In her piece “Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer” author Carol Berkenkotter dissects and analyzes the work of Donald Murray, particularly his piece “Response of a Laboratory Rat: Or, Being Protocoled” which studied the process of writing and how different elements affect it. The pieces were quite different in style, with Berkenkotter adapting a more standard academic approach and Murray using a bouncy conversational method.
One thing discussed by Berkenkotter is the difficulties that come when a writer tries to be objective in analyzing research through an essay. She expressed specifically how tough it can be to trust someone’s subjective testimony. I have always wondered why subjectivity was treated almost as a dirty word in academic spheres. Teachers have often corrected my writing by saying it does not use “objectivity” enough. My response is that there is nothing inherently wrong with using someone’s subjective testimony because objective facts almost always influence subjective experiences greatly. While I understand that anecdotal evidence can sometimes bring about skewed results, it can also be used as an easier/simpler manner of getting information across to the reader.
I could never do the sort of experiment that Murray engages in because of the sort of self-awareness that it would provoke in me. Knowingly recording myself would automatically cause me to act differently, even if I knew that I would be the only person who would ever see it. There is simply something in my brain (some might call it a performative streak) that always turns on if I am in front of a camera. For the sake of getting accurate results I would not use self-recording.
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