Our values focus and motivate our research. These values could include acommitment to scientific rigour, or to always act ethically as a researcher. At a moregeneral level we might ask: What matters? Why do research at all? How does itcontribute to human wellbeing?
Axiology exists under terms such as ethics or positionality. How we protect the people we are studying or acknowledging how our personal backgrounds and biases affect our work.
the import of axiology is typically built intoresearch paradigms and exists “below the surface”. You might not consciouslyengage with values in a research project, but they are still there.
Some researchers may assume that because they are being objective, their personal feelings don't matter to the data.However, values are always present below the surface, whether you admit it or not.
For example: why choose to do research on this specific topic instead of something else?
In philosophy this field is subdividedinto ethics (the study of morality) and aesthetics (thestudy of beauty, taste and judgement).
Axiology is the study of values.
It can be split into ethics (what is right and wrong) and aesthetics (what is beautiful or tasteful).
Researchmethods are essentially epistemologies – by following a certain process we supportour claim to know about the thing(s) we have been researching
By selecting specific methods in research (surveys, interviews...) you are already making a claim about how knowledge is created.
Research adds knowledge and believing that truth exists objectively will lead your epistemology to include statistics or experiments VS believing truth to be subjective where your epistemology will lead you to conduct interviews and review stories.
The research concept here is “rational discourseabout knowledge” and the focus is the study ofknowledge and methods used to generateknowledge.
Epistemology is the study of knowledge. It asks how we know what we know and what actually counts as knowledge.
before we can study a phenomenonwe need to define it.
To sum up:
You do need to clearly define the specific terms, concepts, and boundaries of your chosen field (Domain) and how they connect to other fields (Interface) before you can start your research.
Ontology in philosophy refers toexistential matters and questions about the nature of existence. Domain ontologydescribes concepts and articles relevant to a particular discipline
When delving into the approach of ontology it can be broken down into three levels:
1) Philosophical ontology: It asks the general big-picture questions like what exists? what is real?
2) Domain ontology: It is related to specific fields of study (ex: education, biology...) Instead of delving into meanings of existence, researchers in specific fields agree on the reality of certain concepts and agree they're worth studying within their disciplines.
3) Interface ontology: It is when disciplines intersect within a single study. It is a shared set of definitions so that people from different fields can understand each other.
Ontology refers to the study of being (literally, it means“rational discourse about being”).
Ontology is one of the three elements to the philosophical foundation of a research method.
It is known as the study of existence or being. It asks what is real? How can we describe existence?
Methodology is the systematisation, analysis and comparison of different methods
Methodology is the study and justification of the methods we use and why we use them.
What is a ‘research method’?
Research Methods are the tools used to conduct research.
Valuing this data is the first step to escaping Gramsci’s nightmare. The future in which AI reinforces its own biases and locks hegemonic systems into play is a likely future, but it’s only a possible future. Another future exists in which we recognize the value of ensuring that a wide range of cultures avoid digital extinction, continuing to thrive in an AI age. Imagine if we were pursing the documentation of linguistic and cultural diversity, seeing it as a value rather than a vulnerability, with the ferocity in which AI companies are building data centers
Zuckerman concludes that we cannot stop the rise of AI because there is too much money behind it. However, we can fight back against this single narrative by building alternative models.
He provides an example of a successful project in New Zealand called Te Hiku Media where the Maori people refused to let big tech companies extract their language.
They got permission from their elders, held community competitions, and recorded 300 hours of authentic speech to train their own local AI tool. This tool now has a high accuracy rate and helps the younger generation learn their native language correctly.
Valuing this data is the first step to escaping Gramsci’s nightmare. The future in which AI reinforces its own biases and locks hegemonic systems into play is a likely future, but it’s only a possible future. Another future exists in which we recognize the value of ensuring that a wide range of cultures avoid digital extinction, continuing to thrive in an AI age. Imagine if we were pursing the documentation of linguistic and cultural diversity, seeing it as a value rather than a vulnerability, with the ferocity in which AI companies are building data centers
Zuckerman concludes that we cannot stop the rise of AI because there is too much money behind it. However, we can fight back against this single narrative by building alternative models.
