Discusses ethical issues involved with person-based research. Discusses the ethical discourse embodied in the "Nuremberg Code," federal regulations, and the "Belmont Report." Discusses several specific issues in research ethics to illustrate how this discourse provides new ways of thinking about what must be done to treat…

Argues that seeing reciprocity as a context-based process of definition and re-definition of the relationship between participants and researchers helps them understand how research projects can benefit participants in ways that they desire. Considers the ethical dimensions of reciprocal research relationships. Uses the authors' own research…

Responds to an article by Ellen Barton against negative argumentation in a prior issue of this journal. Examines how the debate on empirical versus non-empirical research is a product of different, but not mutually exclusive, historical narratives of research in and around composition. Includes a reply from Barton. (SR)

Argues against the use of negative arguments about methodological approaches in the field of composition. Suggests negative argumentation exacerbates the tension concerning the place and value of empirical studies in research; it potentially limits the field's ability to ask certain kinds of research questions; and it risks impoverishing the…

Describes a taxonomy for analyzing written revision. Reports two studies that used this taxonomy and discusses the implications of these investigations. (RL)

Suggests that as a discipline and as individuals, composition educators need to work to revise the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process. Proposes two ways the IRB process could be modified. Notes that this call to critically examine the process is not a rejection of what IRBs and IRB compliance represent because ultimately, the common goal of…

Argues that an integrated vision of the composition process is needed to explain how context cues cognition, which in turn mediates and interprets the particular world that context provides. Explores some ways that observational research might be used to create a well-supported, theoretical understanding of the composition process. (RS)

Discusses problems in designing and interpreting research on the effects of topics used in essay exams, particularly minimum competency exams. Reviews current research on the effects of topics and their presentation. (HTH)

Identifies some of the assumptions and implications of the current research about writing and shows why they are open to question. (RL)

Examines the roots of some disciplinary quarrels (cognitive versus social perspectives and quantitative versus qualitative research methods) that polarize thinking in composition studies. Notes that these quarrels act as obstacles to reading and evaluating research and to training graduate students to conduct multimodal inquiry. (MG)

Argues that teachers of rhetoric and teachers of literary studies have many interests in common and that these common interests should be cultivated. Offers four possible lines of inquiry for bringing rhetoric and literary study together. (RL)

Suggests a number of criteria and procedures that represent a model of scholarly inquiry into the writing process. Discusses why some researchers are discontented with present models. Details what the author feels are acceptable, even desirable, operating assumptions, research methodologies, and ways of reporting results. (JD)

Describes classroom experiments, using invisible writing which produces a carbon copy while preventing scanning during the composing process, to examine how different writing tasks differ in their cognitive demands and how the need for scanning may indicate the cognitive difficulty of the task. (HTH)

Shares insights and experiences of three students that might smooth the way for other graduate students who may be struggling to chart their own courses to the "PhD shore." Suggests that it is ultimately the student who must take ownership and chart a course through the "choppy dissertation waters." (SG)

Challenges the common assumption that the rise of an instructorate unsupported to do traditional forms of research will necessarily result in an exploited academic labor force and inferior teaching. Explores the ways in which the "teaching substructure" existing now in composition and rhetoric has already begun to contribute substantially to the…