to give voice to your aspirations, to build connections with others and to change your work, lives, and wider social arrangements.

Then again, perhaps you lie in between these two poles—you might be a diligent student or researcher who eventually meets disciplinary standards, but you ask for more input in generating research questions and editing written work than your advisors like and take longer than everyone had hoped. You may be susceptible to doubt and procrastination—am I really doing something worthwhile for society and for myself? If this picture fits, you might pay more attention to the 4H's as a way to become more confident and comfortable about the directions of research and engagement that you choose. Wherever you lie in the range of students and researchers, the variety of tools for research and writing presented here constitute an invitation to you to take yourself seriously.

There are, of course, many more research tools and processes than are included in this book. The Connections and Extensions that make up Part 4 provide some entry points for students and teachers to explore the insights, experiences, and information from a wider world of research, writing, and engagement in change. An Internet search of syllabi for research courses will yield texts that lay out the steps, decisions, and theories involved in research in any given field. This book cannot substitute for the knowledge, perspectives, and debates in specific fields. That said, our approach can serve as a valuable complement to specialized texts, providing a scaffolding for you to explore new directions of wholehearted engagement with others—and with yourself.