He provides an example of a successful project in New Zealand called Te Hiku Media where the Maori people refused to let big tech companies extract their language.
They got permission from their elders, held community competitions, and recorded 300 hours of authentic speech to train their own local AI tool. This tool now has a high accuracy rate and helps the younger generation learn their native language correctly.
What happens when these models are used to moderate online content,
Another flaw with LLMs related to digital erasure is when they're used to moderate online content such as social media platforms.
When AI is used to detect hate speech in different languages across social media, it can make mistakes in what it allows or bans online. This can happen if an AI is weak in a specific language (like Burmese).
This alters what people can say, which means future AI models will have even less authentic data to learn from. It becomes a loop (an ouroboros) where the machine continually feeds on its own biased data, locking the dominant narrative into place forever.
When an algorithm decides that certain types of speech are unacceptable, they may create a system in which those thoughts become inexpressible on the platform, and the erasure is likely to lead to new versions of the system.
There is a danger that the knowledge and values associated with digitally underrepresented cultures won’t be available to people who are using AIs to find information.
Another flaw with LLMs:
When AI is asked about a culture it wasn’t trained on, it rarely admits that it doesn't know the answer. Instead, it provides generic stereotypes.
Zuckerman shares and example from a Kashmiri colleague using ChatGPT for writing prompts. When an AI was asked to write a story set in Srinagar (Kashmir), it couldn't provide any authentic local details. Instead, it just threw in generic "poor, developing world" descriptions. It painted a picture based on how Americans imagine Kashmir.
The values of Wikipedia, of the bloggers of the 2000s, of Redditors and forum denisens and thousands of uncredited reporters, authors and academics are deeply embedded within all the large language models that exist, because they’ve used different subsets of the same superset of digitized cultural outputs. Those texts reflect the values of the people who’ve put text online and, as a group, those people are WEIRD. By WEIRD, of course, I mean Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic,
A major flaw with LLMs:
Zuckerman claims that the internet texts used to train AI are created by a specific group of people 'WEIRD': Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. Because AI learns from their writing, the AI inherits their specific views and mistakes them for cultural hegemony.
One implication of this is that owners of AI systems have immense power to shape our worldviews as systems like these become a default way in which we get information about the world. But another point is just how hard it is to change the core values that get distilled into that blob of linear algebra when you squeeze a civilization’s worth of texts into a large language model.
Zuckerman argues that modern AI models are current versions of Gramsci's nightmare. They aren't neutral machines; they are built by squeezing a massive pile of internet texts into mathematical code.
Moreover, owners of these AI systems have immense power to shape world views and create new cultural hegemonies.
Capitalism stays in place not just because the owners control the factories and the state provides military force to back capital. It stays in place because of cultural hegemony. Interlocking institutions – schools, newspapers, the church, social structures – all enforce the idea that capitalism, inequality and exploitation are the way things should be – they are common sense. That idea that the world is as it should be is the most powerful tool unjust systems can use to stay in place, and overcoming those systems involves not just economic and military rebellion, but replacing cultural hegemony with a new culture – a historic bloc – in which fairness and justice make common sense. Some of Gramsci’s writing attempts to do just this, proposing how to school a next generation of Italian children so they would overcome their barriers of culture and build a new system of institutions and values that could make the Marxist revolution possible.
Gramsci realized that the ruling class doesn't just use physical force (like the police or military). Instead, they win an invisible war by controlling culture. By controlling schools, churches, and newspapers, the elites spread their own values until an average person accepts those values as "common sense." Gramsci called this Cultural Hegemony.
Gramsci’s Nightmare is the idea that this "common sense" or " cultural hegemony" becomes so deeply embedded in society that people completely lose the ability to imagine any alternative way of living.
Large language models – the technology behind chatbots like ChatGPT – work by ingesting a civilization’s worth of texts and calculating the relationships between these words.
It's interesting that Zuckerman used the phrase "a civilization's worth of texts". I believe his wording was intentional; not just to imply large amounts of data but also to give a jab into the questions posed within Gramsci's framework. Who's civilization's, who was represented?
