Candlin & Mynard ePublishing: encouraging, exploring, enabling
A Toolbox for Researching Practice in Language Study
Overview
All kinds of people and organisations undertake research into their practice, and practice in language and communication is just one among many domains. Researching practice is something that everyone can do if they have the right and appropriate tools. Evidence-based practice is the gold standard underlying all kinds of expertise and forms the grounds for innovation. If you want to make change, then you need evidence from data, and the right tools to unlock that evidence.
Access to courses and programs in research methods is not easily available for language and communication practitioners outside the academy. Although some courseware is available online it is of variable quality and often hard and costly to access. In addition, support for the research methods provided by the courseware designers is often just a matter of tips and techniques. Researchers are not usually provided with support in asking the key questions of why the research is necessary, how it might be useful, and what results it can envisage.
Available comprehensive books on research methods often suffer from a series of defects:
So, what is needed?
Candlin & Mynard ePublishing looks forward to commissioning a Toolbox of accessible user-friendly ‘hands on’ ebooks which can be selected from and worked through, whenever and wherever understanding practice through research is a priority. This Toolbox of ebooks will fulfil that need. The ebooks will be structured to relate method to practice through mini case studies, always beginning from the key questions Why?, How? and What for?
Key features
The books in the Toolbox are not just about tools and techniques; they focus on:
Above all the ebooks will show that research should not remain on library shelves; it needs to be collaborative, arising out of problems and issues from real life, and help us to illuminate what these problems and challenges are and how we can address them.
Target audiences
Structure of the ebooks in the series
The books will contain between 40,000 and 60,000 words (around 120 – 160 pages) and will be structured into four main sections:
1. Introduction
This section outlines the concepts, background and applicability of the tool / method in question.
2. Focus on the tool
This section outlines clearly the principles and steps involved in order to apply the tool or method
3. The tool in Action
This section shows the method/tool in action through mini case studies across various fields – models and tasks for practical action
4. Finding out more
This section includes resources, hyperlinks and references designed to encourage the reader to begin using the tool in his or her own context.
The heart of each book will be the ‘focus’ and ‘action’ sections above but throughout each book the sections will be cross referenced, linking all the time to practical sites, issues and challenges.
Above all we are aiming for an interactive, ‘how to’ and engaging style of writing, bringing the reader in to the issues, techniques and practices of research, focusing all the time on practical relevance. The layout to be open, boxed, interspersed with questions and quotations, dotpoints and including sample tasks. Like all the Candlin & Mynard ebooks they are there to help readers encourage, explore and enable their thinking and practice.
Titles in the series
Here is a possible sample list of titles. The precise wording of the titles is for negotiation with potential authors, and we welcome ideas for further and different titles than the ones listed here:
Action for potential authors
1. We invite potential authors to contact us in the first instance. We will also be approaching potential authors directly to inquire about their interest in writing for Candlin & Mynard
2. Following these preliminaries, which will include our sending you details of our publishing plans, terms and conditions of contracts etc, we will ask you to complete and send to us a Proposal Form for your preferred title in the series. We will evaluate the proposal, perhaps seeking additional reviews in particular cases, and, if positive, we will then discuss with you how best to move ahead with your title.
3. As part of our Mission, we will engage closely with you at all stages in the development of your title so that you benefit from the most appropriate advice and guidance.
All kinds of people and organisations undertake research into their practice, and practice in language and communication is just one among many domains. Researching practice is something that everyone can do if they have the right and appropriate tools. Evidence-based practice is the gold standard underlying all kinds of expertise and forms the grounds for innovation. If you want to make change, then you need evidence from data, and the right tools to unlock that evidence.
Access to courses and programs in research methods is not easily available for language and communication practitioners outside the academy. Although some courseware is available online it is of variable quality and often hard and costly to access. In addition, support for the research methods provided by the courseware designers is often just a matter of tips and techniques. Researchers are not usually provided with support in asking the key questions of why the research is necessary, how it might be useful, and what results it can envisage.
