Why teach “research as a conversation” in freshman composition courses? A metaphor to help librarians and composition instructors develop a shared model

Ongoing discussion between the Oregon State University (OSU) libraries' acting instruction coordinator and the Assistant Composition Coordinator focuses on improving collaboration between our programs and more effectively integrating the research process into the English composition curriculum. We briefly describe a qualitative analysis of the problems with students' writing that led us to develop a new model for integrating the research and writing processes. We provide our rationale for selecting conversation as a metaphor for research and summarize suggested teaching strategies from the literature that are consistent with this metaphor and approach.