My prospectus has gone to committee and I have a hearing on October 27th. I’ve spoken to my committee member and they’re all on board. I am already anticipating one specific question at the hearing:

Where is your technology theory?

It’s a relevant question, really. My prospectus lists specific methodology theorists (Yin; Best and Kahn; Shriver; Connors) and discourse theorists (Bruffee and Bizzell). I talk a bit more in-depth about Bakhtin and Foucault, but I don’t mention specific technology theorists. No, this was not an oversight on my part. This was careful planning.

The If — Then Theory Foundation

I focus the theory in my prospectus on Foucault and Bakhtin because these two theories create a foundation for my investigation and argument. I’m using Foucault’s power structure theory to hypothesize that social bookmarking can flatten the hierarchy of knowledge. Foucault argues that statements that create a discourse follow a pre-designed set of rules. If a person’s statement goes against the accepted belief of the discourse, that statement is muted, deleted, and forgotten. Therefore, Foucault argues that to understand the whole of a discourse, we  must begin by asking ourselves who is not speaking in the discourse and then examining why these voices are omitted. In traditional academic research, students have access to academic databases and are required to use “scholarly” works in their papers. Well, this omits the voices of many members of a discourse–especially when other web resources are not permissible. Even if students are permitted to use web resources, they may not always have the time to sift through the millions of results their search engine provides. Therefore, I hypothesize that social bookmarking can flatten the discourse hierarchy by providing students with access to many perspectives in a more organized way than traditional search engines (via folksonomies).

IF social bookmarking can flatten the hierarchy THEN a relationship between the student/professional/marginalized voices has the potential to become a dialogic relationship.

Bakhtin’s concept of the dialogic relationship then comes into play. Bakhtin discusses relationships between authors and characters that have a dialogic relationship. These relationships place the author and the character on the same ground and the character has as much say in his development as the author. To translate this into a writing and research relationship, the dialogic relationship allows the student to engage in a dialogic relationship with the writings of the professionals and the marginalized voices. The student, then, is not just creating a paper that puts her voice against that of some professionals while using the voice of other professionals to support her argument. Instead, the student becomes an equal with the professionals and raises the voice of the marginalize to the status of equal as well. My hypothesis here is that if students can become equals to the sources, they can take a more active role in constructing their arguments and assert more credibility in their writing.

Discourse Community Theory: The Primary Support

I emphasize the use of discourse community theorists to further the construction of the dialogic relationships. Bruffee and Bizzell, along with many theorists in the academic/professional discourse argument, posit that students who can interact with others in a discourse community can better learn to write in that community. The theories are largely arguing for creating a discourse community inside a classroom setting, but I want to explore the use of real world discourse communities. My hypothesis here is that if students are actively engaging in dialogue with members of professions related to their argument–who may or may not be published in the academic journals they read–can not only gain a new perspective on the argument, but they also have the opportunity to add their voice or questions to a discussion and interact with the audience. This, then would lead to a better ability to specifically write to the audience (Ede and Lunsford; Booth, Colomb and Williams).

Pedagogy, not Technology

So, in the ten pages I was allowed for my prospectus, I omitted technology theory. Sure, I could have talked about specific composition and technology theorists (Eldred, Hawisher and Selfe, or Selber). I could have dropped names (Bolter, Landow, Jenkins). But I didn’t. I specifically chose to omit these theorists because I follow the ideas set forth by Hawisher & Selfe in the early 1990s–technology does not “work” just by putting it into the classroom; pedagogy must drive technology. I am not saying that technology theory will not be a part of my dissertation–both in a general and a composition sense. But I want to place more emphasis on the composition pedagogy that drives my theory. With that emphasis, I can use technology theory to further support the composition theory. I fear that if I tried to use composition theory to support the technology theory I would be treading in shark-infested waters.

Tradition

My research into social bookmarking in academic research contributes to the rhetorical tradition in several significant ways. First, I feel that the use of social bookmarking can contribute to the traditional invention methods used in writing and research. Among these, I would not the use of Burke’s pentad, the Tagmemic approach, and various heuristics–including the Journalistic questions and Aristotle’s topoi. I also believe, as a scholar, that my research will follow a tradition of rhetorical research that harmonizes the use of qualitative and quantitative research into a solid pedagogical text.

Social bookmarking itself demonstrates a user’s ability to emphasize ethos on a specific topic through collected links. This ability helps teachers to further emphasize the need for ethos in research and the ways that logos and pathos can further support or detract from an individual’s credibility. I also believe that my scholarship, as a whole, will demonstrate a solid use of each of these appeals. As a member of social bookmarking communities, I have the credibility to speak from experience. However, I also am conducting research that will further this research. Additionally, I believe the logos of my argument is founded in my use of significant scholarship in the areas of both rhetoric and composition.

