Sandra Murphy. “At Last: Culture and Consequences: The Canaries in the Coal Mine.” Research in the Teaching of English 42.2 (2007): 228-244.
“Validity is a complicated and changing theoretical construct that has evolved
significantly over the past fifty years. While traditional positivistic conceptions of
validity tended to characterize it as one or more characteristics of a test that could
be definitively determined, contemporary theorists have reconstructed the con-
cept. In a now-classic chapter on validity, Samuel Messick (1989a) extends the
definition of validity to focus on the interpretation of scores and to encompass
social consequences:
Validity is an integrated evaluative judgment of the degree to which empirical evidence and theoretical rationales support the adequacy and appropriateness of inferences and
actions based on test scores and other modes of assessment. (p. 13) “
“this study does not fall into the ‘conventional’ categories of ‘method-driven’ or ‘problem-driven’ research (Sullivan & Porter, 1993, pp. 229-30). It did not begin with choosing a standard method to observe practice, nor did it begin with a research question drawn from that practice or from a theory. Rather, the study is better described as ‘praxis,’ in which the methodology functions ‘in a middle ground between theory and practice, as a heuristic set of filters…for both theory and practice’ (Sullivan & Porter, 1993, p. 229).”
Sullivan, Francis J. “Dysfunctional Workers, Functional Texts: The Transformation of Work in Institutional Procedure Manuals.” Written Communication 14.3 (1997): 313-359.
Every word has a meaning agreed upon by a group of people. That group may be most of the speakers of a particular language, but more likely it is some specific subset of people within that group. If the word has traveled through academia, chances are it has multiple meanings trying to occupy the same disciplinary space at the same time. Chances are also good that there is an argument going on somewhere about which definition is right, valid, useful, or true. Consequently, the first step to discussing any important concept in any scholarly publication is to define it.
This blog is my attempt at corralling the various definitions I find for the words I use in my academic life. It is not, and will never be, comprehensive. It’s more of an experiment in public note-taking.
“concurrent, or think-aloud, protocols…There are questions about how thinking aloud affects the writing process. There also have been questions about the value of the cognitive models typically associated with this line of inquiry. think-aloud protocols have usually been attempted only in laboratory conditions while there has been an intense interest in studies of writing in naturalistic conditions…attention to composing in naturalistic conditions also suggested that many of the key processes were social as well as cognitive…concurrent protocols for the first time began to crack open the notion of “writing,” to reveal the complex, fine-grained, and diverse nature of the acts that are combined under that label,” (180).
Intertextual tracing is tracing the detectable influences on a text by gathering all of the initiating texts, influencing texts, and source texts and analyzing the effect that each had on the version of the text being analyzed (usually the final version). Examples of things that might be traced are:
- Initiating texts
- assignment sheets
- Source texts
- drafts
- annotated drafts
- feedback in the form of memos
- emails
- handwritten notes
- verbal comments
- Influencing texts
- Sources such as books, articles or television shows mentioned as influences by the author
All of these texts form the contextual record of the text.
Methods of intertextual tracing include:
- “Intertextual analysis of…exchanges of talk and text” (179)
- “tracing language across multiple drafts” (175)
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Paraphrased from pg. 173-179 , boldface terms were boldfaced at some point in the original.
One of the key steps for researchers in tracing writing processes is collecting and keeping track of the textual inscriptions themselves…the more relevant texts you are able to collect, the fuller the view you can develop of the process and its contexts…As a practical matter, it is important to ask participants what the texts are and to add explanatory labels for yourself that include when the text was given to you, what it is, who wrote it, perhaps who wrote on it (it is not unusual for writing in different ink or pencil on a text to mark different writers—different respondents and authors—or different episodes of composing),” (172).
Texts often respond to other texts that may be treated as initiators. An initiating text does not simply control what follows. It has to go through processes of interpretation and negotiation.
“A text does not fully or unambiguously display its history—even the most insightful of interpretations and analyses are only likely to recover some elements of its fuller history, to notice some textual features that allow for uncertain guesses about their origins…All writing draws on writers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices, built up through experiences of socially and historically situated life events. Writers themselves are only very partially aware of the many debts they owe to these intertextual and intercontextual influences,” (171).
