ENC5720 – Spring 2027 – Lathan

Research Methods is the most important course you will take as a graduate student. In turn, it can be the most difficult and challenging content-based course. Be prepared to be challenged on your learning/comprehension. This Research Methods Seminar covers several ways composition and rhetoric scholars make and support knowledge claims. These ways, though, are not exclusive to the discipline, often drawing on research methods, methodologies, and epistemologies across academic disciplines. Not only will we seek to discover and explore the major research paradigms in the field, but we will also discuss how they function to construct knowledge, their underlying assumptions, and their ethical implications. Rhetoric and Composition as a discipline has a commitment to feminist, anti-racist, and decolonizing epistemologies, which can be seen in our acceptance of intersectional methodological approaches. Therefore, in this survey of intersectional qualitative research methods common in the field, we will consistently return to discussions of ideology and the ethics of power dynamics and underrepresented voices. After a brief introduction to epistemology, we will (1) formulate research questions, (2) investigate various ways to collect and analyze data, and (3) plan a mixed-methods qualitative study. In addition, all students will complete Institutional Review Board (IRB) training to become certified human subjects researchers at FSU if they have not done so already.