Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jan 1994

Ethnographic Research in Business and Technical Writing

GEOFFREY A. CROSS

Abstract

Two widely disseminated approaches impose reductive boundaries on ethnographic research by privileging one context of meaning over other essential contexts. The first, emphasizing statistical validity, privileges the research community by recommending that the ethnographer's data analysis via coding agree with that of other raters from the research community. The second asserts that the ethnographer who comes closest to validity comes closest to presenting only the subject's point of view. Ethnography, however, comprises four essential, overlapping contexts: the phenomenal context (that which is observed/recorded), the site's cultural context (the subjects' outlook), the research community context, and the researcher's interior context, shaped by experience and education. Each of the four vantages has dominating tendencies, but if one does dominate to the exclusion of others, the reductive result is data-centered, thin description; subjects-centered groupthink; research community-centered groupthink; or researchercentered solipsism. Although all contexts of meaning are important, none should fully eclipse the others.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
1994-01-01
DOI
10.1177/1050651994008001005
Open Access
Closed
Topics
writing across the curriculum qualitative research quantitative research technical communication

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (5)

  1. Workman et al. (2021)
    Drafting Pandemic Policy: Writing and Sudden Institutional Change
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Agboka (2014)
    Decolonial Methodologies: Social Justice Perspectives in Intercultural Technica…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Cross (2009)
    Presenting Consumer Technology with Pop: A Rhetorical and Ethnographic Explorat…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  4. Cross (2004)
    Protecting the Voices of Our Research
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  5. Blakeslee et al. (1996)
    Evaluating Qualitative Inquiry in Technical and Scientific Communication: Towar…
    Technical Communication Quarterly

Cites in this index (10)

  1. Clark (1991)
    On the Other Hand...
    Written Communication
  2. Jarratt (1991)
    On the Other Hand...
    Written Communication
  3. Lunsford (1991)
    On the Other Hand...
    Written Communication
  4. MURRAY (1991)
    The Composing Process for Computer Conversation
    Written Communication
  5. CLARK et al. (1990)
    Public Discourse and Personal Expression
    Written Communication
Show all 10 →
  1. ANSON et al. (1990)
    Moving Beyond the Academic Community
    Written Communication
  2. McCarthy (1987)
    A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing Across the Curriculum
    Research in the Teaching of English
  3. Chapman et al. (1987)
    A survey of doctoral programs in rhetoric and composition∗
    Rhetoric Review
  4. DOHENY-FARINA (1986)
    Writing in an Emerging Organization
    Written Communication
  5. Herrington (1985)
    Writing in Academic Settings: A Study of the Contexts for Writing in Two Colleg…
    Research in the Teaching of English
Also cites 8 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.1080/03626784.1987.11075278
     ↗
  2. 10.2307/2573808
     ↗
  3. 10.1146/annurev.an.11.100182.000325
     ↗
  4. 10.3102/0013189X010005005
     ↗
  5. 10.1177/0893318990003004006
     ↗
  6. 10.1086/201287
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  7. 10.3102/0013189X009002008
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  8. Van Maanen, John
    Tales of the Field
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 9 View in citation network →

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