6 Reading Research Quarterly • 43(1) • pp. 6–8 • dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.43.1.1 • © 2008 International Reading Association

Editorial

Research as Principled, PluralisticArgumentIan A.G. Wilkinson, David Bloome

We have been working for about a year now inpreparation for our first issue. Seated aroundthe table in our editorial office are Ian

Wilkinson and David Bloome, the two editors; RuthFriedman, our editorial associate; and Marlene Beierle,our editorial assistant (and a doctoral student). Also as-sisting us are several doctoral students in reading andliteracy who rotate in and out of the team each quarteras their schedules permit. With us in spirit, and some-times in person, is the journal’s new essay book revieweditor, Rose-Marie Weber (a faculty member at theUniversity at Albany, State University of New York).

From our third-floor office in Arps Hall, we can seethat it is a beautiful autumn day. But we are inside read-ing yet another set of manuscripts and reviews, seekingthe best way to be supportive regardless of whether amanuscript will eventually be published. By the time youread this editorial, however, there will be snow on theground, and we will be working on issues 3 and 4 of vol-ume 43. Although some of our ideas about the journalhave evolved since we began about a year ago, the coreideas have remained constant. We want to share with youthese core ideas. But first, please allow us to introduceourselves as the new editors of Reading Research Quarterly(RRQ).

Who We AreIan Wilkinson is an Australian whose career has takenhim to the United States, New Zealand, and parts ofEurope. Ian’s research and scholarship are grounded inpsychological studies in education. His interests are cog-nition, instruction, and research methodology related tothe study of literacy and learning. His work has focusedon social-constructivist views of learning, group andclassroom processes, and conceptual and statistical mod-els that take into account the social context of instruction.Much of his work is classroom based and involves the ap-plication of different methods of inquiry—descriptive,correlational, experimental, time-series, research synthe-sis (including meta-analysis), and case study—to address

substantive issues in the learning and teaching of litera-cy at the elementary level. Since taking up his appoint-ment at The Ohio State University, his research hasfocused on school and classroom contexts for literacylearning with particular focus on grouping, group work,and discussion practices designed to promote literatethinking and high-level comprehension of text.

David Bloome is an American who collaborates withresearchers across the Americas and Europe. Dave’s re-search and scholarship are grounded in interactional so-ciolinguistics, cultural anthropology, and literary theoryas applied to the study of reading, writing, and learningin classroom and nonclassroom settings. His work has fo-cused on epistemological and methodological issues in-volved in the use of ethnography and discourse analysisin education. Recent studies have concerned the natureof intertextual processes in the teaching and learning ofand through reading. In addition, recent studies haveincluded collaborative, multidisciplinary, and multi-method studies of young children’s spoken and writtennarrative development and the social and culturalprocesses implicated in classroom reading instruction.Methodologically, he has a deep background in discourseanalysis, microethnography, the ethnographic study ofeducation, case-study research, text analysis, and interac-tional analysis. As part of his scholarly work, he has beenconcerned with the ethics of educational research andwith the inclusion of diverse cultural and critical perspec-tives and theories.

Core IdeasRRQ is an international research journal. The journal pub-lishes the highest quality literacy research for and by schol-ars throughout the world of diverse geographic, cultural,ethnic, racial, linguistic, and disciplinary backgrounds. Assuch, the journal fosters connections among researchers tobuild a coherent knowledge base in literacy across geo-graphic and intellectual borders. The emphasis of the jour-nal on the highest quality research is not just a traditionacross editorial teams since the inception of the journal, it

also represents the optimism of people everywhere that in-sights into the human condition and solutions to some ofthe most intractable problems of our times can be pro-ductively addressed through the intellectual endeavors ofindividuals and communities. At a time when science itselfis under attack, there is no more important responsibilitythan protecting the longstanding commitment of this jour-nal to the highest quality research.

