Composition Forum 2022 web Open Access

Troubling the Tacit: A Review Essay of Harry Collins’s (2010) Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

Timothy R. Amidon

Abstract

In this review essay, I briefly examine Odell, Goswami, and Herrington’s discussion of tacit knowledge in The Discourse-Based Interview: A Procedure for Exploring the Tacit Knowledge of Writers in Nonacademic Settings, before discussing Collins’s expansive treatment of the concept in Tacit and Explicit Knowledge. In this monograph, Collins delineates three distinct forms of tacit knowledge: relational tacit knowledge (RTK); somatic tacit knowledge (STK); and collective tacit knowledge (CTK). I close by contextualizing Collins’s work alongside of recent research on tacit knowledge in writing studies, considering implications for future research regarding the role these forms of tacit knowledge play within epistemic and communicative activity.

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Composition Forum
Published
2022
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