The study of writers and writing in digital environments raises distinct and complex ethical issues for researchers. Rhetoric theory and casuistic ethics, working in tandem, provide a theoretical framework for addressing such issues. A casuistic heuristic grounded in rhetorical principles can help digital writing researchers critically interrogate their research designs, carefully examine their relationships with research participants, and make sound ethical judgments.

The CCCC Guidelinesfor the Ethical Treatment of Students and Student Writing in Composition Studies written by Paul Anderson, Davida Charney, Marilyn Cooper, Cristina Kirklighter, Peter Mortensen, and Mark Reynolds provides a common frame to help composition specialists as we navigate and discuss the various ethical dilemmas we face while conducting research. As a graduate student involved in my own qualitative research, I find the Guidelines beneficial, and I am committed to following them, including the first guideline that calls for composition researchers to comply with all Institutional Review Board (IRB) policies.1 However, in the past two years I have submitted proposals for the same study to eleven IRBs at colleges and universities across the country. While I strongly support the need for obtaining IRB approval, I believe as a discipline and as individuals we need to work to revise the IRB process. As it is now practiced at many institutions, the IRB process positions composition researchers and composition research in potentially problematic ways. In fall 2000 when I began my research into the Intercollegiate E-Democracy Project, a national online project where students across the country discuss various social and political issues, I knew I had to mail consent forms to

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