OVERVIEW

Why another book on research and writing? The short answer: the approach presented here is not addressed well elsewhere. Most texts on research lay out the step-by-step decisions starting with identification of the problem. Or they review the theories and methods involved in various kinds of research. Texts on writing provide guidance and exercises to improve your writing skills. In contrast, this book presents frameworks and tools to help you become more engaged in research and writing.

Suppose you have a specific question or a general issue that seems worth investigating. Now reflect on your level of engagement with that research: How important is it to you personally? Is it directed to meet the expectations of others—advisors, funders, trendsetters in the field—or does the inquiry really flow from your own aspirations? Will it help you take action to change your work, life, or wider social arrangements? Will it help you build relationships with others in such action, in pursuing the inquiry effectively, and in communicating the outcomes? If you answer yes in each instance, that's good to hear given that these questions are not emphasized in most research and writing texts. For us, research and writing can be seen as like a car's engine: to move the wheels, the gears need to be engaged with each other. For your research and writing to progress well, you need to align your questions and ideas, your aspirations, your ability to take or influence action, and your relationships with other people. We shorten these concepts to head, heart, hands, and human connections. Your efforts to bring these 4H's into alignment is what we mean when we speak of engagement and invite you to take yourself seriously.

Engaging the "gears" of head, heart, hands, and human connections

The approach presented in this book originated in a workshop-style research course in which Peter's undergraduate students investigated issues about the social impact of science that concerned them—they wanted to want to know more about it or advocate a change. The approach has been further developed through Peter's subsequent work in a mid-career personal and professional development graduate program where he has advised over one hundred Master's "synthesis" projects and taught three research and writing courses that culminate in these synthesis projects. Students have brought to these courses very diverse interests and concerns—from demonstrating the routinisation of prenatal ultrasound screening to preparation for finding work as an editorial cartoonist; from adult education for low-income women to improving communication in the hospital operating room. Given the range of projects undertaken by students, the courses could not focus on specialized knowledge in any one discipline, nor could students expect the instructor to be an expert in all of their areas of interest. Addressing the challenge of supporting students in their diverse projects has led to the development or refinement of many tools and processes, which are now assembled in this book. Five innovations lie at the heart of what researchers or researchers-in-training will find here:

1. A framework of ten phases of research and engagement that you move through, then revisit in light of: a) other people's responses to the writing and oral reports you share with others; and b) what you learn using tools from the other phases. This sequence and iteration helps you as a researcher define projects in which you take your personal and professional aspirations seriously. (This may mean letting go of preconceptions of what you ought to be doing.) These phases are presented in Part I.B. Descriptions of the tools, given in alphabetical order, make up Part II. Part III includes illustrations of their use in the development of a project by Jeremy.

2. A cycles and epicycles framework for Action Research that emphasizes reflection and dialogue through which you revisit and revise the ideas you have about what action is needed and about how to build a constituency to implement the change. Such reflection and dialogue adds “epicycles” to the traditional action research cycle (i.e., problem->data->action->evaluate outcomes->next steps...) The cycles and epicycles framework is presented in overview in Part I.C, which includes a list of tools useful for the reflection and dialogue, constituency building, evaluation and inquiry, and planning that contribute to action research. Descriptions of the tools are included in Part II. Part III includes excerpts from a second, related project of Jeremy's, which illustrates the framework by conveying the experience of someone learning to use it.

3. Dialogue around written work: Written and spoken comments on each installment of a project and on successive revision in response to the comments. Dialogue creates the chance for you and your advisors (or instructors) to recognize and understand perspectives separate from your own, and then revisit your ideas by putting alternatives in tension with them. If your advisors assemble a portfolio of your installments and comments, they can look back over them when they interact with you. This makes it more likely—even when they are not an expert in your project's topic—that the unfolding dialogue helps you bring to the surface, form, and articulate your ideas as a researcher. Dialogue around written work is evident in the illustrations in Parts III and discussed further in the snapshots on Teaching and Learning for Reflective Practice that make up section IV.A. (You might choose to read that section first if, before jumping into the practical details, you want to have a view of Peter's development as a college teacher and the journey through which the tools and processes have emerged.)

