"Makes​ an​ indispensable contribution to revitalizing data-driven research in writing studies by rethinking ​RAD research as a distributed process for collectively making transcontextual knowledge from local studies. All students of method should heed ​this book's​ call for transparency in reporting research processes."
Points of Departure encourages a return to empirical research about writing, presenting a wealth of transparent, reproducible studies of student sources. The volume shows how to develop methods for coding and characterizing student texts, their choice of source material, and the resources used to teach information literacy. In so doing, the volume advances our understanding of how students actually write.
Tricia Serviss is associate director of entry level writing in the University Writing Program at the University of California, Davis. She has published articles in Writing Pedagogy, College English, Assessing Writing, and Across the Disciplines and chapters in Crossing Borders, Drawing Boundaries: The Rhetoric of Lines across America and The Handbook of Academic Integrity. Current research projects include a longitudinal study of first-generation college student STEM major literacy practices and longitudinal study of a transdisciplinary faculty development team leading a writing and research initiative to strengthen undergraduate learning. She is a principal researcher of The Citation Project.
Sandra Jamieson is professor of English and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at Drew University. She co-edited Information Literacy: Research and Collaboration Across the Disciplines, and Coming of Age: The Advanced Writing Curriculum (winner of the WPA Best Book Award), and is co-author of The Bedford Guide to Writing in the Disciplines. A Citation Project principal researcher, she has also published on various aspects of student writing.