ABSTRACT

Researchers in the human sciences have shown an increasing interest in the rhetoric of research. Early expression of this interest occurred at a 1979 University of Chicago conference on “Narrative: The Illusion of Sequence.” Subsequently, the University of Iowa established its Program on the Rhetoric of Inquiry (POROI) and has sponsored conferences and programs which focus on rhetoric in the human sciences (e.g.,“The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs,” March 1984; and “Conference on Narrative in the Human Sciences,” July 1990). Researchers in a variety of academic and professional fields have contributed to the growing body of literature on the rhetoric of research and, more recently, on the use of narrative in research (e.g., Agar, 1990; Anderson, 1987; Atkinson, 1990;Bruner, 1986;Egan, 1986; Gee, 1985, 1989a, 1989b; Gudmundsdottir, in press; Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983; Krieger, 1984; Lightfoot, 1985; McEwan, in press; Mulkay, 1985; Van Maanen, 1988; Wolf, 1985; Zeller, 1990, 1993, in press). These researchers have identified and explored the use of narrative as a mode of communication more resonant with human experience than traditional social science research rhetoric and, thus, inherently more understandable.