Reading: the long preparation for inquiry

Abstract

This introduction to the special issue titled, “Reading: The Long Preparation for Inquiry,” asks why reading has not been as prominent as writing in educational and social science research. The authors suggest reading may not seem as empirical as writing and so has been assigned fairly limited roles in the research process—reading for the literature review at the beginning of a research project and reading to review research reports at the end. Reading, especially reading philosophy, which the authors encourage, can be considered speculative and ephemeral and bound more to the rational than the empirical side of the rational/empirical binary that structures empirical research’s epistemological goals. Also, it can be difficult to control reading—who knows what a reader might read? The authors recommend that researchers commit to reading as a necessary, lengthy preparation for scholarship and research.

Disclosure statement

No competing interests were reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth Adams St.Pierre

Elizabeth Adams St.Pierre is Professor in the Mary Frances Early College of Education and Affiliated Professor of both the Interdisciplinary Qualitative Research Program and the Institute for Women’s Studies at the University of Georgia. Her work focuses on poststructural theories of language and human being and post qualitative inquiry. She’s especially interested in the new empiricisms, the new materialisms, and the posthuman enabled by the ontological turn

Elliott Kuecker

Elliott Kuecker is a Teaching Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the School of Information and Library Science. He teaches courses in archival methods and information needs and publishes on pedagogy, qualitative methodologies, and theories of reading and writing.