Available comprehensive books on research methods often suffer from a series of defects:
- They privilege one research method over another (qualitative versus quantitative or vice versa) rather than seeking to integrate and mix methods
- They are often depersonalised and abstract, failing to ‘speak’ directly and supportively to the user
- They are often long, extensive and fail to distinguish the ‘wood’ from the ‘trees’
- They focus on particular disciplinary or professional areas, rather than seeking to address common themes in research practice
- They do not offer a user friendly hands-on style directed at real life problems and issues
- They address principles and techniques in the abstract not linking them to relevant contexts of use without taking a critical stance of ‘why this research and method now’?
- They are often dense, even forbidding, requiring mentors to help users find pathways through the research jungle.
So, what is needed?
Candlin & Mynard ePublishing looks forward to commissioning a Toolbox of accessible user-friendly ‘hands on’ ebooks which can be selected from and worked through, whenever and wherever understanding practice through research is a priority. This Toolbox of ebooks will fulfil that need. The ebooks will be structured to relate method to practice through mini case studies, always beginning from the key questions Why?, How? and What for?
Key features
The books in the Toolbox are not just about tools and techniques; they focus on:
- why research can help us understand our practice and persuade others of its value
- what different roles as researchers of practice we are engaged in
- how we can access different research sites and their participants
- what resources we can call on
- how we can evaluate the results of research
- how we can make strong arguments for change, based on research.
Above all the ebooks will show that research should not remain on library shelves; it needs to be collaborative, arising out of problems and issues from real life, and help us to illuminate what these problems and challenges are and how we can address them.
Target audiences
- Students of applied linguistics and professional communication embarking on research for the first time
- Language educators engaged in practice who intend to engage in research in order to continue to improve their practice
- Course administrators who intend to draw on research in order to make informed changes to a programme
- Experienced researchers of applied linguistics and professional communication who wish to extend their present research toolboxes
Structure of the ebooks in the series
The books will contain between 40,000 and 60,000 words (around 120 – 160 pages) and will be structured into four main sections:
1. Introduction
This section outlines the concepts, background and applicability of the tool / method in question.
2. Focus on the tool
This section outlines clearly the principles and steps involved in order to apply the tool or method
3. The tool in Action
This section shows the method/tool in action through mini case studies across various fields – models and tasks for practical action
4. Finding out more
This section includes resources, hyperlinks and references designed to encourage the reader to begin using the tool in his or her own context.
The heart of each book will be the ‘focus’ and ‘action’ sections above but throughout each book the sections will be cross referenced, linking all the time to practical sites, issues and challenges.
Above all we are aiming for an interactive, ‘how to’ and engaging style of writing, bringing the reader in to the issues, techniques and practices of research, focusing all the time on practical relevance. The layout to be open, boxed, interspersed with questions and quotations, dotpoints and including sample tasks. Like all the Candlin & Mynard ebooks they are there to help readers encourage, explore and enable their thinking and practice.
Titles in the series
Here is a possible sample list of titles. The precise wording of the titles is for negotiation with potential authors, and we welcome ideas for further and different titles than the ones listed here:
- Working with questionnaires: themes and surveys
- Working with focus groups: dialogues in action
- Working with samples: quantifying and correlating results
- Working with personal discourse: interpreting qualitative accounts
- Working with interviews: constructing interpretations
- Working with ethnography: observation, interpretation, explanation
- Working with corpora: data sourcing and data mining
- Action research: Improving language teaching practice
- Working with diaries and stories: narratives and metaphors of experience
- Working with experiments: problems, designs and validity
- Working with language as action: mediating tools of communication
- Disseminating research on practice: audiences, results, impacts and actions
Action for potential authors
1. We invite potential authors to contact us in the first instance. We will also be approaching potential authors directly to inquire about their interest in writing for Candlin & Mynard
2. Following these preliminaries, which will include our sending you details of our publishing plans, terms and conditions of contracts etc, we will ask you to complete and send to us a Proposal Form for your preferred title in the series. We will evaluate the proposal, perhaps seeking additional reviews in particular cases, and, if positive, we will then discuss with you how best to move ahead with your title.
3. As part of our Mission, we will engage closely with you at all stages in the development of your title so that you benefit from the most appropriate advice and guidance.