Review articles as other scholarly work does not arise en bloque, an entity that emanates as a whole from the mind of a professor, but is a historically-contingent and situated activity. This review grew out of initial scribblings that I recorded in my notebook (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Initial notes constructed during the reading of Doing Conversation Analysis. There are indications that the notes were constructed during the early parts, as some of the numbers may refer to page numbers (e.g., "p.24"). [1]

After the fact, some of the notes can be linked to specific features of the review article. For example, the triangle that is iconic to ENGESTRÖM's (1999) presentation of activity theory also appears in the main part of this review. However, because other notes do not seem to be related to the final article, any claim about causal relationships between notes and final product remain tenuous. At best, we might want to claim that the notes set up a frame, a basic attitude, in which the article will ultimately be written. [2]

References

Engeström, Yrjö (1999). Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In Yrjö Engeström, Reijo Miettinen, & Raija-Leena Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp.19-38). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Citation

Please cite this article as follows (and include paragraph numbers if necessary):

Roth, Wolff-Michael (2001, May). The Politics and Rhetoric of Conversation and Discourse Analysis. Review Essay, Supplement IV: Writing a Review Article as Contingent and Historically-Situated Activity [2 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research [On-line Journal], 2(2). Available at: http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-01/roth/2-01review-roth-hist.htm [Date of Access: Month Day, Year].