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The traditional research paper, with its emphasis on the reporting of existing knowledge, correctness of citation and documentation, and logical and linear thinking, has been under assault for the last two decades. Compositionists such as Richard Larson (1982), Robert Connors (1997), and Bruce Ballenger (1999, 2000) have accused the research paper of being a-rhetorical and tedious--an exercise in fact-finding designed mainly to please the teacher. Since the movement to replace the traditional research paper came into full swing two decades ago, some writing programs have adopted new types of research writing assignments which include ethnographic, multi-genre, hypertext, and other "alternative" types of research projects.In this web, we discuss two studies that explore two related questions about research writing: 1) when a writing program introduces new ways of teaching research, what are students' expectations of and reactions to these new types of research assignments?; 2) to what extent have the new ideas about researched writing penetrated other disciplines and what kinds of research assignments are students in those disciplines being asked to do?
The first study, by Pavel Zemliansky, examines the reactions of first-year writers to a combination of primary and secondary research assignments. The study shows that, as a whole, students adjusted to the new assignments successfully despite some significant problems which, we believe, were caused largely by their previous knowledge and negative ideas about research writing. The second study, by Dan Melzer, broadens the scope by examining the teaching of researched writing across the curriculum. We believe that studying the contents of first-year writing course that teach research and writing-intensive classes in other disciplines comparatively is beneficial, especially in light of one finding of the second study: innovative research writing assignments appear in significant numbers, alongside the traditional research paper, in the disciplinary courses we surveyed. We hope that our studies will contribute to the argument in favor of replacing the traditional research paper with a variety of alternative researched writing assignments.
Background
One of the most famous early critiques of the generic research paper is Richard Larson's 1982 article, "The 'Research Paper' in a Writing Course: A Non-Form of Writing." Larson criticizes the generic research paper because it implies that other kinds of writing do not require research. At the same time, he endorses the need to teach researched writing through other methods, because the process of research is indispensable for all types of writing and genres.
In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the movement to oust the traditional research paper continued. Some recent noteworthy critiques of the assignment of the last decade include Douglas Brent's in Reading as Rhetorical Invention (1992), Robert Connors' in Composition-Rhetoric (1997), and Bruce Ballenger's in Beyond Note-Cards: Rethinking the Freshman Research Paper (1999) and The Curious Researcher (2000). All of these authors accuse the traditional research paper of being a-rhetorical and tedious, both for teachers and students, and call for new ways of teaching researched writing. These new approaches seek to make transitions from reporting to creating knowledge through research conducted by student writers. They call for less efficiency and more exploration in student research, and they are based on epistemological rhetoric's idea that writers not only transmit pre-existing knowledge but create it (for a detailed discussion of this rhetoric see James Berlin's classic Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1980).
Our research into disciplinary writing supports Jennie Nelson's assertion that the research paper is "one of the most institutionalized forms of college student writing…[and] one of the most common writing assignments college students can expect to encounter in their undergraduate careers…” (1994, 65). Our studies also provide support for an argument against teaching the traditional research paper. We believe that the attitude towards researched writing that we advocate helps students to become better thinkers and knowledge-makers. We hope that our studies and the alternatives to traditional research writing that we provide can give teachers new ways of looking at an old subject.