Getting the Most Use Out of Research Results

All too often companies conduct a survey and do nothing with the results. This problem can be avoided by making sure that management is committed to acting on the findings before you even conduct the research (the topic of this month's column) and developing highly actionable research tools (covered last month).

Sinickas, Angela D. Sinickas Communications (1999). Articles>Research>Methods

Getting the Most Use out of Research Results

All too often companies conduct a survey and do nothing with the results. This problem can be minimized through developing a highly actionable survey in the first place (the topic of this month's column) and making sure that management is committed to acting on the findings (to be covered next month). Here are some suggestions for developing a survey that leads to highly actionable results.

Sinickas, Angela D. Sinickas Communications (1999). Articles>Research>Methods>Surveys

Graphics and Ethos in Biomedical Journals    

This article describes a study that examined the tables and figures in articles from a basic research journal, The Journal of Cell Biology, and compared them to tables and figures from an applied medical journal, The New England Journal of Medicine. Comparison of graphics between the two journals shows sharp differences in terms of range of graphics types, visual consistency within and between articles, or use of color. As the articles take into account what is needed by different audiences, the graphics help to build the credibility of the journal. The study also addresses the question of how scientific visuals contribute to the persuasiveness of a writer, looking at how the graphics within an article affect the credibility or ethos of the writer.

Hutto, David. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2008). Articles>Research>Biomedical>Visual Rhetoric

The Guild Model  

The Guild Publishing Model is a workable and presently working model, taken seriously in computer science, economics, business, and demography among other fields; however, it has not entered the discussion of scholarly electronic communication. Instead, for example, discussion of scholarly communication in high energy physics focuses on arXiv.org, the repository model. We believe that this is a mistake; the GPM is an important and significant model that is worth noting, examining, and extending to other fields. The GPM can provide rapid sharing of information and increased comprehensive research access for those in academic departments or research institutes with small libraries, and it is an economically feasible model for institutions with basic computing support. The GPM is flexible, set up locally, according to interest, need, and available resources.

Kling, Rob, Lisa Spector and Geoff McKim. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2002). Articles>Publishing>Research>Online

The Half-Life of Internet References Cited in Communication Journals    

This exploratory study examines the use of online citations, focusing on five leading journals in journalism and communication. It analyzes 1126 URL reference addresses in citations of articles published between 2000 and 2003. The results show that only 61 percent of the online citations remain accessible in 2004 and 39 percent do not. The content analysis also shows that .org and .gov are the most stable domains. Error messages for 'dead' URL addresses are explored. The instability of online citations raises concerns for researchers, editors and associations.

Dimitrova, Daniela V. and Michael Bugeja. New Media and Society (2007). Articles>Publishing>Research>Online

How Academic Organizational Systems and Culture Undermine Scholarship and Quality Research: A Response to Ron Dulek    

I now believe that the architects of a university's systems have extraordinary power and leverage to shape academic life in ways faculty often are only dimly aware of. Finally, we can help change the talk or narrative in our organizations about publications and reshape it to discussions about rewarding a blend of scholarship, research, publication, teaching, and service. Changing organizational talk is extremely difficult. Determining leverage points or openings for new language is hard to determine. Also, it's a challenge to determine ways to make that different language contagious, to make it stick. But I believe the challenge is worth pursuing, and it's work we should be good at. As Malcolm Gladwell (2000) points out in The Tipping Point, new language can be contagious, small actions can have big effects, and change can occur fast. In fact, if I were to step back into my Arcadian world of innocence where truth and beauty reigned, I might even believe that our colleagues and even our academic administrators have grown tired of the research bean-counting game and would welcome a new language, a different conversation, and a more growth-inducing set of values about the work we do.

Suchan, Jim. JBC (2008). Articles>Publishing>Research

How to Be a Consumer of Research  

In this hands-on, interactive workshop, you will learn to: identify and overcome barriers to using research on the job; identify sources of usable and valid research for your job; identify five basic research concepts and terms everyone should know; apply practical decision-making methods for knowing whether to use research on the job.

Kleimann, Susan D. and Kenneth D. Keiser. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Research

How to Consume Research Effectively: You Are What You Eat  

In this hands-on, interactive workshop, you will learn to identify and overcome barriers to using research on the job, identify sources of usable and valid research for your job, identify five basic research concepts and terms everyone should know, and apply practical decision-making methods for knowing whether to use research on the job.

Kleimann, Susan D. and Kenneth D. Keiser. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Research>TC

How to Read an Engineering Research Paper

Reading research papers effectively is challenging. These papers are written in a very condensed style because of page limitations and the intended audience, which is assumed to already know the area well. Moreover, the reasons for writing the paper may be different than the reasons the paper has been assigned, meaning you have to work harder to find the content that you are interested in. Finally, your time is very limited, so you may not have time to read every word of the paper or read it several times to extract all the nuances. For all these reasons, reading a research paper can require a special approach.