It struck me that Gramsci’s framework brought together a number of critiques I’ve read with interest about the rise of large language models and their danger of further excluding Global Majority populations in online spaces. Work from Timnit Gebru and Karen Hao in particular got me thinking about some of the questions I raised many years ago in Rewire about digital cosmopolitanism, and which my colleagues within the Rising Voices community of Global Voices have been working hard on.
To understand the AI problem, Zuckerman shares the framework of the Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci from the 1920s. Gramsci wanted to know how powerful, elite people managed to stay in control of society without the public constantly rebelling.
what their primary audiences are, and their value to these audi-ences. These articles are clearly aware of their broader significance and general-izability. These articles are mindful of the warrant of their data, and thelimitations and parameters of their argument. These articles avoid makingsweeping statements and refrain from reaching speculative or unjustifiable con-clusions. These articles move beyond description to deeper forms of discussion,analysis and debate. In short these articles have something to say!
Comparing Selwyn's work to Richardson's, Richardson wants to liberate the writer, disrupt "cultural scripts," through deeply personal "writing-stories," Selwyn represents the institutional gatekeeper, enforcing boundaries, metrics, and systemic accountability.
Richardson’s View of power is Writer-Centric. Richardson argues that writing about your own life is a political act of resistance. It turns a "private struggle into a politically recognized collective identity."
Selwyn’s View of pwer is Journal-Centric: Selwyn explicitly shifts the power away from the writer's personal meaning and onto the audience and the market. He explicitly states that successful articles must show awareness of "what their primary audiences are, and their value to these audiences."
The two authors have completely opposing views on what makes a piece of writing "important."
Selwyn: Wants the "wider picture."
Richardson: Richardson’s 9th point, emphasizes that writing-stories make you hyper-aware of the tiny details. For Richardson, zooming in on the local, deeply personal narrative is how you uncover truth.
Selwyn feels like he is pushing a bland way of writing, He notes that just because a topic is trendy (like Twitter or AI) or has a "wow factor," it isn't enough. The writing must conform to the institutionalized language of social science.
Richardson sees that exact traditional academic style as an "entrenched cultural script" designed to suppress the researcher’s authentic voice. She supports genres like poetry, drama, and personal narrative precisely because they break the bland, traditional mold of journal articles.
I think both are essential when approaching research writing. You need Richardson to give you the courage to embrace your identity and to trust your situated knowledge, and to write honestly about personal struggles and how they position you as a researcher.
But you also need Selwyn to help you protect that writing. The checklist he provided warns us not to get lost in the details and make sure our work connects to the bigger picture
What is the relevance of the article to theory?
What deep social, educational, or learning theories underpin your work?
You need to think carefully about the broader theoretical foundations. Readers should know how research sits within academic work that already exists.
What is the relevance of the article to other academic research andwriting?
You cannot just passively summarize old sources (regurgitating the literature). You must actively review it to expose gaps, silences, and contradictions.
Why should a sociologist who doesn't care about technology care about your paper? (e.g., Because your tech paper is actually a paper about identity or social class).
What is the relevance of the article to policy?
How does your work speak to policymakers, curriculum designers, or national/global investments?
For example, connecting classroom data to larger conversations about social justice, universal rights to education, or 21st-century skills...
What is the relevance of the article to educational practice . . . or anyother aspect of the ‘real world’?
How is your research relevant to practice or aspects of the 'real world'?:
How does your study hook into broader, current priorities in education?
For example, instead of just researching an app, show how it impacts broader systemic trends like student personalization or parental engagement.
These rejected articles have generally been those that failedto think beyond the technology in question. The ‘wow’ factor of a newdigital device, digital application or digital practice is not enough to merit2 Editorial
Academic research, according to Selwyn, should look past the "wow factor" of the shiny new technology (whether it's interactive whiteboards, Twitter, or AI) and focus on the social complexities and the bigger picture of education, power, and society.
At this point he shares 4 strands to address the "So What?"
the fatal problem with these articleswas their lack of self-awareness. For example, neither article attempted toexplain why their case study might be of interest or relevance beyond the par-ticular classrooms that had been studied.
Selwyn notes a massive trend where authors end up confusing evaluation with doing academic research.