Our goal for RRQ is that the journal continue to as-sert itself as one of the top intellectual and research re-sources in the fields of literacy, educational, and socialscience research. We want RRQ to be regarded by allliteracy researchers as the natural home for their bestwork. The journal welcomes laboratory studies, field-based (classroom and nonclassroom) studies, text analy-ses, theoretical analyses, research syntheses, and otherforms of scholarly inquiry, irrespective of paradigm,method, or ideology. To achieve this goal, we have fourguiding visions.

Research as Principled ArgumentThe bulk of the journal will be devoted to original reportsof research. Where necessary, manuscripts will be of ex-tended length in order to make clear their logic of inquiryand their evidentiary warrants. Where appropriate withregard to content and ethics, we will encourage authors tomake use of informational technology to provide readersof the journal with access to key parts of their corpus ofdata (e.g., video, transcripts) in order to enhance the trust-worthiness of their warrants and to encourage dialogue.

We view research as principled argument (cf.Abelson, 1995). At its core, research involves the mak-ing of assertions, hypotheses, conjectures, or theories—knowledge claims—on the basis of theory and evidence(Shavelson & Towne, 2002). Knowledge claims must belinked to theory and evidence through a clear, publicchain of reasoning that constitutes the warrant for theclaims. Arguments are principled in the sense that thework follows a systematic line of inquiry that is accessibleto the scrutiny of others in the research community.There is also another sense in which arguments are prin-cipled: The logic of inquiry should adhere to the rules ofevidence particular to the disciplinary perspective (e.g.,psychology, sociology, anthropology) being brought tobear on the research question(s) (Shulman, 1997). Theserules of evidence are not followed blindly, but they doneed to be responsive to the researchers’ questions, with-in the limits of the dynamic interplay between theory,method, and findings (Howe & Eisenhart, 1990).

Viewing research in these terms renders us oblivious tothe momentary dictates of state and federal policy in theselection of best work. For our purposes, distinctionsamong qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method, basic, andapplied research are outmoded (cf. Shavelson & Towne,

2002). Similarly, what constitutes the highest quality re-search is not defined by the category of its intellectual tra-dition. What matters in the evaluation of the worth of apiece of research, of any paradigm or intellectual tradi-tion, is the manner in which researchers locate their in-quiry against a background of extant knowledge andassumptions, the goodness of fit between research ques-tions and methodologies, the quality of the data collectionand analysis, and the integrity of the overall warrant for theclaims (Howe & Eisenhart, 1990). Despite the prolifera-tion of research methodologies, our “worry about warrantwill not wane” (Phillips, 1987, p. 9). In the final analysis,a piece of research is only as good as the quality of thechain of reasoning by which the researchers organize theextant knowledge and assumptions, their observations andanalyses, and their knowledge claims “to create a cogent,persuasive argument” (Shulman, 1997, p. 26).

An International PerspectiveProgress in understanding literacy not only requires prin-cipled argument, it also requires a pluralism of perspec-tives from which scholars can engage in healthy debate.One aspect of this pluralism involves scholarship fromacross the globe. Literacy research of the highest qualityis carried on throughout the world. Both with regard topublication of manuscripts and with regard to the cita-tions included in published manuscripts, our vision as-serts that the incorporation of research across bordersaffords opportunities to understand problems from dif-ferent perspectives.

To realize this vision, we have constituted an edito-rial board with over 25% of members located outsidethe United States and Canada. We hope to increase thispercentage over the tenure of our editorship. When weassign reviewers for manuscripts submitted to the jour-nal, we seek to include researchers from different coun-tries. It is our hope that authors will recognize that thereadership of the journal is international.

Engaging Diverse Research CommunitiesAnother aspect of this pluralism derives from the diver-sity of researchers who do work in literacy. Research inliteracy now involves an increasingly broad range of dis-ciplines and fields. We want to reach out to scholars indisciplinary communities that have not traditionallyviewed RRQ as a home for their work. We want the jour-nal to be seen as a vehicle for dissemination of researchby all researchers who choose to do work in literacy. Asimportantly, we want the journal to be viewed as a re-source for all researchers engaged in literacy scholarship.