Griswold, Bill. University of California San Diego. Articles>Research>Engineering

Hypermedia Research Directions: An Infrastructure Perspective  

This paper offers a perspective on the directions in which hypermedia infrastructure research will move in the next several years. The perspective is based on the authors' experiences and insights from a decade of active participation in this research area. After a review of hypermedia infrastructure research, the paper focuses on two particular threads of such research named 'multiple open services' and 'structural computing'. We believe that these threads show much promise for the future.

Wiil, Uffe K., Peter J. Nürnberg and John J. Leggett. ACM Computing Surveys (1999). Articles>Research>Hypertext

The Impact of Perceptions of Journal Quality on Business and Management Communication Academics    

This commentary describes and critiques criteria that, according to results from an Association for Business Communication (ABC) member survey, are having an impact on quality judgments about our journals. ABC members rank the Journal of Business Communication and Business Communication Quarterly as top research and pedagogical journals in business/management communication, a finding corroborated by a larger study of academics in business and technical communication. However, the growing importance of citation counts and journal rankings currently disadvantages our journals, presenting us with professional obligations and personal dilemmas in relation to them. The authors' purpose is to raise awareness of the various determinants of perceptions of journal quality, to explore the communal views of ABC members on this issue, and to seek ways of enhancing the value of business/management communication research in the academic marketplace.

Rogers, Priscilla S., Nittaya Campbell, Leena Louhiala-Salminen, Kathy Rent and Jim Suchan. JBC (2007). Articles>Publishing>Research>Assessment

In Citing Chaos: A Study of the Rhetorical Use of Citations    

Research on citations has generally examined citations as part of a system of rewards or as a rhetorical tool for strengthening arguments. This study examines both the role of citations as reward and as rhetoric. The reward system was examined by tracing over time the citation patterns of 13 research articles by two groups of scientists in chaos theory. The rhetorical practices were examined by determining how these articles were cited, by reviewing 609 citations of the 13 research articles. The analysis revealed that scientists consistently used five rhetorical practices. These practices include (1) using citations in the introduction, (2) using authors' names in the citation, (3) using the citation in a statement that asserts a high level of certainty, (4) using citations to create a research space (CARS), and (5) combining the authors' name with placement in the introduction. These features indicated the articles' centrality in scientific discourse.

Paul, Danette. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2000). Articles>Research>Rhetoric

Incorporating Film Into the Research Paper    

Teachers face two serious difficulties when assigning research papers. The first appears to be an issue of motivation but is really one of mental disposition. Many students are so deeply influenced by contemporary visual culture--especially by film--that they lack familiarity with close reasoning. They are accustomed to absorbing entertaining, but loosely connected, streams of images in an impressionistic way and are uneasy and anxious when given a major assignment in an exclusively written medium. Inexperienced in the systematic compilation and analysis of information, they often perform poorly. These students may appear to be unenthusiastic about their topics; in fact, they do badly because they are methodologically disoriented. They run aground while sailing in the unfamiliar seas of organized, sequential, linear logic. This problem often shows itself in the frequent, and frequently gratuitous, use of illustrations in research papers. Instructors often comment that 'students love pictures.' It would be more accurate to say that students understand pictures and are comfortable with them. The second difficulty is a by-product of the Web. Plagiarism has become so widespread that it poses a real threat to the academic enterprise. Yet its detection is both difficult and time-consuming, and an instructor must be on absolutely solid ground before bringing a student up on such serious charges. Furthermore, even if available, an expensive counter-plagiarism program such as Turnitin cannot always deliver conclusive evidence. Plagiarism must be addressed, but today, articles that existed previously only in print can be optically scanned, free essays are available online, and papers can be purchased and downloaded from numerous commercial outlets. We have addressed both of these problems by strategically using appropriate motion pictures as entrees into the subject matter and as points of comparison to help organize research papers. We first provide our students with a list of films that bear on relevant topics.

Fontenot, Michael J. and Karen A. Fontenot. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Research>Multimedia

The Influence of Academic Values on Scholarly Publication and Communication Practices  

This study reports on five disciplinary case studies that explore academic value systems as they influence publishing behavior and attitudes of University of California, Berkeley faculty. The case studies are based on direct interviews with relevant stakeholders -- faculty, advancement reviewers, librarians, and editors -- in five fields: chemical engineering, anthropology, law and economics, English-language literature, and biostatistics. The results of the study strongly confirm the vital role of peer review in the choices faculty make regarding their publishing behavior. The perceptions and realities of the reward system keep faculty strongly adhered to conventional, high-stature print publications (and their electronic surrogates) as the means of reporting research and having it institutionally evaluated. Perceptions of electronic-only publications are frequently negative because those venues are considered to lack strong peer review and are, consequently, believed to be of relatively lower quality. There is much more experimentation, however, with regard to means of in-progress communication, where single means of publication and communication are not fixed so deeply in values and tradition as they are for final, archival publication. We conclude that approaches that try to 'move' faculty and deeply embedded value systems directly toward new forms of archival, 'final' publication are destined largely to failure in the short-term. From our perspective, a more promising route is to (1) examine the needs of scholarly researchers for both final and in-progress communications, and (2) determine how those needs are likely to influence future scenarios in a range of disciplinary areas.