When planning any piece of writing I still start by considering the reasons whyanyone else could be interested in reading it. I then try to ensure that the finaltext makes it abundantly clear why other people should be reading.
By saying that he starts every project by thinking about why anyone else would care, he is shifting the entire value of the work away from the author's lived reality and placing it solely on the audience or reader of academia.
His views seem to oppose the approach taken by Richardson, where writing about private struggle can turn into a politically recognized collective identity.
Writing about your life is not without perils.
Writing about your life can be "humbling and demanding." as Richardson calls it. When you write honestly about your past, you might stumble into uncomfortable truths about yourself or realize things about your previous experiences.
When researchers study other cultures they have to worry about the ethics of misrepresenting them. Richardson points out how writing about ourselves and our own world though honest and vulnerable, has to also be smart and ethically responsible especially when representing real institutions and people in our lives.
Connecting this last point to Winant's article. Close reading gives you the ultimate intellectual freedom. You are allowed to be bold, look at tiny details, find your own argument, and build it from the ground up. We co-create meaning in the safety of our own minds or a classroom discussion. In the act of reading, you have total power because you are generating fresh insight.
Richardson's last point reminds us that the moment you move from reading to writing about your life, the rules change. You still have power, but it is a much heavier, more dangerous form of power. As a writer, you are held accountable for how your words impact real-world institutions, colleagues, and families.
While reading is a collaborative, open-ended act of sense-making, writing leaves a permanent footprint. You must be bold in your thinking (Winant) but protected and ethically responsible in your writing and expression (Richardson).
Writing writing-stories makes you a better reader.
When you practice writing your own life stories, you stop reading passively. You start seeing details on how other texts are constructed.
Writing allows you to become hyper-aware of literary elements like what the author chose to leave out versus what they kept in.
This ties back to the idea that all readers are writers and to the argument made by Johanna Winant on close reading where A text doesn't have one meaning locked inside it. Every time a new person reads a book or an article, they are actively reinventing it finding meaning based on their own background.
Writing-stories puts you right smack in the midst of the what’s happening now in publishing :the memoir boom.
Richardson delves into the historical changes 'autobiographical writing' has gone through.
Recently, autobiographical writing has shifted to prioritize sociological and systemic influences. Modern life stories show us how available discourses construct, affect, and influence our lives.
Writing-stories o· er the writing of new plot-lines
Humans unconsciously follow "cultural scripts." They're pre-written and socially approved templates for how a life should go based on your gender, age, class, or profession (e.g., go to school, get a job, get married, buy a house, retire).
Richardson rejects these cultural scripts, claiming that writing collective-stories allows us to resist institutionalized cultural expectations, thereby altering the accepted norm. She supports this with examples of people who might feel marginalized within their own realities such as a cancer survivor, physical or sexual abuse survivor...
She also provides an example of a terrible plot handed down to her which is 'retirement'. The expectation that she's supposed to fade away because thats the cultural norm once one retires. She challenges that notion by thinking about what her new story may be, what her new plot-line would look like, how she can alter the old one and overall what her new collective-story should be.
Collective story writing can turn a private struggle into a powerful, politically recognized collective identity.
Writing about your life in writing-stories can be a sacrament.
Writing is a sacred act that can be extremely immersive in nature. Even when recalling past memories, ones sense of time is re-understood and memories are interpreted based on the current version of yourself.
When you are incredibly honest about your own struggles, doubts, privileges, or professional frustrations your reader recognizes themselves in your story and this allows for the development of a community.
What you write about and how you write it shapes your life,
In this point Richardson mentions poststructuralism and how language is not a reflection of social reality but rather produces it. An example shared was being hit by a spouse, and how such an experience is defined differently within different discourses such as 'normal marriage', 'husband's rights' or 'wife battering'.
Ones experiences and their memory opens up contradictory interpretations governed by social interests. Because one is subject to many discourses over time, their subjectivity is constantly shifting. A person’s identity and past are not set in stone, but are constantly being reshaped by the language and societal messages surrounding them.
Knowledge of the world and what we know about ourselves are always intertwined, partial and historical.
