History Bump

For those grouping in the cluster, I particularly keyed into the descriptions of method that were similar to my own, most of which involved archival study of texts, though in various ways. Derek's post about the book on Buck's work, Kelly's post on Adams' book, Denise's post on Parks' book, Jen's post on Brody, and my own post on Goggin all jumped to mind for the use of textual analysis. There is certainly a trend in going back to look at primary texts and then codify them along certain lines to demonstrate their impact on the field and also the cultural conditions into which these texts were created. So that's one place to start if you all haven't already begun and moved passed that.

On a tangent: yesterday KRP and I were musing about whether or not the application of theory constitutes a method/methodology. Is a feminist reading of a text a method for discovering something about that text and the time in which it was created? Maybe there is a distinction between research method and theoretical method? I dunno, just some thoughts floating.

KRP?


An interesting tangent, one worth following (even though we'll probably never reach closure on it). First, though, let's work with your initial paragraph. So we've got textual analysis as a category, and Campbell, Adams, Parks, Brody, and Goggin all use that method. What other methods have been identified in the reports?

I tend to think of theory as more of an explanatory tool for the world or a lens through which we develop the tools for understanding the world. I suppose that is a method in its own right, but I find that within that method, the theorists I have read, have used various other "methods" to explain their thoughts. Theory is always grounded in something, it seems to me. And how we deal with that something is largely dependent on the theory, but the thing also influences the theory. So here we are again . . . which came first the theory or the thing?

Define for me when the reading, thinking about, and selection of elements from primary sources is, and when it isn't, textual analysis. My instinct is that textual analysis *qua method* or
*qua methodology* should be something specific and distinct,
or else it is what all writers in history do and so what?
clo

What other methods have been identified in the reports?

other methods... does interview for the introduction count?

Becky,

Kendall is KRP

I think interview counts, as does the biographical info that seems to crop up in some of these (mine contained several biographical forays into the editors and contributors to the major journals of the field).

Carolyn, you've lost me. I'm don't understand what your question is.

Carolyn, please don't answer Ty's question right now.

My question is when textual analysis stops being a name of what you do whenever you read and write about a prompt, and becomes a method, or a methedology if it rises to that.
clo

Shoot, sorry, your post didn't show before I commented.
clo

Yes, interview is a method. But it seems to get a bit strange because then what do you do with the information? Do you analyze it as text to suss out the historical and social information from it? Do you let it stand alone and let the reader do that work? It seems as if Carolyn may be on to something with the textual analysis as a (if not the) core method, but what becomes interesting is how that method gets employed . . . through what lens and assumptions. This is where White can be beneficial, I think.

All right (she said, with some frustration): we've been in class for an hour and we've identified two methods in the texts you've reviewed: textual analysis and interviews. Would someone like to name a few more methods that were discovered? And would someone please begin listing which texts use which methods?

we're having a chat about this. let me put up part of what we've done so far...

biography
statistics
ethnography

Would it be worth noting what specific types of projects come under the larger headings? That is, I see practices that seem to fit into broader categories (e.g. Interviews, ethnographies, participant obervations are all qualitative research methods; textual analysis/archival work seems to encompass everything from reading mission statements to economic records).