Further, this research will help scholars better understand the human/computer/language/discourse relationships in a new light. A study into social bookmarking provides a look at how we are creating discourse and furthering our own–and our friends’–knowledge. Such a system of recording information will also allow us to see whether social bookmarking is a new approach to helping students and ourselves to better understand how language is used–for political, ethical, persuasive, and exploratory means.

Finally, social bookmarking evolves our articulation of academic research. The past decade has seen the growth of academic databases–JSTOR, Science Direct, Project Muse, etc.–and access to these databases almost exclusively behind academic firewalls. Yet as the decade has progressed, more students have turned first to internet search engines for their research as well as invention exercises for non-research based writing. Social bookmarking helps to articulate the shift from a student body needing research only for academic purposes to an academic body that uses internet research as an early invention tool. Through social bookmarking, students can begin their invention strategies with research through a space that emphasizes the credibility of the original bookmarker. Through social bookmarking, the invention and early research of students can be more applicable to the final product as the first web information students gain can already be more credible research.

Topoi for Method

My methodology for this study combines both qualitative and quantitative research into the use of social bookmarking as a mode of academic research. My qualitative research will consist of conducting a pilot study of various classes across the university and assessing the results of using social bookmarking in these classes. In addition, I will interview specific students about their use of Diigo.com and include in at least one of these interview sessions a research session where I can physically see the student conducting research. I think the research findings can be considered valid and reliable if the students chosen are random and I do not interfere with the teaching and using of Diigo in the sample classes.

The empirical design of the study will be devised not only as a solo act, but in conjunction with surveys to the class instructors prior to the investigation. Additionally, I will be using methodologies from several researchers in the field of composition and the field of educational technology research. From the results, everything will be collated and analyzed so that no area of the research is left unattended. I feel that the analysis of all data helps to keep the study pure and valid, regardless of the findings.

Another emphasis in the method is the data collection itself. To maintain the natural environment, I will present instructors with the tools and information needed to use Diigo in their classrooms. I will have the ability to lurk on the students’ Diigo pages so I can see specifically how the student conducts research without interfering. With the students I interview, I plan to arrange a meeting with the student, answer any questions the student has, and leave the room. I will be videorecording the session, so the student will have the privacy she would normally have when conducting research. This also keeps me from asking and/or answering questions the student may have about what I am expecting. I feel that conducting the research in a normal setting will aid in keeping the results neutral.

Topoi for Theory

I fully believe this research will expand some pivotal research into composition and writing theory. Works as crucial to our field as Graff and Birkenstein’s They Say, I Say, and Booth, Colomb, and Williams’ Craft of Research can be expanded by the research I conduct in the next year. Additionally, my research can help composition instructors grapple with issues raised in other pivotal pedagogical texts. For example, the ability of students to join specific groups in Diigo gives them an audience to craft their writing toward. This, in a sense, helps extend the debate on real/invoked audience by providing students with a specific audience. Scholars have argued whether students should address a real audience or create their own (Ede & Lunsford, Ong) and I feel that a portion of this argument stems from the fact that in prior decades, students did not have an easy means of contacting those in their field. Social bookmarking helps to change this communication and, even if the student is still creating an audience, provides the writer with a more concrete vision of their audience.

This study will also articulate how imperative research and discourse are to a student’s writing. I hypothesize at the beginning of this study that awareness of a specific audience and access to more credible sources early in the writing process will aid students in creating better writing. Only through the study can I discover the truth of this hypothesis. However, I can hypothesize that through social bookmarking students have the ability to connect with experts and better understand the culture and language of a given discourse.

Finally, I believe that this study will have a strong impact on the way we understand knowledge acquisition among students. With the ability to see how a student conducts research with social bookmarking, we have the ability to better construct research assignments to highlight these traits and help students to improve and expand on their own research processes.

Topoi for Originality

I feel that this study will make a serious original contribution to the research. On a surface level, the research on social bookmarking emphasizes the advantage of these tools for libraries. However, the study I am undertaking goes much further than previous work. I think that by questioning the way social bookmarking impacts research and writing, I will be carving my own niche in the profession. Hopefully, I will be able to continue to chisel away at this niche for years to come as I feel it will define a new way of knowing and sharing knowledge with peers, teachers, and scholars outside the university. At the same time, I think this research continues to demonstrate a the tension between pathos and ethos by continuing to demonstrate how credible instructors struggle to find new ways to keep students engaged in the classroom.

