ABSTRACT
The description of written language is the first means of discovering, analyzing, and interpreting style. While stylistic analyses are both qualitative and quantitative, the focus of the qualitative study of writing is on
what
forms are used by a writer, and
how
and
why
they are used (Johnstone, 2000:35). Recent changes in the criteria for scientific evidence have emphasized the
heuristic requirements of the scientific method traditionally used in the natural sciences. This is because, at worst, some proffered expert testimony did not have any scientific basis, and, at best, other methods of scientific inquiry were relative, i.e., more or less different from field to field and expert to expert. Although the methods of inquiry in the humanities and social sciences are of necessity more relative than those of the natural sciences, they nonetheless demonstrate sufficient rigor to produce objective observations of facts, reliable results, and valid conclusions.