ewidem: Where should we begin?
chrisageyer: how about the method
terms from the various postings?
chrisageyer: I don't even know what that means, exactly, but know you smart folk can help me.
tyratae: archive (term 1). lots and lots of things are archives. what's NOT an archive? (like, when we do scholarly work, we're always having to account for others' scholarly work, so we're always digging in journals, etc. & isn't that all archival too?
tyratae: other peoples' terms, or white's terms?
chrisageyer: other people's. I think we're supposed to be looking for key words about the "methods" or "methodologies" people identified in their reading (not white, the other reading)
tyratae: i tried to list *lots* of them for north, b/c he does & b/c carolyn asked me to.
tyratae: we're looking (at chris's behest) for some sort of commonality among methodological terms in the books people read.
Kaconca: thanks for the invite
elisamarie1: so far, i've noticed that most of the books seems to have an archivalfeel.
tyratae: that's what i was saying too--that means we're both smart! :)
chrisageyer: that seems to be the key posting so far.
Kaconca: so most of this is textual analysis
Kaconca: exactly
chrisageyer: yeah but the whole field is about archival work, isn't it? I mean how much of the stuff we've read in any course is something other than archival or textual analysis?
tyratae: okay, so next question--what of what people put up is NOT archival?
tyratae: what other types of stuff are we seeing as options, even if not-much-taken-up ones?
tysoffice: biographical.
chrisageyer: ethnography
tysoffice: interview (like Chris said on the blog)
elisamarie1: lots of biography/ethnography, right? you know how the participat/observer is changed after her work
chrisageyer: what kind of statistical stuff might apply? Ånything?
tysoffice: Did the textual analyses you all ran into specify cultural foundations?
elisamarie1: mine was more critical of how comp histories tend to ignore the sigfinicance of culture
tysoffice: Mine had some statistical sampling in terms of regions where contributors to journals worked, schools, rank of contributor, etc.
chrisageyer: oh - I see.
elisamarie1: the author was particularly critical of how folks like berlin make sweeping generalizations about culture and then broadly apply them to comp and the evolution of writing instruction
chrisageyer: culture - that's sort of new historicism, placing work in its cultural context, right?
tysoffice: so yours was trying to recoup the cultural angle?
tyratae: wow, lit-theory terms i haven't heard in forever. way to remember how to speak that language, chris. :)
chrisageyer: so, composition, like feminist studies and other ism studies need tohave a new lens thrown on it that bring into focus the non-mainstream stuff.
tysoffice: Yeah, it's new historicism/sometimes post-structuralism. It's one of the things they share, though they discuss it in different ways.
chrisageyer: which suggests that we needto be looking at who and what is absent from the history, rather than just looking at what is
kaconca: i like the idea of looking through this with newly created lenses
elisamarie1: and it seems to me that comp folks are always writing up stream, trying to make other folks recognize and respect the field
tysoffice: I'm with you on the upstream thing.
chrisageyer: oh - yeah - that whole trying to get respect as a discipline drives me nuts.
elisamarie1: i'm torn. on the one hand, ican understand the tendency to work against how comp has been viewed. but on the other hand: enough already!
chrisageyer: I forget now who it was that said as a discipline there's no doubt that weve arrived, but where exactly does that put us?
chrisageyer: yeah - how much really needs to be analyzed about it?
tyratae: well, & we can't talk about it in any kind of useful context, b/c we're reading "we're not really a discipline" stuff ranging 30-40 years worth ofobservation.
chrisageyer: It seems to me that we should be able to do something more forward looking and interesting with our collective smarts and energy.
kaconca: but, at the same time so many of these methods remain unquestioned. And, as a result, certain bodies are privileged over others
elisamarie1: super true
tyratae: i don't think we should NOT question our methods or the things we overlook. chrisageyer: that's true, and that's part of what I think of in forward movement - that if we look more at what could be and less at what was, we can write a different future.
tyratae: i do think we ought to stop fussing about whether we're a field or not. b/c whether everybody agrees or not about the distinction is irrelevant. we're here, whatever we are. we're doing things that effect people's lives. let's be analytical & ethical about what we're doing & how, & stop whinging about who doesn't notice/validate/etc. the effort.
tyratae: ok, guys, becky's asked to see some discussion of this topic, so i'm going to put a block of this in word, take out the silly commentary, & post it so she can see we've been working.
tyratae: any last words?
kaconca: i have a general comment to post thoughkaconca: It is interesting to find that in many of these entries the background of the author/editor is provided. Does this mean we are illustrating how the subjective functions in the collection and analysis of data? (White)

Thanks so much for this, Tyra. This is very helpful. Would someone now want to try a summary?

I'm going to throw a term out there. **Content Analysis** I see this happening with findings in most of the posts.

In tech writing, we use Content Analysis to look for words, phrases, or sentences within a text to help define meaning for a new or even an existing text. Sometimes, we compare the results from two or more documents to form a new text or to add to an existing text.

Anyhow, I see this as a method for gathering information. And it’s clear in many of the postings that authors and some editors are attempting to generate new theory or connect to old theory and expand on their own theory, by comparing terms or concepts across fields of study to make meanings more clear or to birth new meanings from trite terms. In order to perform this type of analysis, one has to search through archives, books, journals, essays, etc. of his/her home discipline, and to search within other disciplines as well in order to bring their new found concept to full circle.

So as White says, it is indeed a “dynamic movement [through] discourse” (4).

anybody. Is content analysis the same as textual analysis? what's textual analysis?

Aleshia,

Good term. I think Content Analysis and Textual Analysis are different things with different purposes (this is a first scratch at this itch). Textual Analysis for me is qualitative, while Content Analysis is quantitative (meaning that in CA we would look for the number of times words appear, classify the types of words that appear, etc). That said, they both tend to drift once the project gets going so that CA evetually takes on some qualitative properites. My understanding is that the overarching question answered by CA is what terms are being used? And then, what does that signify? With TA, the question seems to be how are terms being used? And then, what does that signify? Both then, it seems to me, work back toward one another. I hope this helps, and I hope some others might fill in, further explain, offer different views, etc.

Summary of the chat post:
We find that most of the works are grounded in archival research or textual analysis, but some are biographical, some are ethnography, and some are empirical by virtue of having statistical analysis. Within the archival or textual work, there seems to be a gap, an elision of cultural elements other than the dominant power group. This gap suggests the need for new theoretical lenses to examine histories as well as the underlying archives or sources they come from.

Let me try an attempt at charting, based on these definitions:
method - techniques for gathering information
methodology - theory and analysis of how research should proceed.

Method
archival research (which includes all variations on reading primary documents of some variety)
interviews
participant observer, also called personal experience
anecdotal notes

Methodology
Contextualization - challenging or exposing underlying assumptions and/or gaps present in the object (text)
Reporting of results with some comment
Textual analysis, also rhetorical analysis
personal comment (which might be called rant or polemic)

Anyone feel free to add any additional terms to these lists.

before anybody jumps on this, "participant observer" in a strict ethnographic sense isn't the same as personal experience, although it includes/encompasses it, but the way some people are using the term (i.e. north w/some metaphoricity (i love that word)), they serve the same general purpose. so keep those together or sub-divide them depending on how precise you want to be & to whose methodological systems you want to be most true.