Spark: Why I Wrote a Novel Designed to Teach the Research Process

Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 2016

Fiction as Research Practice: Short Stories, Novellas, and Novels introduces the reader to fiction-based research. In the first section, Patricia Leavy explores the genre by explaining its background and possibilities and goes on to describe how to conduct and evaluate fiction-based research. In the second section of the book, she presents and evaluates examples of fiction-based research in different forms including short stories and excerpts from novellas and novels written by different authors. The third and final section explains how fiction and fiction-based research can be used in teaching. Leavy clearly differentiates the term fiction-based research from artsbased research in order to project the emergent field in a clear light of its own. Babbie (2001) explains that just as qualitative research practice emerged as a means of explaining phenomena that could not be captured by quantitative scientific research, social research attempts to study and understand everyday life experiences. Within social research, arts-based research tries to represent phenomena studied aesthetically through various forms of art (Barone & Eisner, 2012). As a form of arts-based research, Leavy describes fiction-based research as a great way to explore "topics that can be difficult to approach" through fiction (p. 20). Topics include the intricacies of interactions in everyday life, race relations, and socioeconomic class and its effects on human life. In carving its niche in social research, Leavy explains that fiction-based research seeks to create a deeper understanding of experiences in a language that is more accessible to people than research published in academic publications. Using fiction creates an opportunity for the writer to simulate the environment, sights, sounds, and smells of reality virtually, which captivates the reader's imagination. The writer is able to either create new knowledge for the reader or "disrupt dominant ideologies or stereotypes" (p. 38). As traditional qualitative researchers, fiction writers engage in intensive research to ensure that they have clear representations of the phenomenon they are presenting. These representations are evident in the realistic scenarios and characters that are portrayed in fiction writing, allowing the reader to be absorbed in the reality of the book. This reality or verisimilitude is the key to effective fictionbased research and traditional qualitative research because both methods try to portray the experiences as true as possible. In describing how one conducts fiction-based research, Leavy compares tenets of qualitative research to those of fiction-based research. She points out that anticipated data is a key consideration in most qualitative research methods but how data is collected, where it is

Sociological Forum, 2009

Social scientists are not the only people whose work involves trying to get some truths about the social world down on paper. More than we generally acknowledge, we share this turf with novelists, playwrights, and other fiction writers. Indeed, we spend a lot of time in a largely unacknowledged dialogue with these folks. We draw on their images and make use of their insights (I would like be able to say they draw on ours but, sadly, this is rarely the case). And, of course, we frequently assign works of fiction to our students-usually on the grounds that such work is more ''accessible'' than most social science, but really, I think, because fiction is often better than our own work in provoking students to examine, discuss, and think critically about social reality. Many sociologists-myself included-think about writing fiction from time to time. Of course, most of us never actually get up the nerve to try, and given the record of those who have, this is probably for the best. But the temptation is understandable. Our close cousins in anthropology have produced a well-regarded tradition of ''ethnographic novels''-think of Elenore Smith Bowen's classic Return to Laughter or, more recently, Paul Stoller's wonderful book Jaguar. In many ways these books cover the same intellectual territory as their author's works of nonfiction, and yet by writing novels, the authors are free to tell us what they ''know''-or think they know-rather than only what they can prove. That is, of course, a tricky business. Good ethnographers are always skeptical about their own abilities to get inside the heads of the people they write about. Readers of ethnographic novels-even those written by great ethnographers-always need to remember that they are, in fact, novels. Interestingly, qualitative sociologists rarely attempt this sort of thing. Part of the

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2021

Scholars in literature departments and the social sciences share a broadly similar interest in understanding human development, societal norms, and political institutions. However, although literature scholars are likely to reference sources or concepts from the social sciences in their published work, the line of influence is much less likely to appear the other way around. This unequal engagement provides the occasion for this paper, which seeks to clarify the ways social scientists might draw influence from literary fiction in the development of their own work as academics: selecting research topics, teaching, and drawing inspiration for projects. A qualitative survey sent to 13,784 social science researchers at 25 different universities asked participants to describe the influence, if any, reading works of literary fiction plays in their academic work or development. The 875 responses to this survey provide numerous insights into the nature of interdisciplinary engagement betwee...

2009

in conversation with Mischa Gabowitsch S ociologiStS and their publiSherS J im Clark (born 1931) was director of the University of California Press from 1977 to 2002. Before that, he worked as acquisitions editor in the social sciences at Prentice Hall, a large educational publisher, and vice president of Harper & Row, a major publishing house that later became part of HarperCollins. As an editor, he has worked with over 800 authors of books in the social sciences. The interview was recorded in Princeton, NJ, in June 2008, by Mischa Gabowitsch, editor-in-chief of Laboratorium and lecturer in Princeton University's department of sociology, and revised by Clark and Gabowitsch in October 2008.

The Journal of Pastoral Theology, 2019

Humanity & Society, 2015

This article documents the process of having students research, create, edit, and self-publish a book of social theorist profiles (arranged alphabetically from Adorno to Weber) for a required theory course I teach in the department of sociology. An ongoing project, it currently spans over three semesters worth of theory students with each class building on the work of the last. It is both a guide to implementing a similar project in any course (though particularly relevant to those specifically looking to engage students in their sociological theory course) and an analysis of the lessons I have learned along the way that may help others overcome a number of the inherent challenges. Although others are certainly implementing projects like this in their own college classrooms, the materials available in peer-reviewed journals are almost nonexistent. I assert that public sociologists, in particular, should consider taking on these kinds of projects as they both benefit larger communities and allow us to reconsider the long-term results of our teaching efforts.

Crisis Reporters, Emotions, and Technology, 2019

The first part of the methodological chapter explains in detail how and why the style of writing bringing together empirical material and fiction, termed “creative nonfiction,” was employed, and illustrates its main functions: illustrative, allegorical, organizing, effective, and reflexive. The author also explains most of the metaphors used in the research monograph including the character of James, the fictional journalist, and argues that the book profits precisely from the intersections of the factual and fictional narratives. The second part of the chapter re-tells the ethnographic research process, following four stages: establishing the field, immersion in the research problem, disentanglement, and return to the field. Kotisova also addresses the epistemology and methodology of studying emotions, and the opportunistic, multi-sited, and participatory logic of the research design.

2016

Perhaps it is the C. Wright Mills legacy, run through forty-some years of my teaching Introduction to Sociology, contrasting ‘‘trou-bles’ ’ with ‘‘issues,’ ’ biography with history, but I find myself particularly intrigued when a sociologist turns to (auto)biography. And not just any sociologist. This is Peter

Journal of Media and Communication …, 2011

When I first read the title and the subtitle of the book on its cover, I was thinking that the book would be more or less similar with some other research books which I have read before. But this book is not just like other research books as it does not focus on abstract concepts and theories only. I found this book interesting and thought provoking because it gives valuable practical and theoretical explanations of social science research methodologies. In particular, many of the practical examples from a range of fields such as sociology, art, anthropology, literature, philosophy, music, communication etc give valuable insights for researchers in all social science fields.