ABSTRACT
This chapter positions ethnography as a third-hand methodology for writing center studies, one adopted from anthropology via writing studies, and argues that writing center researchers would benefit from articulating clearer expectations for writing center ethnography. The author analyses writing center dissertation abstracts to demonstrate the conflation of ethnography as both method and methodology—and to highlight the resulting difficulty in pinpointing the degree to which writing center research can be considered ethnographic. The chapter draws on scholarship from writing studies and, to a lesser degree, writing center studies, to present key challenges that face ethnographers. Writing center researchers will need to address these challenges and others in coming to terms with—and producing more and better—ethnography.
