Learning from the Mess : Method/Ological Praxis in Rhetoric and Writing Studies

The contributors to Learning from the Mess: Method/ological Praxis in Rhetoric and Writing Studies argue that there’s much to be learned from the messiness of research contexts. In so doing, they highlight the value of revisiting and reflecting on research methods and methodologies with two primary goals in mind: to shed light on the processes commonly elided between research design and publication and to make explicit that the method/ologies we use in our research require praxis. Learning from the Mess features ten chapters that challenge readers to rethink and reflect on their own method/ological choices in the past and to envision new possibilities for future research designs. Each contributor connects their reflections to one or more paired reading(s) they had previously published.

Ashley J. Holmes is Professor of English and Interim Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Online Education (CETLOE) at Georgia State University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in composition theory and pedagogy, research methods, public and visual rhetoric, writing program administration, and digital writing and production. Her recent research explores student writing beyond the university, best practices for curriculum development and program design, and experiential and place-based pedagogies. Her first book Public Pedagogy in Composition Studies (2016) was published through the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s Studies in Writing and Rhetoric Series, and her work has also appeared in College English, Composition Forum, English Journal, Community Literacy Journal, Reflections, Kairos, and Ubiquity, as well as several edited collections. She serves as managing co-editor of Composition Forum. Her monograph Learning on Location: Place-Based Approaches for Diverse Learners in Higher Education was published by Routledge in 2023.

Elise Verzosa Hurley is Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and Technical Communication at Illinois State University, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in rhetorical theory, technical communication theory and pedagogy, multimodal composition, feminist rhetorics, and visual/spatial rhetorics. She is also the editor of Rhetoric Review. Her scholarship has been published in Technical Communication Quarterly, Kairos, Res Rhetorica, and various edited collections.