Take the first step now by formulating a question you would like to research. By using a question to guide your research, rather than just a topic, you will be better able to judge which sources are useful to your research. For example, the research topic “online writing instruction” offers less direction than the research question “What are the best practices in online writing instruction?” or the question “How does online instruction impact students’ improvement in writing skills?” Your question should be open-ended, not a question that can be answered with simply a “yes” or “no.” Consider writing a group of related questions that you can use to initiate your research, and then after you read some of the sources that these questions help you to find, you can then revise your inquiry, narrowing it to a core question that has not yet been fully resolved by knowledge-makers in the discipline.
If you have difficulty identifying an initial question to research, consider your prior exposure to composition studies. When you think of scholarship you have already read in the discipline, what topics have interested you most? Why? Also, what from your reading have you found most confusing? What could be accomplished by conducting bibliographic research to resolve this confusion? Your experiences as a writer, a writing student, a writing tutor, and/or a writing teacher can serve as additional prompts for research questions. When you have had these experiences, what has puzzled you about the practice, theory, or teaching of writing? If you have thus far had limited exposure to the discipline of composition studies, you may also want to read an introduction to the discipline, which can help you to identify what issues define the discipline. One such introduction is Janice Lauer’s essay “Rhetoric and Composition,” included in the book English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s); the full citation is included in the bibliography at the end of this chapter.
Once you have written your research question(s), write a paragraph that explains why you are interested in this inquiry, then seek feedback on your question(s) and explanatory paragraph from your professor, classmates, and others you may know in composition studies. Although you should then refine your question(s) based on the responses you receive, be aware that once you identify relevant sources and read more about what is already known and what remains to be known about your topic, you will likely need to revise your question(s) again. In other words, just as bibliographic research is a recursive process, so too even the identification of a research topic and question is often recursive, requiring revision throughout your research process.
Some Cautions about This Book
Now that we have examined the need for student-centered introductions to composition studies, for bibliographic instruction in the academy, and for bibliographic instruction specifically in composition studies, and you have identified a research interest to investigate as you read the remainder of this book, I want to conclude this chapter with some cautions about your use of this book, as it is only fair to forewarn you about what this text cannot do.
As should be obvious, this text can’t prepare you for what’s not available at the time this book is being written. Edward Corbett, a founding member of the profession, has written that “Nothing—not even last year’s hemline—dates as quickly as a published bibliography” (qtd. in Scott, “Bibliographical Problems” 167). Fortunately, bibliographic resources do not date as rapidly as do bibliographies themselves, but they too change. For example, when I began writing this book, in only a matter of months several changes took place that required me to make revisions before this book even went to press: the American Psychological Association (APA) issued a new edition of its publication manual; the CompPile and JSTOR databases both got new interfaces, which in turn changed several of their features; several databases added key journals to those they regularly index; and some journals added to their websites the capacity to search the journal’s archives. By the time this book appears in print, additional changes affecting bibliographical endeavors in composition studies will undoubtedly have occurred. Much larger changes, such as the increased availability of scholarship through digital formats and open access publishing, are also on the horizon. You will therefore need to update your knowledge of bibliographic resources as the discipline changes in years beyond the publication of this book. However, because this book explains not just bibliographic resources in their current form but also bibliographic strategies, this book will teach you the skills you will need to independently update your knowledge of bibliographic tools.
You should also recognize that while this book will help you to identify scholarship in composition studies relevant to your research interests, finding sources is not the same as understanding and using them well. As librarian Barbara Fister explains, “students must not only be able to find information but to present ideas, shape them to appeal to a particular audience, and support them with convincing evidence. Information must not only be retrieved and evaluated, it must be put to use rhetorically—i.e., used to construct a text” (“Teaching” 212). While bibliographic resources and strategies are the beginning of your own scholarly work in composition studies, they are not all you need to know to participate well in the scholarly conversation. Additional courses in composition studies, as well as your independent reading of scholarship in the discipline, will help you in this regard.
Finally, there are additional issues related to joining the scholarly conversation in composition studies that this book does not discuss. Much has been written about how an author’s gender and contractual obligations affect his or her scholarly work in composition studies. There are also published discussions about the appropriate voice for scholarly writing, about experimenting with new forms of publication, and even about the relative merits of teaching and publishing. These are all nuances of the conversation about composition studies scholarship that are beyond the immediate purpose of this book; if these issues interest you, you can learn more about them once you have used this book to enter the composition studies parlor, where these and many other discussions take place.
I urge you, then, to not think of this book as an encyclopedia of all you may ever need to know about scholarship in composition studies. I write it instead as a navigation guide for first-time travelers entering the discipline. If you follow its guidance, you will arrive at your destination—the parlor of composition studies—via the shortest, fastest route, with fewer wrong turns than you’d be likely to make without such a guide. I also hope to direct your journey so that you won’t be already exhausted and disoriented upon your arrival but can instead arrive refreshed, ready to listen and learn from the conversation taking place.
Let’s begin.
Works Cited
Anderson, Virginia, and Susan Romano, eds. Culture Shock and the Practice of Profession: Training the Next Wave in Rhetoric & Composition. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2006.
Association of College & Research Libraries. “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.” January 2000. American Library Association. 19 November 2007 <http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm>
—. “Model Statement of Objectives for Academic Bibliographic Instruction.” May 1987. American Library Association. 19 November 2007 <http://www.ala.org/cfapps/archive.cfm?path=acrl/guides/msobi.html>.
—. “Objectives for Information Literacy Instruction: A Model Statement for Academic Librarians.” January 2001. American Library Association. 19 November 2007 <http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/objectivesinformation.cfm>.
Breivik, Patricia Senn. Foreword. Higher Education in the Internet Age: Libraries Creating a Strategic Edge. Patricia Senn Breivik and E. Gordon Gee. Westport, CT: American Council of Education, Praeger Series on Higher Education, 2006. xi-xiv.
Brown, Stuart C., Rebecca Jackson, and Theresa Enos. “The Arrival of Rhetoric in the Twenty-First Century: The 1999 Survey of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric.” Rhetoric Review 18 (2000): 233–374.
Brown, Stuart C., Paul R. Meyer, and Theresa Enos. “Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition: A Catalog of the Profession.”