Understanding the Rhetoric of Research

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Separating audience from context is somewhat misleading. In general, audience is an integral part of considerations of context. It has been separated here so that the rhetorical constraints around the question, "Who do I want to reach?" can be more carefully examined.

A clearly defined audience will affect the methodologies researchers use to conduct their studies. Some audiences will be swayed more easily by certain research methods. Education researchers may be more attentive to experimental methods that focus on generalizable results while practicing classroom researchers may get more use out of individual case studies and/or ethnographies of groups of students.

Although audience does change the methods used to conduct research, perhaps a rhetorically more important influence exerted by audience is on the forum for results presentation. If a teacher-researcher wanted to present the results of a study of the text-production habits of her class of 14-year-olds to other junior high school or middle school teachers, she wouldn't attempt to publish an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. In fact, she might determine that publishing, at least initially, was not the best way to make her argument. Perhaps her findings, research context, or even initial question(s) are such that an oral presentation at a regional conference of middle school teachers would seem more effective. She must choose the forum that will allow her to accomplish her rhetorical ends.

To return to the example cited in our discussion of context, the two articles Sarah Freedman wrote about the same research project are for two different audiences, and many features of her articles reflect clear rhetorical strategies aimed at those different audiences. The introduction to Freedman's articles by Hayes, et al. says:

The differences in rhetorical stance between these two papers-describing conclusions to practitioners [CCC article] versus arguing for their validity to empirical researchers [JEP article]-are reflected in important structural differences between the papers (1992, p. 317).

This introduction describes how differences between the articles (such as the level of technical detail given about the study) serve rhetorically important purposes for the audiences of each journal. The CCC audience is rhetorically identified as a group of people who are probably unfamiliar with statistics and experimental design, while the JEP audience is identified as a group of people who are more concerned about the validity of the study and its conclusions. Freedman's realization of the characteristics of the audience leads her to make important rhetorical decisions in the presentation of her research.