Writing is always done in speci c, local and historical contexts.
who I am directly dictates how I read the world and choose to write it into existence. The immediate world around me influences my writing and the meaning i develop from it. See the examples she gave about geography where she talks about details such as the position of your table, whether you are surrounded by kids or theres a fan on in the room.. etc
Writing is a method of discovery
Writing is a method of inquiry where one writes in order to learn something or figure out what they want to say.
Though we were taught to always outline and know what we want to say or write before actually writing it, Richardson argues that writing is a method and the process in itself leads to the discovery of knowledge.
Moreover, it is through writing that we nurture our own individuality and authority over our own understanding of our lives and the world around us.
Similarly, Johanna touches on this notion however with close reading. She has them build their arguments up by looking for details and asking questions about what they're reading.
People who write are always writing about their lives,
Even the most scientific or quantitative forms of research have elements of ones life. Rachardson shares examples of colleagues who claim their work is unrelated to their lives however they choice of research topics contradicts their claims.
Writing is and will always be personal.
Similarily, Johanna mentions in her work that reading is personal and her students always provided their own perspectives and lived experiences into it.
Writing is always done in socio-historical context.
Socio-historical contexts play a major role in writing.
During the current times of postmodernism, all writing takes into account the situational limitations of the knower and recognizes that whatever knowledge the writer posses (whether partial, local or temporal...) it is enough and is open to critique.)
Connecting this to Johanna Winants work on close reading, there is no universal correct answer when it comes to reading. We make out own arguments and support them with our own cliams unique to who we are.
Writing-stories are both personal andpolitical. Both ... and .... This article, ‘‘ Getting personal,’’ is a call to writing-stories thatsituate your work in sociopolitical, familial, and academic climates. My ideas andrelationship to writing shift and change. In what follows I want to share my current top-ten thoughts about ‘‘ getting personal.’’
Writing can never be independent of your surroundings. It always will be personal and political (within institutional power structures).
Ones ideas and writings shift and change depending on their climates. This makes me think about how this is the beginning of my doctorate journey and the way i approach research now whether in reading or writing will change and hopefully grow throughout. The journey will allow me to find my voice.
I wrote what I called ‘‘writing-stories,’’ narratives that situated mysociological work in academic, disciplinary, community, and familial contexts. Myclaims to knowledge were contextualized, historically situated.
What does it mean to "write-stories"? They're narratives that are situated within academia, community, family, history... they're personal. They are not detached from the world around us nor from us personally.
Through that writing, I also constructed myself as a feminist researcherinterested in understanding how social and cultural factors in uenced relationshipsbetween men and women, women and women, men and men. I came to a deeperunderstanding of gender-scripts.
Writing is the method used to develop a sense of who you are as a researcher and where your interests lie in the realm of research. It is through writing that you are able to develop deeper conceptual understandings
Writing allowed me to record littlethoughts, to revisit them and ll in the blanks, to piece them together, thought-by -thought.
Annotating. Then using those reflective thoughts to learn about ones self and the world around them. In other words, how we write is connected to who we are.
A flurry of books about close reading have been published in the past couple of years: John Guillory’s On Close Reading (which includes a remarkable bibliography by Scott Newstok); Jonathan Kramnick’s Criticism and Truth; Yael Segalovitz’s How Close Reading Made Us. As one of these people writing on the subject—with Dan Sinykin, I recently co-edited Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century—I’m often asked why close reading is having a moment. The renewed focus on our fundamental methodology must be connected to the austerity that has been inflicted on the humanities since the 2008 financial crisis led universities to freeze hiring, with conditions only continuing to erode since then with still more retrenchment and some institutions’ destructive embrace of AI. But that’s a very general answer, and responses have taken different forms: Guillory offers a history of close reading as a cultural practice passed down more by imitation than strict definition, like riding a bike; Kramnick examines close reading as a skill akin to expert weaving; Segalowitz traces the influence of New Criticism—the movement establishing the academic discipline of literary studies—to argue that close reading is a technique of attention. Written more or less simultaneously, these books are not in extended conversation with each other, but all three have the same implied audience: academics.
This paragraph observes close reading from the works of other researchers.
Guillory views close reading as a form of cultural practice passed on by imitation, like riding a bike.