So, my dissertation chair is on board with my collection of ideas. Now it’s time to take this to the next level and start moving from the overall view of these five random topics into a more specific focus. I’m working (a bit loosely) from Wayne Booth’s excellent chapter in The Craft of Research. I always teach this Booth’s approach when I teach research-based composition, so why not use it for myself, right?

A Few Words on the Topic

Currently, the topic I’m working on is social bookmarking, multiliteracies, and research based composition. I’m feeling that somewhere in this vast topic, I’m going to be emphasizing some  Reader Response and a chunk of Foucault, but that’s not an official part of the topic (I think that will go more towards my theory base.)

My Claim

Teaching social bookmarking in research based composition helps students to find more extensive research in a short period of time and aids instructors in teaching multiliteracies advantageous to students outside the classroom (both in every day life and their professions).

Connecting the Dots

All of the aspects that I’m considering do connect, even though saying this comes only recently. I’m going to work around this in a seemingly odd way, but it’s the best way to show this link.

Foucault

Foucault’s arguments about power (and government having the power) help demonstrate that material contained in libraries and behind library firewalls in the databases represent the acceptable knowledge to the university faculty. Professors stress the need for “scholarly” writing. However, since the Internet has expanded, this definition also needs to be revised. Students need to be able to look at what is scholarly but not behind the powerful walls of the university databases. Will Richardson has many articles published in scholarly journals that professors would deem “acceptable” scholarly material. However, a post from his blog would not be considered “scholarly” by many of these same professors because it does not appear in a specific journal. Using Foucault’s theory of power relations helps me to demonstrate the necessity for allowing students more leeway in using sources from the entire internet, not just those coveted in the ivory tower.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is the crux of my argument. It’s the application that allows all of the components of my argument to fit together. Anybody can use social bookmarking and establish ethos through the lists they create. Many scholars in various disciplines are using social bookmarking and have lists that are readily available to the public. Students see other users who have bookmarked their scholar’s work and what else these users have bookmarked that may relate to their own research. Students can also look through the social bookmarking sites to see if the scholar uses this feature as well. A quick venture through Will Richardson’s blog and I can see that he uses Delicious. This means that I can also see Will’s bookmarks and see what he finds important in the latest news and scholarship. This can also give a student new directions for research and, often, this research is much more current than journal articles stored in the databases. Other times, this information may be kept in a database the student’s library does not subscribe to, so the information may not come up in a quick search through the databases. (For instance, looking through my university’s WorldCat brought back nine articles for au: “Will Richardson,” while the free web version of WorldCat brought back over 20 articles that were useful to my research. I found the free WorldCat through a friend’s bookmarked article on Diigo.)

Multiliteracies

Teaching social bookmarking in research-based composition also opens the door for instructors to teach students the multiliteracies Selber argues are pertinent to educating today’s students.

Functional

Social bookmarking has already proved itself in the realm of “functional technology.” Teaching this technological skill in the classroom would allow the students to learn a technology that applies not only to their academic lives, but also to their personal and professional lives as well. In addition, instructors have the ability to teach another functional literacy–RSS feeds (by teaching students to subscribe to the RSS updates for the lists they are working from so they are aware when lists are updated without having to check back every day and see if new information has been added.)

Critical

Social bookmarking also teaches critical literacy skills. Students will not only have the opportunity to question why the university is opposed to Internet based research, but also whether they will continue to use social bookmarking. Students will have to look at both the academic and the popular view of social bookmarking, Internet sources as research and a host of other available criticial literacies.

Rhetorical

Social bookmarking also teaches specific rhetorical skills that students will carry over into the evaluation of websites they consider for their research. When we allow students to consider a website in their academic research, we require them to look rhetorically at the website itself. This lesson readily carries over into the teaching of social bookmarking. Students will have to ask themselves if certain users are trying to persuade them to see a topic in a certain way (Does the user bookmark any of the opposition sites, for example).

The Bigger Picture

But social bookmarking does not exist in a vacuum and I am not teaching students how to research–they begin learning this in junior high school.  I have to consider that my topic draws from years of research-based composition pedagogy, collaborative learning pedagogy, and technology and research pedagogy.  Even though social bookmarking has only been around for a few years, it plays a role in a larger context and cannot be examined alone.

However,  social bookmarking cannot be ignored in teaching research. My students are quick to point out that everything they do on the Internet can be classified as research. Many of my students have their own social bookmarking accounts. So if they already know how to use the site, we  have to teach them how to use the sites in an educational way. Otherwise, these students will continue to see a divide between the way they “surf the internet” at home and “research” at school.

Motivating the Question

In short, I am studying social bookmarking because I want to find out where this tool can enhance student research abilities in order to help research-based composition instructors understand how to student learning can be enhanced on many levels through this simple addition to pedagogy.