Points of Departure
Rethinking Student Source Use and Writing Studies Research Methods
The contributors offer methodologies, techniques, and suggestions for research that move beyond decontextualized guides to grapple with the messiness of research-in-process, as well as design, development, and expansion. Serviss and Jamieson’s model of RAD writing studies research is transcontextual and based on hybridized or mixed methods. Among these methods are citation context analysis, research-aloud protocols, textual and genre analysis, surveys, interviews, and focus groups, with an emphasis on process and knowledge as contingent. Chapters report on research projects at different stages and across institution types—from pilot to multi-site, from community college to research university—focusing on the methods and artifacts employed.
A rich mosaic of research about research, Points of Departure advances knowledge about student writing and serves as a guide for both new and experienced researchers in writing studies.
Contributors: Crystal Benedicks, Katt Blackwell-Starnes, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Kristi Murray Costello, Anne Diekema, Rebecca Moore Howard, Sandra Jamieson, Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Brian N. Larson, Karen J. Lunsford, M. Whitney Olsen, Tricia Serviss, Janice R. Walker
'Makes an indispensable contribution to revitalizing data-driven research in writing studies by rethinking RAD research as a distributed process for collectively making transcontextual knowledge from local studies. All students of method should heed this book's call for transparency in reporting research processes.'
—Louise Wetherbee Phelps, Emeritus Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, Syracuse University
‘For over a decade, the Citation Project has stood at the center of writing studies. In this excellent new volume, the editors conceptualize source-based research structured in new ways that invite us to deepen our contextual understanding of student literacy. Points of Departure is a landmark volume that will be a welcome addition to our field.’
—Norbert Elliot, Research Professor, University of South Florida
Tricia Serviss is associate director of entry level writing in the University Writing Program at the University of California, Davis. She has published articles in Writing Pedagogy, College English, Assessing Writing, and Across the Disciplines and chapters in Crossing Borders, Drawing Boundaries: The Rhetoric of Lines across America and The Handbook of Academic Integrity. Current research projects include a longitudinal study of first-generation college student STEM major literacy practices and longitudinal study of a transdisciplinary faculty development team leading a writing and research initiative to strengthen undergraduate learning. She is a principal researcher of the Citation Project (citationproject.net).
Sandra Jamieson is professor of English and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at Drew University. She co-edited Information Literacy: Research and Collaboration Across the Disciplines, and Coming of Age: The Advanced Writing Curriculum (winner of the WPA Best Book Award), and is co-author of The Bedford Guide to Writing in the Disciplines. A Citation Project principal researcher, she has also published on various aspects of student writing.
