scholarly journals Writing from Within the Body as a Research Process

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyo Yoon Kang

Legal academic writing seldom reflects on its choice of research topic and writing style. The published text rarely incorporates thoughts about the choice of genre or format, and their fit with the research question itself. This chapter observes its own pre-writing process rather than making an argument or a claim as most academic writings do. An injury made me discard my initial plan for the chapter, and the notion of the ‘body’, which the editors had assigned me as the object of a hypothetical interdisciplinary study, became the material subject of the writing process itself. Experiencing bodily constraints changed my reading practice and necessitated different media and writing strategies. The resulting text is a personal record of reading and thinking in a particular period of time.

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-93
Author(s):  
Anna Carolina Peñaloza Rallón

It is time to face the facts. Every day we are asked to write more and more in English. Our academic existence is dependent on whether we can publish in English or perish (Mauranen, Pérez-Llantada, & Swales, 2010).  English has become the lingua franca of science and knowledge, but what happens when the structures and rules of standard Academic Writing seem to be against us?  Well, writers learn to adapt. We use translators, copy model structures, look for outside help, hire proofreaders, and talk to teachers. Despite our efforts, only a few writers become successful. What if we could find a solution within our own context? What if these successful writers had a secret to share with the rest of us? After all, every individual has been through a “writing process”, a series of events that have shaped the writer. By looking at the events that made successful writers who they are, we could understand how to better improve teaching practices in writing, develop efficient writing strategies, and promote individual writing styles all within our own context.


Author(s):  
Peter Mason

This book is based on teaching, supervising and examining Master’s students for over twenty years in three countries: the UK, Australia and New Zealand. It is aimed primarily at Master’s students in English speaking countries, or where English is the language of the classroom. However, it should also be useful to undergraduate students in the related fields of Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality. It may also serve as an introduction to those about to embark on PhD study in these related fields. The key areas that the book covers are: 1 Becoming self-aware of your research capability 2 Developing your formal, academic writing style 3 Selecting and refining your research topic 4 Creating your Literature Review 5 Writing your Methodology 6 Presenting your Results 7 Analysing and Discussing your Results 8 Presenting Conclusions


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Abdul Syahid

<p>Aimed at identifying what writing strategies four beginning authors used and examining how these strategies facilitated their writings, a collective case study describing and comparing the beginning authors was carried out to provide insights into the issue. The authors were teachers of English in English departments at four Indonesian universities, and were selected on the basis of a recommendation by the editor of some books in which their written products were published. To gain a far better understanding of the cases, two data forms (questionnaires and interview notes) were collected. The data gathered were repeatedly examined in order to discover some reoccurring patterns. The inductive process delineated the strategies used by the participants when dealing with academic writing. The results show that, in order of priority, the writing strategies employed in their initial writing careers were social, affective, compensation, and cognitive ones. This study contributes to the knowledge of social or contextual factors in writing English academic papers by illustrating which strategies were used and how in order to cope with the writing process. It also suggests writing strategies be adopted by future authors and built in the classes of English as a foreign language. <strong></strong></p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Huemer

Similar structures in research articles of different disciplines indicate that the research article can be qualified as a genre across disciplinary borders. In spite of these structural similarities, which are constitutive for a genre, there are linguistic varieties that can be found in research articles of several disciplines relevant to be pointed out when teaching academic writing at the university. Little research has been conducted so far on linguistic varieties within subcategories of a discipline, because it is assumed that linguistic varieties within the genre research article are discipline-specific and therefore can only be found across disciplines. This article will present the results of a pilot study in which linguistic varieties within the discipline German linguistics have been researched. 14 introductions to research articles within this field have been selected in order to analyse their macro structure in detail. The data has been taken from a high rated journal in the field of German linguistics called Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik (ZGL 2014) in which the most important articles that have been published in the year before are promoted. The study shows that the macro structure of the research articles’ introductions are essentially determined by the research question and the research method, which vary within this discipline. This result is particularly relevant for the teaching of academic writing, because it offers an alternative approach to support the writing process oriented towards the core of every research: which is to formulate a research question and to choose an appropriate method rather than to strictly follow assumed disciplinary writing norms.


An essential text for accounting and finance students undertaking research for the first time. It demystifies the research process by providing the novice researcher with a must-have guide through all of the stages of the research process, from identifying a research topic to the finished project.