4. Making space for taking initiative in and through relationships: Don't expect to learn or change without: building horizontal peer relationships; negotiating power and standards; exploring difference; acknowledging that affect is involved in what you're doing and not doing (and in how others respond to that); developing autonomy (so that you are neither too sensitive nor impervious to feedback); and clearing away distractions from other sources (present and past) so you can "be here now." It is hard to attend simultaneously to all six aspects of teaching-learning relationships; they do not always pull you in the same direction. So, expect to jostle them, a perspective that is also woven into Part IV.A's discussion of Teaching/Learning for Reflective Practice.

5. Creative habits for synthesis of theory and practice: At various points in your life you may take up the challenge of writing something in which you synthesize your theory and practice. After all, everyone has a voice that should be heard. The creative habits introduced in Part I.D and described in Part II, together with the other frameworks and practices above, constitute a structure of support—including support from yourself—that enables you to find your voice, clarify and develop your thoughts, and express that voice in a completed written product.

How to use this book? Like a fieldbook, it is something you might simply refer to from time to time, looking for tools and processes to adopt or adapt in your current endeavors. (Highlighted terms indicate entries elsewhere in the book where the term is elaborated on.) We hope, however, that at some point you decide to move systematically through the Phases, Cycles, or Habits for Synthesis. Although these frameworks have been developed in interdisciplinary and non-traditional programs of study, we believe they can help students and researchers in regular fields or disciplines develop as researchers and agents of change.

Of course, the kind of help derived from the book depends on where in the spectrum of researcher or researcher-in-training you lie. Just as some children learn to read with little instruction, there are some students who have little trouble learning to define a hypothesis that can be studied with the methods of their discipline and are comfortable using the standard writing conventions and publication format to report on research. If you operate at that end of the spectrum, you may view the integration of the 4H's that emerges through the five frameworks and practices above as a way to help you branch out in new directions and to avoid simply continuing along previous lines. However, perhaps you lie at the other end of the spectrum—you may feel alienated from the expectations of any one discipline and struggle to complete your research and writing assignments. If so, view this book as a way to keep your eye not on the supposed prize of the completed project, but on the possibility of developing a project that engages you. To find such a project you need to push the expectations of others aside for long enough to explore how to connect your head with your heart, to give voice to your aspirations, to build connections with others and to change your work, lives, and wider social arrangements. Then again, perhaps you lie in between these two poles—you might be a diligent student or researcher who eventually meets disciplinary standards, but you ask for more input in generating research questions and editing written work than your advisors like and take longer than everyone had hoped. You may be susceptible to doubt and procrastination—am I really doing something worthwhile for society and for myself? If this picture fits, you might pay more attention to the 4H's as a way to become more confident and comfortable about the directions of research and engagement that you choose. Wherever you lie in the range of students and researchers, the variety of tools for research and writing presented here constitute an invitation to you to take yourself seriously.

Of course, there are many more research tools and processes of research than are included in this book. The "Connections and Extensions" that make up Part IV allow you to see how what this book offers gets worked into specific course syllabi as well as place what is offered in a wider context. In Part IV you can find some entry points for exploration of the insights, experiences, and information from a wider world of research, writing, and engagement in change. More conventional texts that lay out the steps, decisions, and theories involved in research in your field can be found through an internet search of syllabi for research courses. This book cannot substitute for the specific knowledge, perspectives, and debates in any given field, but we believe it provides a valuable complement or restorative.

The rest of Part I lays out the frameworks of Phases of Research and Engagement, Cycles and Epicycles of Action Research, and Creative Habits for Synthesis of Theory and Practice. The first two frameworks are complementary. Phases emphasizes research and writing that prepares you to communicate with an audience; Cycles and Epicycles emphasizes reflection and dialogue through which you build a constituency around some course of action. Yet, Action Research builds from knowledge about the impact of actions that others have already taken and about the broader background for those actions; to gain this you need a systematic approach for your inquiries, moving you through the phases of research. At the same time, research and writing under the Phases framework is directed towards influencing an audience about an issue that engages you. In this sense action—that you or the audience might take—is already in the picture. In short, the distinction between the two kinds of research is not sharp. You may find yourself borrowing tools introduced under one framework when following the other. You should feel free to develop your own synthesis of the two frameworks.

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