Practitioners

research by experience and produce lore

Scholars

research by examining texts, digital materials, and other forms of information, comparing information carriers to examine differences and similarities to create synthetic insights with a focus on gathering perspectives on historical change or characterization; philosophical and critical theory is applied to information carriers to understand them in context to create new knowledge to advance society's understanding

Researchers

experimentalists create hypotheses and apply scientific testing methods such as those in chemistry experiments, controlling variables, to determine the validity of the hypotheses

clinicians follow a similar pattern to that of experimentalist, but isolate the test and follow a pattern of retesting, again and again, accounting for variables, but not controlling them

formalists construct a model for examination, like a mathematical formula and apply the same model again and again, with the goal of determining how or why the model works

ethnographers study cultures and social structures, often by embedding themselves in cultures and examining them as participant-observers, or by examining as outside observers

Research generally falls into 2 categories-- descriptive and experimental

Types of research measurements include case study, ethnography (as mentioned above), survey/sampling, quantitative description, prediction/classification, experiment, and meta-analysis

see North, Stephen M. The Making of Knowledge in Composition. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 1987, and Lauer, Janice M., and William J. Asher. Composition Research: Empirical Designs. Oxford: Oxford Press, 1988, and your class notes for more detail