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September 29, 1999
MARTIN MANER RECEIVES WSU PRESIDENTIAL AWARD
FOR FACULTY EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH
Martin Maner, Ph.D., professor of English at Wright State University, is this year's Presidential Award recipient for Faculty Excellence in Research.Maner has conducted copious research on Samuel Johnson, one of the most important literary figures of the eighteenth century. When he needs a release from the world of words, he finds it through music. A musician and composer for big bands, Maner evaluates, reforms and refines the jazz charts he improvises with the same analytical skills he brings to his academic research subjects. He recently produced arrangements for the student performers in Wright State's jazz ensemble.
"I was raised in an environment where I was encouraged to be interested in everything," Maner says. His own early education--elementary and high school--was at the University of Iowa lab school where the IOWA standardized tests were devised.
"Dr. Maner has not only followed the path of the serious researcher, he has made it one of his areas of study," says Henry Limouze, Ph.D., chair and associate professor of English, in his letter recommending Maner for the award. "Through his influential and widely used textbook, he has provided teachers and students across the country with the tools they need to sharpen their own research skills and improve research presentation."
The new second edition of Maner's book on research, entitled The Research Process, will include an affiliated Web site (www.wright.edu/~martin.maner) and CD, but its approach to research remains the same. Maner's research technique is not a step-by-step linear process, but a spiraling one that constantly returns to the initial idea, evaluating, developing and refining it at every stage.
"The serious researcher is constantly coming back to the same subject," says Maner, "but always at a higher level. There is never a final word on a subject."
