Chapter 9, Neff's Grounded Theory: A Critical Research Methodologoy

Started this chapter once and walked away.  Started again, with hypothesis, and lost interest. Started a third time and saw Fulkerson's name. Left the house. Starting again, with intentions to finish. Time to bring in the heavy artillary, or I won't get through it.

So we're going to talk about numbers and research again. Ok. Here are the main points of the article:

-we have not made enough progress in developing methodologies that interrogate distinctions between composition theory and the teaching of writing;

-we have not studied our research methodologies as social practices in themselves.

Grounded theory is based on analyzing data to generate theory. Sounds solid to me. But likely, there are other, less onerous ways to generate theory. Neff makes a hideously dreary introduction to grounded theory and then proposes its usefulness and promise in composition studies. I'd like to suggest she consider her rhetorical situation (purpose and audience) the next time she sets out to write an introduction.

Application: Grounded theory works by maintaining an open research question throughout, and understanding that closure may not occur. The examples are starting to sound interesting.

How to do research in grounded theory:
Make assumptions, collect data, analyze data (coding, memoing, diagramming). Ok, a couple pages later, the examples are getting very interesting.

Aside: Very frustrated with hypothesis. It doesn't always allow me to highlight or capture text to comment upon. So it seems some of my comments are out of context. It also keeps crashing my computer. It is very tedious, and if it weren't required, I'd have stopped using it by now. Still too glitchy, not a useful tool yet.

Grounded theory research blurs the line between taking notes on research and writing the research report. The researcher makes connections, interprets, and documents. Neff ends by saying grounded research makes us accountable.

Well, this wasn't such as bad read after all. Neff should have collaborated on that introduction, maybe worked with a Writing Center associate for some feedback before she put that out there :)