Qualitative Research Network deadline extended to October 29

If you're planning to go to CCCC, consider the Qualitative Network Forum:

This year’s QRN is scheduled for Wednesday, April 6 from 1:30 – 5:00 at the 2011 Conference on College Composition and Communication in Atlanta, GA. Proposals may focus on specific concerns and/or broader issues related to qualitative research, and we encourage submissions from those at any stage of the research process (e.g., planning, data collecting, data analyzing, publishing).

This year, speaker Beth Daniell will give an address titled “The Questions that Need Answers” and lead a discussion about the issues qualitative researchers face and strategies for sustaining researchers, research projects, and even the field of qualitative research itself. Following Beth’s talk, the rest of the QRN workshop will be devoted to research roundtables where novice and experienced researchers will present their work-in-progress and experienced qualitative researchers will lead discussions designed to provide helpful feedback and suggestions.

Guidelines for submissions are outlined in the revised cfp. If you have any questions, any questions at all, please feel free to email Gwen Gorzelsky (g.gorzelsky@wayne.edu) and/or Kevin Roozen (roozekr@auburn.edu), the Co-Chairs of the Qualitative Research Network.

And here's the CFP:

Call for Proposals: Individual Research Presentations for the Qualitative Research Network to be held Wednesday, April 6, from 1:30 – 5:00 at the 2011 Conference on College Composition and Communication in Atlanta.

The Qualitative Research Network, which occurs annually at the CCCC, is offered for new and

experienced qualitative researchers. As a pre-conference research network, the Qualitative Research Network is open to everyone, including those who are already presenting at the conference in other venues.

EXTENDED DUE DATE for proposals: October 29, 2010.

Keynote Speaker & Research Roundtables:

During the first hour of the workshop, Beth Daniell will give a keynote address titled “The Questions that Need Answers” and lead a discussion about issues that qualitative researchers face and strategies for sustaining researchers, research projects, and even the field of qualitative research itself (see abstract and speaker biography below).

The rest of the Qualitative Research Network will be organized in research roundtables where novice and experienced researchers will present work-in-progress for feedback. Experienced qualitative researchers will be on hand to offer suggestions and to lead the roundtable discussions. The goal of this annual workshop is to offer mentoring and support to qualitative researchers at all levels of experience and working in diverse areas of study within the college composition and communication community.

Presenters at the research roundtables may focus on specific concerns and/or broader issues related to qualitative research, and we encourage submissions from those at any stage of the research process (e.g., planning, data collecting, data analyzing, publishing). Each presenter will have twenty to thirty minutes for both presentation and feedback, which will necessitate that presenters offer concise and accessible summaries of their studies. After all submissions have been collected, the planning committee will provide presenters specific details about the format of the workshop.

Proposal Information:

Please send via email a brief description (approximately 500 words) of your research proposal by October 29, 2010 to both Gwen Gorzelsky (g.gorzelsky@wayne.edu) and Kevin Roozen (roozekr@auburn.edu), Co-Chairs, Qualitative Research Network.

Be sure to include a brief overview of the research project, the stage of its development, and the questions/issues you wish to discuss with other researchers. Place your proposal in the body of the email and attach a file (.doc, .docx, .rtf, or .pdf). Descriptions need not be exhaustive; we ask that you provide a general overview of your study as well as a statement about the kinds of feedback you would like to receive. If you have any questions or would like further information, please contact us.

***Presenters for research roundtables will be notified of their acceptance by November 11. ***

Keynote Speaker Biography:

At Kennesaw State University Beth Daniell is Professor of English, Director of Composition, and Coordinator of General Education in the English Department and Director of the WAC Program in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. She has served as writing program administrator at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Clemson University, and University of Alabama. She teaches—or has taught—courses in literacy studies, rhetoric, writing, composition research, composition theory, literature, and women’s studies. She has published articles and essays in journals and collections in our field. Beth is author of A Communion of Friendship: Literacy, Spiritual Practice, and Women in Recovery, and editor, along with Peter Mortensen, of Women and Literacy: Local and Global Inquiries for a New Century.

Keynote Address Abstract:

If research is the attempt to make sense of not only what is around us, but also who we are, then we need to treat the questions we need answers to as both professionally and personally important. Dismissing neither the pragmatics of nor the obstacles to research, we are called to answer questions emerging from issues that touch our lives. When questions matter personally, we find the motivation to gather data, analyze, write, revise. Questions arising from our felt needs produce sometimes troubling, conflicting, or surprising data for which there is no ready-made theory. Such questions engender projects where results can be messy, where theory and data sometimes argue fiercely. These questions sometimes yield manuscripts about which a reviewer may say, “This reads as if writer did the research first and then tried to find a theoretical perspective.” We should nonetheless go where our questions lead—so that when we are old, we know we’ve accomplished something of value.