This site brings together resources for anyone interested in microanalysis—whether you’re a practitioner, a researcher, both, or just curious.
If you’re a practitioner, you might be looking for a new way to gain insight into your own—or others’—communication practices. If you’re a researcher, you might be planning to record professional dialogues and are curious about using microanalysis as part of your analysis. Wherever you’re coming from, you’re welcome here.
The work you’ll find at microanalysis commons is inspired by the late Janet Bavelas, so when we say “microanalysis,” we’re referring to how she and her colleagues defined it. You’ll find various definitions from the literature here. Of course, other scholars also do microanalysis, and others do equally valuable inductive work on clinical dialogues using different methods (see our list of papers we love). That’s part of what makes this research space exciting: we all benefit from the excellence, creativity, and thoughtfulness of others. There’s no need to achieve excellence in the same way.
The vision for microanalysis commons is to be a dynamic, evolving hub of resources, with new content added in response to needs and feedback. You can join the mailing list to stay updated on new material, or use the contact form if you’d like to share ideas. Maybe you have a vision for a microanalysis tool or info sheet that could help others? Or maybe you’ve found something here that was especially useful and want to see more like it?
As for who’s behind the commons—it’s me, Jennifer Gerwing (hi!). Over the past few years, I’ve supervised colleagues who are new to the method, and I kept wishing we had access to kind of library or hub of relevant and free resources. More than anything, I want to support others in doing good work that feels meaningful and helps them accomplish what they set out to do.
The site is organized into these sections: