We need to include a schedule in the strategy, being realistic about time, energy, and resources. We need to work out what we might do when surprising things happen We need to be clear about how we want to use the information we collect. When we document the process of collecting information, and document the information itself, we need to be creative about our options.

The analysis of the information we collect must also be systematic. This means we should try to include all the information we collect in the analysis. We can't leave things out just because they don't fit our individual or collective pictures of what ought to happen. We should work out what information is missing since we can never collect all the information. We should get different opinions about what the information means so that we have a variety of perspectives on what happened. Finally, we must try to be as honest and clear as possible in our analysis.

When we are doing action research, we need to add a second part to the basic definition of research.

The systematic collection and analysis of information for the purposes of
informing political action and social change.(Bamsley & Ellis, 1992, p. 9)

We are never collecting and analyzing information as objective, neutral, value- free women who are disinterested in the outcome of our work. We all do our work from a particular perspective, given our social and historical backgrounds and our personal beliefs. This particular project was sponsored by a feminist organization that wanted to find out what happens when women in a literacy program plan a woman-positive activity, then implement and document it. It expected that both political action and social change might occur if women in a program had the time, resources, and support to focus on their work and then come together with other women to discuss, document, and analyze their experience.

These activities conform to another definition of action research used in the field of education. According to Wilf Carr and Stephen Kemmis,

Action research is a form of self-reflective inquiry undertaken by participants...in social...situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of (a) their own social or educational practices, (b) their understanding of these practices, and (c) the situations (and institutions) in which these practices are carried out. Cited in McNiff, 1988, p. 2)

Feminist research

When we approach research as a way of informing political action and social change, we always approach it from a particular point of view. Although the women and programs that became involved in this project were not expected to identify as "feminist," they were expected to agree that woman-positive activities could be useful for women because adult literacy programs do not generally begin from the perspective of women students or staff. As stated in Discovering the strength of our voices (Lloyd, 1991a),