Author(s):  
Kathleen Gerson ◽  
Sarah Damaske

Qualitative interviewing is one of the most widely used methods in social research, but it is arguably the least well understood. To address that gap, this book offers a theoretically rigorous, empirically rich, and user-friendly set of strategies for conceiving and conducting interview-based research. Much more than a how-to manual, the book shows why depth interviewing is an indispensable method for discovering and explaining the social world—shedding light on the hidden patterns and dynamics that take place within institutions, social contexts, relationships, and individual experiences. It offers a step-by-step guide through every stage in the research process, from initially formulating a question to developing arguments and presenting the results. To do this, the book shows how to develop a research question, decide on and find an appropriate sample, construct an interview guide, conduct probing and theoretically focused interviews, and systematically analyze the complex material that depth interviews provide—all in the service of finding and presenting important new empirical discoveries and theoretical insights. The book also lays out the ever-present but rarely discussed challenges that interviewers routinely encounter and then presents grounded, thoughtful ways to respond to them. By addressing the most heated debates about the scientific status of qualitative methods, the book demonstrates how depth interviewing makes unique and essential contributions to the research enterprise. With an emphasis on the integral relationship between carefully crafted research and theory building, the book offers a compelling vision for what the “interviewing imagination” can and should be.


Human Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Slatman

AbstractThis paper aims to mobilize the way we think and write about fat bodies while drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophy of the body. I introduce Nancy’s approach to the body as an addition to contemporary new materialism. His philosophy, so I argue, offers a form of materialism that allows for a phenomenological exploration of the body. As such, it can help us to understand the lived experiences of fat embodiment. Additionally, Nancy’s idea of the body in terms of a “corpus”—a collection of pieces without a unity—together with his idea of corpus-writing—fragmentary writing, without head and tail—can help us to mobilize fixed meanings of fat. To apply Nancy’s conceptual frame to a concrete manifestation of fat embodiment, I provide a reading of Roxane Gay’s memoir Hunger (2017). In my analysis, I identify how the materiality of fat engenders the meaning of embodiment, and how it shapes how a fat body can and cannot be a body. Moreover, I propose that Gay’s writing style—hesitating and circling – involves an example of corpus-writing. The corpus of corpulence that Gay has created gives voice to the precariousness of a fat body's materialization.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 160940692110161
Author(s):  
Krista Johnston ◽  
Christiana MacDougall

Reporting on the development of an ongoing qualitative research project with clients of midwifery care in New Brunswick, Canada, this article details the ways that methodology is complexly interwoven with political praxis. Working through the development of this project, this article models one way to enact politically engaged feminist research at each stage of the research process, from developing the research question, through research design, data collection, analysis, and theory generation. In the process, three core principles of feminist research methodologies are extended: co-construction of knowledge, researcher reflexivity, and reciprocal relationships in research. This research is caught up in and responds to a fraught political context where supports for reproductive healthcare are limited, and midwifery, abortion, and gender-affirming care are all framed as “fringe” services that exceed the austerity budget of the province. Participants engaged in this study with a clear understanding of this political terrain and approached interviews as an opportunity to share their experiences, and to advocate for the continuation and expansion of midwifery and related services in the province. Through the research process, it has become evident that midwifery must be understood as part of the struggle toward reproductive justice in this province. These reflections will direct further stages of the project, including ongoing research and dissemination.


Polar Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-273
Author(s):  
Céline Cunen ◽  
Lars Walløe ◽  
Kenji Konishi ◽  
Nils Lid Hjort

AbstractChanges in the body condition of Antarctic minke whales (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) have been investigated in a number of studies, but remain contested. Here we provide a new analysis of body condition measurements, with particularly careful attention to the statistical model building and to model selection issues. We analyse body condition data for a large number (4704) of minke whales caught between 1987 and 2005. The data consist of five different variables related to body condition (fat weight, blubber thickness and girth) and a number of temporal, spatial and biological covariates. The body condition variables are analysed using linear mixed-effects models, for which we provide sound biological motivation. Further, we conduct model selection with the focused information criterion (FIC), reflecting the fact that we have a clearly specified research question, which leads us to a clear focus parameter of particular interest. We find that there has been a substantial decline in body condition over the study period (the net declines are estimated to 10% for fat weight, 7% for blubber thickness and 3% for the girth). Interestingly, there seems to be some differences in body condition trends between males and females and in different regions of the Antarctic. The decline in body condition could indicate major changes in the Antarctic ecosystem, in particular, increased competition from some larger krill-eating whale species.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document