Harley, Diane, Sarah Earl-Novell, Jennifer Arter, Shannon Lawrence and C. Judson King. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2007). Articles>Publishing>Research>Case Studies

Inspiring Change Through Research

Organizational communication is centered on inspiring and managing change, so it makes sense that communication professionals are seeing a more critical role for research in understanding and reaching their most important stakeholder relationships (employees, customers, suppliers, dealers, etc.). When a company is undergoing significant changes (i.e., a merger, acquisition, slumping sales, a product launch), research can pinpoint exactly where the issues and communication needs are. Oftentimes, such information is considered and then only used in limited ways. So how does a company proceed in bringing research results to life? It’s important to review how the research and tactical elements of communication vehicles are matched up.

Powell, Nancy. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Organizational Communication>Research

Interpreting Textual Data in Writing Research    

This article discusses a theoretical framework for situating interpretations of textual data collected during research. Based on the reader response theory of Louise Rosenblatt, this framework consists of a continuum representing the range of interpretative assumptions--stances--researchers can bring to their reading of textual data. The continuum is bounded by the two most extreme stances defined by Rosenblatt as efferent, roughly comparable to the stereotypical scientific interpretative tradition, and aesthetic, roughly comparable to the stereotypical humanities interpretative tradition.

Thompson, Isabelle. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1999). Articles>Research>Methods>Writing

Is Professional Writing Relevant? A Model for Action Research    

This article argues that engaged 'action research' can help professional writing researchers both develop new and interesting collaborative models and help our profession develop a greater relevance to those not reading our journals and attending our conferences. I outline one particular, localized approach in the hope that our troubles, struggles, and failures at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee can help others to develop their own programs and can further our discussion of community engagement.

Clark, Dave. Technical Communication Quarterly (2004). Articles>Research>Writing>Business Communication

Issues of Validity in Intercultural Professional Communication Research    

This article explores three ways to design US empirical methods to be more valid and ethical in cross-cultural studies. First, intercultural researchers need to distinguish broad rhetorical and cultural patterns from regional, organizational, and personal patterns, a process that requires balancing the fact of difference with the need for generalization. Second, US researchers need to distinguish not only the differences in rhetorical patterns in a form of communication but also in the ways that form is used rhetorically. Third, researchers need to construct researcher-participant relationships that are sensitive to the values of organizational relationships in both cultures.

Thatcher, Barry L. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2001). Articles>Research>Methods>International

Leveraging the Power of Google to Perform Research

As a writer, there is undoubtedly no better tool for researching than Google. This article focuses on how to use Google to find analyst research, important data and other factoids that will round out the quality of your white papers.

Stelzner, Michael A. WhitePaperSource (2006). Articles>Writing>Research>Search

Literature Review: What is Visual Literacy?  

This paper takes a look at what is being said in various disciplines (technical writing, journalism, education, psychology, user interface design, and visual arts) in an attempt to answer the question 'What is visual literacy?' A corollory is 'How will I know when I have achieved it?' A working definition of visual literacy has many implications for how we train technical writers in order to meet the professional challenges of the future.

Couse, Mary M. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Graphic Design>Research>Visual Rhetoric

Making Research Actionable: An Introduction to Design Criteria

What happens when people want a company’s product, but are frustrated by the process of trying to get it? Obviously it should be reworked — but doing so can be easier said than done. When we’re asked to redesign a process, we often start by exploring the problem space with in-context research, which generates a large amount of data. That data tends to point teams in the direction of a number of possible solutions. But how should the team decide which direction is the right one? In such cases, I’ve found that Design Criteria — a set of rules a design team can follow — can be a key tool so when a design team creates or reworks a service or product, everything it does supports the user.

Nelson, Sarah B. Adaptive Path (2008). Articles>Research>Design>Business Communication

Making Use of User Research

Designing or redesigning a product often feels like a risky proposition, especially in today's business climate.

Anderson, Gretchen. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Usability>Research

Making Wikis Work for Scholars

For all the hand-wringing over whether Wikipedia is a legitimate source for completing college assignments, some professors are quietly incorporating it into their classrooms and even their research. Others, noting features of the Web site that contribute to inaccuracies and shortchange the value of expertise, are building variations on the model that are more amenable to academics and to peer review.

Guess, Andy. Inside Higher Ed (2008). Articles>Research>Online>Wikis

Mapping Language Function in the Brain: A Review of the Recent Literature    

Advocates of brain-based learning have argued that instructional methods, to be successful, must be based on an understanding of how the brain processes information. In the past most descriptions of neurocognitive function were largely speculative, relying on theoretical constructions of how we believed the brain to work. Recent advances in functional imaging Positron Emission Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging have, however, opened the brain to empirical study. This article will consider the potential importance of brain study for composition instruction, briefly describe functional imaging techniques, and review the findings of recent brain-mapping studies investigating the neurocognitive systems involved in language function. In short, understanding how language systems are organized in the brain represents the first step in our attempts to create brain-compatible instructional methods in the composition classroom. Following a review of the recent literature, the article will consider the possible implications of this information for pedagogical practice.

Crafton, Robert E. and Elissa Kido. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>Language>Research>Cognitive Psychology