An essential reference for students and scholars exploring the methods and methodologies of writing research. What does it mean to research writing today? What are the practical and theoretical issues researchers face when approaching writing as they do? What are the gains or limitations of applying particular methods, and what might researchers be overlooking? These questions and more are answered by the writing research field’s leading scholars in Writing Studies Research in Practice: Methods and Methodologies. Editors Nickoson and Sheridan gather twenty chapters from leaders in writing research, spanning topics from ethical considerations for researchers, quantitative methods, and activity analysis to interviewing and communitybased and Internet research. While each chapter addresses a different subject, the volume as a whole covers the range of methodologies, technologies, and approaches—both old and new—that writing researchers use, and examines the ways in which contemporary writing research is understood, practiced, and represented. An essential reference for experienced researchers and an invaluable tool to help novices understand research methods and methodologies, Writing Studies Research in Practice includes established methods and knowledge while addressing the contemporary issues, interests, and concerns faced by writing researchers today.

Here creative writers who are also university teachers monitor their contribution to this popular discipline in essays that indicate how far it has come in the USA, the UK and Australia.

As writing researchers have begun untangling the complexities of ethical research practice, new practices have developed and new issues have arisen. This volume contributes to the continuing examination and development of ethically responsible, self-reflexive, and systematic research on writing.

As the arts become an increasingly popular pedagogical tool in writing studies, Arts-Based Research Methods in Writing Studies offers scholars and educators in the field ways to leverage the arts for their own scholarship through the practice of arts-based research (ABR). Tailored to the needs of writing studies scholars, this concise guide presents ways of exploring and addressing unresolved research questions from the past as well as new, pressing questions that are emerging in light of increasingly fraught and complicated current contexts. It explores motives and methods for taking up ABR, sheds light on the processes of representing research and the ethical imperative of methodological disclosure, and looks critically at the complexities of fully realizing ABR in writing studies while offering some pedagogical applications. Connecting theory to practice, this book also performs ABR through a co-created mixed-media text about the everyday and extraordinary stories woven into the fabric of new American artists’ composing processes. Arts-Based Research Methods in Writing Studies lends itself to insight that is at once personal for writing studies researchers, useful for research communities, and a catalyst for social change beyond institutional walls; as such, it will be an important resource for scholars, educators, and graduate students in writing studies and those interested in multimodal, multilingual, and translingual learning; equitable pedagogies and administrative practices; online writing instruction; transnational literacies; research methods; community-based research; and disability studies in composition.

Strategies for Empirical Research in Writing is a particularly accessible approach to both qualitative and quantitative empirical research methods, helping novices appreciate the value of empirical research in writing while easing their fears about the research process. This comprehensive book covers research methods ranging from traditional experiments to newer practices such as focus groups, using graphics and real-life examples to clarify concepts. Readers do not need a scientific background to understand the issues involved, and they will find this book non-threatening. Though Strategies is friendly and even humorous in tone, it takes research in writing seriously, advocating rigorous design and implementation of empirical research projects to establish credible findings. This book introduces readers to methods and strategies for research and provides them with enough knowledge to become discerning, confident consumers of research in writing. Topics covered include: library research, empirical methodology, quantitative research, experimental research, surveys, focus groups, ethnographies, and much more. Anyone (novice or guru) who needs to perform statistically valid research.

A form of critical ethnography introduced to the social sciences in the late 1990s, institutional ethnography uncovers how things happen within institutional sites, providing a new and flexible tool for the study of how “work” is co-constituted within sites of writing and writing instruction. The study of work and work processes reveals how institutional discourse, social relations, and norms of professional practice coordinate what people do across time and sites of writing. Adoption of IE offers finely grained understandings of how our participation in the work of writing, writing instruction, and sites of writing gives material face to the institutions that govern the social world. In this book, Michelle LaFrance introduces the theories, rhetorical frames, and methods that ground and animate institutional ethnography. Three case studies illustrate key aspects of the methodology in action, tracing the work of writing assignment design in a linked gateway course, the ways annual reviews coordinate the work of faculty and writing center administrators and staff, and how the key term “information literacy” socially organizes teaching in a first-year English program. Through these explorations of the practice of ethnography within sites of writing and writing instruction, LaFrance shows that IE is a methodology keenly attuned to the material relations and conditions of work in twenty-first-century writing studies contexts, ideal for both practiced and novice ethnographers who seek to understand the actualities of social organization and lived experience in the sites they study. Institutional Ethnography expands the field’s repertoire of research methodologies and offers the grounding necessary for work with the IE framework. It will be invaluable to writing researchers and students and scholars of writing studies across the spectrum—composition and rhetoric, literacy studies, and education—as well as those working in fields such as sociology and cultural studies.

Traditions of Writing Research reflects the different styles of work offered at the Writing Research Across Borders conference. Organized by Charles Bazerman, one of the pre-eminent scholars in writing studies, the conference facilitated an unprecedented gathering of writing researchers. Representing the best of the works presented, this collection focuses solely on writing research, in its lifespan scope bringing together writing researchers interested in early childhood through adult writing practices. It brings together differing research traditions, and offers a broad international scope, with contributor-presenters including top international researchers in the field The volume's opening section presents writing research agendas from different regions and research groups. The next section addresses the national, political, and historical contexts that shape educational institutions and the writing initiatives developed there. The following sections represent a wide range of research approaches for investigating writing processes and practices in primary, secondary, and higher education. The volume ends with theoretical and methodological reflections. This exemplary collection, like the conference that it grew out of, will bring new perspectives to the rich dialogue of contemporary research on writing and advance understanding of this complex and important human activity.

The definitive reference in the field, this volume synthesizes current knowledge on writing development and instruction at all grade levels. Prominent scholars examine numerous facets of writing from sociocultural, cognitive, linguistic, neuroscience, and new literacy/technological perspectives. The volume reviews the evidence base for widely used instructional approaches, including those targeting particular components of writing. Issues in teaching specific populations--including students with disabilities and English learners--are addressed. Innovative research methods and analytic tools are clearly explained, and key directions for future investigation identified. New to This Edition *Chapters on genre instruction, evaluation and revision, argumentative writing, computer-based instruction, and professional development. *Chapters on new literacies, out-of-school writing, translation, and self-regulation. *Many new topics and authors, including more international perspectives. *Multiple chapters connect research findings to the Common Core writing standards. See also the editors' Best Practices in Writing Instruction, Second Edition, an accessible course text and practitioner's guide.

Highly practical and accessible, this indispensable book provides clear-cut strategies for improving K-12 writing instruction. The contributors are leading authorities who demonstrate proven ways to teach different aspects of writing, with chapters on planning, revision, sentence construction, handwriting, spelling, and motivation. The use of the Internet in instruction is addressed, and exemplary approaches to teaching English-language learners and students with special needs are discussed. The book also offers best-practice guidelines for designing an effective writing program. Focusing on everyday applications of current scientific research, the book features many illustrative case examples and vignettes.

Preparing to Teach Writing, Fourth Edition is a comprehensive survey of theories, research, and methods associated with teaching composition successfully at the middle, secondary, and college levels. Research and theory are examined with the aim of informing teaching. Practicing and prospective writing teachers need the information and strategies this text provides to be effective and well prepared for the many challenges they will face in the classroom. Features Current—combines discussions and references to foundational studies that helped define the field of rhetoric and composition, with updated research, theories, and applications Research based—thorough examination of relevant research in education, literacy, cognition, linguistics, and grammar Steadfast adherence to best practices based on how students learn and on how to provide the most effective writing instruction A Companion Website provides sample assignments and student papers that can be analyzed using the research and theory presented in the text.