Composing Research

Throughout her book, Cindy Johanek portrays a near-crisis situation in the field of rhetoric and composition: she laments the "prominent place" of anecdotal evidence that belies "our rejection of the quantitative," and warns us that the "near-abandonment of research that seeks and analyzes numerical data" will divide us "further into the more private worlds of personal stories" (11). She argues for an inclusive paradigm in composition and rhetoric studies, one that focuses on the type of research the field needs versus the kind we like. And she assumes that what we like is bad for the field. Many readers will find the arguments over paradigms, current-traditional rhetoric, and quantitative/qualitative debates familiar, but Johanek takes a uniquely strident approach in championing the neglected realms of empirical research.