Methodological Matters: Narratives for Emerging Researchers in Rhetoric and Composition (Path to Open)

Methodological Matters offers a series of investigative reflections from experienced and emerging researchers to provide guidance for researchers who are navigating important complexities early in their careers. Each chapter explores a larger research-related question by narrating how one researcher negotiated a unique methodological challenge while working on a dissertation in the field of rhetoric and composition.

Given the constraints placed on new researchers’ time and resources, one way to navigate research-related precarities is to learn from others who have successfully traversed the same investigative terrain. This volume curates investigative reflections from researchers who, at the time of writing, were in the process of completing (or had just completed) their dissertations. Three parts explore issues of identity, craft, and practice in conducting research as an emerging scholar in rhetoric and composition, and the collection concludes with critical reflections on the role of precarity in conducting research.

Both a curated series of investigative reflections from emerging researchers and a resource guide with tangible tools for use in graduate seminars and fieldwork, Methodological Matters amplifies voices of those who learned how to do research in precarious contexts while simultaneously situated within the sometimes frustrating developmental phase located between “student” and “practitioner.”

Erin Kathleen Bahl is associate professor of applied and professional writing at Kennesaw State University and author of Storied Objects: A Graphic Narrative Reflection on Material Metaphors and Digital Writing.

chad iwertz duffyis faculty at Pepperdine University, where he formerly directed the Social Action and Justice Program.

Christa Teston is professor of English at The Ohio State University and author of Bodies in Flux: Scientific Methods for Negotiating Medical Uncertainty and Doing Dignity: Ethical Praxis and the Politics of Care.