The “shock and awe“ of digital research design: Rhetorical strategies as mediational means in digital survey research

What are the challenges, affordances, and the role of rhetoric when conducting online survey research? As part of a two-year study on rhetorical invention in copyright imbued environments, the author used an online survey to examine knowledge and understanding of US copyright law among digital writers (both students and teachers) in randomly selected US technical/professional writing programs. In this paper focus is on the implications for digital survey research under an activity theory lens, where the rhetorical strategies of ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos were used to accomplish data collection (N=334). After briefly reviewing existing best practices of survey research and describing the digital survey, it is discussed how administering an online survey to the educational field of technical and professional writing presents certain challenges. The effectiveness of differing rhetorical strategies when conducting online survey research is discussed. A heuristic is offered to facilitate success in these types of studies.