Audiences and Evidence

for Original Research
Social scientists value objectivity.  Their form of argument is usually causal.  Scientific research is all about figuring out what an independent variable will do to a dependent variable (ex. How do relaxation techniques impact communication apprehension?).  In their pursuit of objectivity, social scientists privilege reliability (meaning their conclusions are consistent over time) and validity (meaning they are measuring what they intend to measure and measuring accurately).  Social scientific essays are usually referred to as research reports, and data or evidence is gleaned from secondary sources (for a literature review) and primary data from your own survey or experiment.  

Humanists embrace subjectivity.  They do not seek universal maxims about communication, but contextual understandings.  Humanists value case studies, contextual truths, and are skeptical about scientific or “universal” social truths.  The key to this type knowing is not the scientific method, but a well-argued interpretation grounded in sound evidence and theory.  Moreover, many humanists embrace social liberation as a goal.  Thus, some humanists are interested in illustrating the workings of hegemony, they convey researcher positionality (meaning their own points of view) and profess that meaning and truth are battlefields.  For social scientists meaning and truth about communication are out there to be discovered through science, but for humanists and rhetoricians public and private discourse craft our social reality.  Humanists generally write critical essays; a rhetorical criticism paper, for instance, is a critical essay.  Evidence (humanists rarely use the term “data”) usually comes from primary source material (using a speech you are analyzing as evidence for your claims about it) and secondary source humanist thinking (like journal articles).  

So, what does any of this stuff have to do with writing?  Much of the above material might not be specifically useful if you are not engaged in original research.  These two approaches, though, direct how you approach your research, and how you write your research.  Simply put, when doing research your audiences will usually either be social scientists or humanists, but sometimes both.  If you are doing survey research, for instance, you are likely addressing a social scientific audience.  If you are writing a rhetorical criticism, you are addressing a humanistic audience.  Further, you will learn that several of your classes grow out of social scientific ways of knowing, others from humanistic ways of knowing, and some from both.  You will learn that your professors approach research and writing guided by certain epistemological assumptions.  The tone of the course and your professor might help you target an audience.  And while your professor is always an audience member, he or she is never the only one.  A good and traditional rule of thumb in most disciplines is to address the generally intelligent person.  In most of your classes you should write for someone who is smart, but not necessarily entrenched in specialization.  More will be said about the two approaches for writing in the section on writing big research papers.  Moreover, more will be said about evidence in the assignment descriptions.