Editors’ Introduction: Reading, Reduction, and Reciprocity

In search of criteria that characterize the research most likely to have an impact in the field of literacy research, the editors include reduction and reciprocity. Writers and readers build a reciprocal relationship - one in which the writer and author are in tune with one another - when the writer considers the processes in which the reader is likely to engage to comprehend the text. Reduction is one such process. Arguments that include images, metaphors, or phrasings that help readers reduce the text become the most memorable and the most influential in the field.