Romantics and Spies

Chapters two and three of Dyson and Genishi's "On the Case" contained the kind of informal retelling of the qualitative research process that fills most of my nights these days. It is also like the fifth entry into a genre that I had surmised singular when first encountered Villanueva's seminal text "Bootstraps". This I should like to burden with the unwieldy and vaguely insulting title of "Personal Narratives about Personal Narrative." Dr.Villanueva did a bang up job of elucidating the paradox of his existence while virtually proving that personal narrative can at times be the best and only tool for examining our roles in an institution. Somebody please run out and tell every composition scholar on the planet that I can read THAT book once and what made it great was the human passion and completeness of a real story. In scattering the narrative across multiple "storyings" the weight is lost and the personal lapses back into the sum of its parts. Granted this is ultimately intended as a textbook, but the standard Dr. V set is to be fascinating and engaging while writing about making research more fascinating and engaging. Tough stuff, and I appreciate his accomplishment all the more as my schooling proceeds.
    OTC is not a bad textbook at all, good organization and good advice are all throughout the work and there were parts that reduced my worry or made me feel better prepared for the coming challenges of research. It read like an afternoon in a well meaning teachers office. A teacher who knows that talking calmly and confidently about the research process was more important to me than making every point stick, as if I came in in a panic and needed to hear reasoned anecdotes to fix all the new information rattling around in my tweaked out brain.
    There were two fine justifications for the "casing of the joint". One we have encountered before but was handled well here and the other was new, obvious, and really nice to see in print. The first, which was more prominent in the latter half of the chapter was the needs and benefits of flexible research questions and goals. Other texts have stressed the inevitability of this idea, giving examples of this flexibility leading in its flow to easier or more fruitful lines of inquiry. OTC took that a little farther, fleshing out how the initial construction of a wide and open lens can bring us to the point in our research where new and divergent questions come with clarity and purpose. One must position one's self to reap the benefits of this open form of inquiry, the book seems to be saying. An argument seemed to be made that we researchers have a moral responsibility to this openness of topic and question, which appeals to me.
    The more obvious concept I was so glad to see given play here was the preparatory aspects of casing the joint(somebody call Spike Lee and let him know his pet colloquialism is out loose again). What pleased me was the very compassionate advice about not only setting one's self up for academic success but not being overwhelmed by newness and unfamiliarity. There were tensions galore in this research scenario and to add any franticness to the mix would be destructive. An intelligent link was drawn between being prepared enough to stay calm and relaxed and not overplaying the role of involved researcher. It was made clear that the case itself will seek to draw the researcher's character too far into the personal side of the equation. Having started with a strong and complete view of the case in its fullness will help to keep the precise balance of "loose but not too loose" and not accidentally morph into Romantics and spies.