The late Donald C. Stewart's assertion that "the era of the cognitive psychologists is waning; the era of the social constructionists is just beginning" drew attention to a major ontological and epistemological shift in composition studies. This shift demanded a methodology to accommodate it. Some composition researchers have considered ethnography, a methodology appropriated from anthropology, as an alternative. The many points of view about methodology in the composition research communiuty can be consolidated into two perspectives: traditional and revisionist. Although in certain ways these two cadres share some similarities, they also differ markedly in others. Traditionalists impose an organizational structure on their texts and usually report their ethnographies from an omniscient third-person point of view. In revisionist ethnographies where the researcher takes an active role in constructing knowledge, the text has no rigid format. Because traditionalist ethnography tends to be more efficient, pragmatic, and utilitarian than revisionist ethnography, the former should hold the methodology's center, at least for the purpose of assessing writing programs. (SAM)