ABSTRACT
Researchers learn to do research that will be acceptable to a particular research community. Their view of research is shaped by the rewards the research community gives to those who do “good” (that is acceptable within the paradigm) research. In one sense, the author is not different. He only now realizing that there is a name for the philosophy of science that underlies his research: scientific realism. What is different for him is that he did not reach this point by joining a community of researchers doing research based on scientific realism. Several experiences he had, up to and including his experiences as a doctoral student, laid the foundation for the research he would later call miscue analysis. He suspect there are few examples, if any, of a scientist who first adopted a philosophy of science and then carefully laid out a line of research based consistently on that philosophy.
