Undercover Discourse Agents Conduct True Experiments

Actually, like, Diane, I pondered the pairing of these two readings. Since I couldn't conclude any connection, I figured a zippy title would suffice. You laugh now, but it could be the name of a new reality show, and you'll be sorry you didn't think of it!!!

Anyway, I do have a couple of comments and questions about that always scintillating L & A. I think I get the gist of it, minus all that statistics vernacular that I constantly struggle with week after week (sorry Brad and Billy, as good as you were, I just cannot wrap my brain around this stuff). First, on page 158, O'Hare was concerned with his inability to "control for the language experiences of the subjects outside their English classrooms" and put extra time investigating these experiences. However, L & A note that his efforts were unnecessary because "randomization had already been expected to equalize these variables." I disagree-- these experiences (over which O'Hare could not have control and would not be expected to control) would have to play into the experiment, disrupting the assumed equality, and the only way to get around this would be to control every nuance of a research subject's life--sort of like the movie The Truman Show with Jim Carrey. Obviously, this type of research is virtually impossible and should not be pursued due to the practicality and reliability of such research (that whole clinical v. reality thing), but I don't think these experiences can be discounted. This is not to say that O'Hare should give up his research, but as we have discussed, a researcher would need to address these types of issues. Later in the chapter, L & A discuss "Testing" under the heading Measurement threats to internal validity which further--at least in my mind--confuses their readers as to purpose. It's almost as if they are saying, "We want to mention this potential problem, but it really doesn't apply to true experiments." Did anyone else sense this? It probably isn't crucial, but what is "a paper of definition" as referred to on page 157?

Now I usually look forward to reading K & S after L & A, but Mortensen was denser than dense at times. I appreciated what he had to say, but (I think Vicki mentioned this), I could have used something more practical rather than philosophical. And, dare I say it, he must have asked Captain Obvious for some input. Of course, research on talk about writing has limitations--especially when others are listening and recording either the writing process itself or the talk about writing as in writing conferences. These two scenarios will only become artificial, and the results of such observation can only lead to further discussion, not to conclusions. As we read and discussed earlier in L & A, observing talk about the writing process can only provide a glimpse and, in my opinion, cannot really be quantified as those researchers sadly attempted to do. And, just as we concluded from Brodkey's study of literacy in letters, when a researcher will be listening and recording talk about writing as in a writing conference, the discourse cannot but be affected, becoming fictional, but that should not stop us from talking about talking about writing as Mortensen adeptly concludes.