Ethnography and Composition

· How is research conducted in the most effective way?
· Will the ethnographic research have more validation if researcher is from the same community?

Ethnography is a subject in which can derail many researchers from their primary focal point. Thus, as a researcher it is vital to understand and be clear about your hypothesis/ main point of research. In order to understand ethnography and its components, we need to understand, what the goal of ethnography is. According to Beverly Moss in Ethnography and Composition: Studying Language at Home, “the goal of ethnographer is to study, explore, and describe a groups’ culture. Ethnographers tend to focus on the daily routines in the everyday lives of the communities being studied” (Moss 389). Ethnography is a study with various compositions that complete it. It contains three different types of ethnography:

1. comprehensive-oriented ethnography
2. topic oriented ethnography
3. hypothesis-oriented ethnography


When conducting research within a classified group in which we are from it can be either good or bad. As researchers with similar background to the one we are studying can hinder our research. It can contaminate out work due to our preconceived knowledge in that specific group. Nevertheless, despite, the many obstacles a researcher encounters the single most important factor when concluding ethnography is the emic perspective.