Doing writing research from an applied linguistics perspective means investigating individual, collaborative, and organizational writing and text production as language-based activities in complex and dynamic real-life contexts. In doing so, micro and macro levels, product and process perspectives, as well as theoretical and practical questions are combined in transdisciplinary approaches. Appropriate methods have to be deliberately chosen and transparently explained across disciplinary boundaries. Methodological questions need to be clarified, such as: which method fits which problem – and how should and can various methods complement each other? In this chapter, we start from two methodologically complementary ways of doing research into real-life writing processes (Part 1). These approaches illustrate why collecting data represents a key problem in the history of writing research (2). We then outline a typology of state-of-the-art methods in writing research (3) and explain chal- lenges of combining perspectives and methods in research projects (4). This allows us to evaluate what sophisticated methodology in writing research can contribute to applied linguistics (5) and to conclude by sketching a related research roadmap (6). In the reference section, we focus on work combining approaches from writing research and applied linguistics in methodologically innovative ways (7)
