Human inquiry in scholarly communication: Reconnecting with the foundations of research

Abstract

When I was a young child in Oklahoma, I made up stories to assuage my fear. Those loud and violent thunderstorms that opened up the skies to dump rain and wind and flash powerful electricity, that was just the giants in the sky having a bowling party. I needed something to explain away my fear. I needed something that seemed rational to me, a young child, that would help the anxiety, the feelings. Understanding something, the way I knew how, made it tolerable. As an adult I am much less prone to make up stories, but rather I remain innately curious about how and why things are the way they are and how to contribute improvements to my communities. And yes, I still love stories, and my research agenda uses narrative and storying stories to uncover the lived experiences of peer review, a small but landmark part of scholarly communication processes.