Kramnick perceives it as a skill similar to weaving
Segalowitz traces the influence of "New Criticism" (known as the movement establishing the academic discipline of literary studies) to argue that close reading is a technique of attention.
though these perspectives differ they all have the same audience: ACADEMICS.
Building on Winant’s argument and supportive of it, the above examples view close reading as teachable.
So let me state my argument: I noticed that my students—all students, everyone—could write close readings if they came to see that they could. I’ll make the claim, based on this observation, that close reading should be understood as teachable, precisely because it has the logical structure of argument, which includes the prerequisite of good faith. Teaching argument is portable and scalable, but the care it both fosters and depends on requires material support in increasingly short supply—a faculty member’s time, a small enough class, the resources that increasingly distinguish private education from public, elite from nonelite.
This sums up or concludes the article and previews close reading:
1) she stated her argument: She noticed ALL students could write close readings if they believed they could.
**2) she believes the claim above due to the following observations: ** - Close reading should be understood as teachable because it has the logical structure of argument, which includes the prerequisite of good faith. - The basic skill of argumentation can be taught across different contexts and to large numbers of people. It isn't tied to a text or a course. - However, it needs the right conditions: A faculty member's time, small classes and accessibility.
This decision had to come before any evidence to support it, because that crucial step of noticing requires the close reader to point to evidence and identify it as evidence, to make it into evidence, to grant themselves the authority to do so.
This notion of authority, in my opinion, is what allows the fog to be lifted in ones mind when approaching any forms of academia and it is the most important argument in this article.
Reading and reflecting on published research can be intimidating because we tend to tell ourselves that we aren't qualified enough to question what is written or to have another opinion or approach towards it. There's this fear of not interpreting a text the "correct" way.
Winant's claim is that close reading can only begin when students give themselves permission to say and think what they notice and why it matters. Moreover, this occurs when ideas, arguments, claims, evidence... are shared and discussed with others.
we assumed—before anything else, before any evidence—that there was meaning, and that we were rational, and we decided that we treat texts, ourselves, and each other this way.
Going back to what was discussed about "good faith". Readers must approach a text with the mindset that it has meaning and they're capable of finding it (before looking for so called evidence). Just like my experience when I was trying to find the "correct" meaning of the text, I didn't trust myself or have the confidence that I was capable. I had to approach it with the belief that it was assigned with a purpose and I can figure it out.
In both cases, the arguments that students made first required believing that they had the authority to make them. When offered a poem, and time, and attention, and good faith, my students offered their own arguments back as if they had been waiting their whole lives for the chance; they reciprocated my trust many times over. I don’t recognize college as written about in the New York Times, where higher education outside of a handful of Ivies scarcely seems to exist, and the misery of ChatGPT–written essays is primarily a story of austerity: the looting of the treasure house of public higher education and the resulting impossible teaching and learning conditions for real humans.
The author compares students making arguments on a Renaissance poem to those who faced the Board of Governors, though they might seem like they worked differently, the differences were superficial.
The evidence was different, the claims were different, the stakes were different however in both cases students were in the mindset that they have the authority to make such arguments.
The author then disagrees with what the Ney York Times (an elite media outlet) has said about colleges and higher education, where apart from ivy league schools (because they're "real" universities), higher education is invisible and not taken seriously anymore mostly due to underfunding, overcrowded classrooms, overworked students....etc and the impossible teaching conditions which overall result in students relying heavily on AI.
in order to notice a detail in it, that the text needs to feel meaningful as a whole for the part to become significant.
I really connected with this idea. When I first read the article, I approached it very academically, like I had to break it down word by word and “figure it out.” But that actually overwhelmed me, and I read it twice without really making personal sense of it.
The third time, I changed my approach. I went back to the syllabus and noticed the theme it was placed under. That helped me realize that it was assigned with intention and meaningful purpose, not just as something to analyze in a rigid way.
That’s when it started to make more sense for me. I think that was my “good faith” moment. I realized I didn’t need a single correct interpretation, but just to engage with it.
I approached it with a different mindset, and that allowed me to actually connect with it. That shift helped me trust my thinking more and see reading as something about growth, not getting it right.
