CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Dervin, B. (1993). Verbing communication: Mandate for disciplinary invention. Journal of Communication, 43 (3), 45-54. Reprinted in: B. Dervin & L. Foreman-Wernet (with E. Lauterbach) (Eds.). (2003). Sense-Making Methodology reader: Selected writings of Brenda Dervin (pp. 101-110). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
© Hampton Press and Brenda Dervin (2003), reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press (1993).

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ABSTRACT:
In this article, Dervin argues that most of the polarities that divide the communication field—universalist versus contextual theories, administrative versus critical research, qualitative versus quantitative approaches, macro versus micro, and so forth—are symptoms of the problem that plagues the field, not the disease. Instead, it is the issue of difference that lies at the core of the discipline’s troubles; it is how difference manifests itself and is (or is not) addressed that weakens theory and creates what Dervin terms “artificial, symptomatic differences” and leads to researchers “squabbling over turf and status.”

While thoroughly discussing this assertion, Dervin proposes the creation of a communication theory for communicative practice that will tackle the issue of difference by shifting from a frozen noun approach to an active verbing approach. She also discusses the many methodological moves involved in locating something defined as “difference.”

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