To realize this vision, we have constituted an edito-rial board that includes both well-known literacy re-searchers and a large number of scholars who belong todisciplinary communities that have not been associated

Research as Principled, Pluralistic Argument 7

traditionally with RRQ. We welcome submissions fromscholars working both within and outside the traditionalarenas of reading and literacy research.

RRQ as a Force for CoherenceWe want the journal to be a force for forging coherencein the field. Like others (e.g., Duke & Mallette, 2004), weworry that the proliferation of topics and methodologiesand their alignment have led to fragmentation of thefield. In our view, intellectual diversity does not stand inopposition to a coherent knowledge base in the field butinstead requires concerted intellectual and scholarly ef-forts by a broad range of scholars committed to makingconnections in a principled manner between otherwisedisparate literatures.

To this end, we will use the journal to fosterconnections—“connections through writing” and “con-nections through mentoring” (Herber, 1994). When as-signing reviewers for manuscripts, we seek to includeresearchers who bring different yet complementary per-spectives. We hope this will assist authors as they makeconnections to relevant research and will inform them asto how others might interpret their manuscript. We alsowant to engage members of the editorial board, and oth-ers in the field with such an interest, in conversationsabout the ways in which connections across intellectualborders can be made in a principled manner (e.g., onlineconversations and sessions at the annual InternationalReading Association convention and elsewhere).

Also to further this end, on occasion we will solicitand publish high-quality reviews of research on key top-ics in the field that are in need of synthesis. We will ap-point senior scholars from complementary disciplinaryperspectives to serve as consulting editors for these in-vited reviews (following a practice that has been success-fully used by other research journals to enhance thequality of published manuscripts). The consulting editorswill serve as a resource to authors of the invited reviewsof research, as well as to the editors. We believe that sucha process will help bring coherence to the field of reading

and literacy research while still appreciating the field’s in-creasing diversity of perspectives and topics of inquiry.

We conclude by thanking the many authors, review-ers, staff members at the International ReadingAssociation, and others who have been instrumental inthe construction of this first issue. We owe a special debtof gratitude to Donna Alvermann and David Reinking,our immediate predecessors, who continued the journal’stradition of excellence over the past six years and assistedus in making the transition to the new editorial team. Wealso wish to acknowledge the earlier editorial teams whohave cared for and crafted the journal since its inceptionin 1965. RRQ has a rich intellectual history and heritage,and we strive to continue that tradition. We look forwardto engaging with you in principled, pluralistic debate inthe interests of furthering the field. We can be reachedat rrq@osu.edu.

Ian A.G. Wilkinson David Bloome

ReferencesAbelson, R.P. (1995). Statistics as principled argument. Hillsdale, NJ:

Erlbaum.Duke, N.K., & Mallette, M.H. (2004). Conclusion. In N.K. Duke &

M.H. Mallette (Eds.), Literacy research methodologies (pp. 347–354).New York: Guilford.

Herber, H.L. (1994). Professional connections: Pioneers and contem-poraries in reading. In R.B. Ruddell, M.R. Ruddell, & H. Singer(Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (4th ed., pp. 4–21).Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Howe, K., & Eisenhart, M. (1990). Standards for qualitative (andquantitative) research: A prolegomenon. Educational Researcher,19(4), 2–9.

Phillips, D.C. (1987). Validity in qualitative research: Why the worryabout warrant will not wane. Education and Urban Society, 20, 9–24.

Shavelson, R.J., & Towne, L. (Eds.). (2002). Scientific research in educa-tion. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Shulman, L.S. (1997). Disciplines of inquiry in education: A newoverview. In R.M. Jaeger (Ed.), Complementary methods for researchin education (2nd ed., pp. 3–29). Washington, DC: AmericanEducational Research Association.

Reading Research Quarterly • 43(1)8