The following week, I tried to tell friends what I had seen—how astonishing it was to see people speak, to argue, to put themselves at risk by arguing, by saying what they thought and why it mattered, but also (though they shook while they spoke) that they refused to be afraid. Each speaker seemed, in those moments, both so vulnerable and so utterly powerful. And these were not contradictory: they transformed powerlessness into power, they claimed power.
This paragraph really stood out to me because it highlights how strongly people can be moved to speak when something matters to them. The people described were nervous, vulnerable, and aware of the risks involved in speaking out, yet they did it anyway. What I found most powerful was the idea that their vulnerability and their power existed at the same time. By choosing to speak, they transformed a feeling of powerlessness into a form of power.
I relate this to my view of research and academia. To me, research provides a platform where people can raise awareness, ask difficult questions, share knowledge, and challenge ideas that are often taken for granted. Even when researching controversial topics feels uncomfortable or intimidating, there is something powerful about being willing to engage with those conversations and contribute to them.
The phrase “they transformed powerlessness into power” resonated with me. When we think of power, we often think of governments, political leaders, or large institutions. However, I think research can be a form of power as well. Research has the ability to influence how people think, what issues receive attention, and whose stories are heard. It can challenge dominant narratives and encourage people to see issues from different perspectives.
I also think one of the most meaningful forms of power in research is its ability to amplify voices that have historically been overlooked, excluded, or marginalized. Research can create space for communities to share their experiences and perspectives, helping them become part of conversations from which they may have previously been absent. In that sense, research is not only about producing knowledge, but also about recognizing whose knowledge matters.
philosopher Donald Davidson’s idea of radical interpretation. To make sense of a foreign language, or indeed any language, Davidson argues, a listener must begin with a stance of good faith by assuming that the person they’re listening to has rational beliefs and is making meaning. This must happen before the listener can begin to interpret what that meaning is and whether she agrees with it. I tell my students this because I want them to read difficult and strange poetry this way too: with the foundational and constant assumption of good faith.
Donald Davidson’s idea of radical interpretation claims that to make sense of any foreign language (aka research texts and complex research texts or ideas and arguments being shared from research) the listener must begin with a stance of good faith by assuming that the person they’re listening to has rational beliefs and is making meaning.
Whether you are reading the works of researchers or listening to colleagues share their views, the listener needs to embrace the mindset that what is being shared has meanings and stems from rational beliefs, this happens before interpreting what is meant and whether one agrees with it.
close reading provides that because it allows one to make meaning of what they're reading on their own based on their own knowledge snd experiences.
I also learned more about close reading itself. My students showed me how simple and how hard it can be to notice, to point to a detail that’s really on the page and small enough to fit under your finger. I never asked them to respond to a prompt. They had to build arguments from the ground up; there was no right answer, only stronger and weaker ones. And my students showed me how thrilling it is to take the step Dan and I call local claiming, a step onto a high wire extending from safe ground: Now tell me, how should we understand that? How would the poem be different if it were different? And then regional argumentation, catching a trapeze, seeing the text and your own idea from above: How does this affect your understanding of the whole poem? What do you see? What else can you tell me?
Close reading is personal and allows one to build arguments from the ground up where some might be weak while others strong but never right or wrong. It i asking deeper questions.
Close reading grounds and extends an argument, reasoning from what we all know to be the case to what the close reader claims is the case. You are the world expert in your idea, I would say. My students offered arguments, but they also showed me what making an argument offered them.
Close reading takes obvious arguments and showcases the reasoning of close readers where they are experts in viewing, conceptualizing and understanding their own ideas and ways of thinking.
now tell me, how should we understand that? How would the poem be different if it were different? What work is that detail doing? Then they offered arguments—as if with a gasp like they were surfacing after holding their breath underwater, astonished at having done it.
Connecting to the above students would highlight details that stood out to them and then build arguments around those details.
Let’s start by looking at the text in front of us and pointing to something very small: a single word, or punctuation mark, or even something that’s not there, a gap. Tell me, I would ask as we sat down and opened our books, what is one detail that you noticed? What snagged you? Where were you surprised? At the beginning of every semester, my students would be confused by these questions.
The instructor used a flipped approach to introducing Close Reading. Students worked backwards to build their arguments.