In Resources for Qualitative Research: Advancing the Application of Alternative Methodologies in Public Administration (N/D, 1997), Janet Foley Orosz provides eye-opening information about the burgeoning effort to pull public administration and policy research methods out of their alleged doldrums. Increasingly vocal, but not yet working in total concert, self-designated experts now tour national conferences (NASPAA, Teaching Public Administration) to think out loud in scheduled sessions about accrediting doctoral programs. If Orosz is correct, this evangelical Research Police Force (RPF) even wants to separately certify or decertify individual members. Presumably, the certification to supervise dissertations would become part of hiring processes, and accreditation of master's programs would continue a separate review process, rounding out the accreditation triumvirate. NASPAA dissertation awards could be won only by dissertations supervised by certified in certified programs. The dominant assumptions and plans of the research movement, therefore, deserve very close attention. The Labeling of Researchers Our academic fields, Orosz reports, need alternative research approaches, both and critical. Variations of appear 29 times in her review, and critical appears 12 times. Ontology is mentioned 11 times, epistemology 10, miniparadigms 13, and paradigms 9. There are references to (4), grounded theory (4), and even isolated mentions of transcendental realism, nationalistic inquiry and phenomenological positivism. The goal is to develop to positivism (14 mentions), but not necessarily alternatives to quantitative analysis. These labels and others are thrown around at will, but Orosz never explains any of them. Perhaps those who would become certified members of the RPF already share an agreed vocabulary, and those ineligible for certification need not learn the vocabulary because they will not be supervising research. Orosz labels her personal stance interpretive ontological. I infer that this differs in detail from unmodified, or pure, interpretivism, but she says only that her particular approach emphasizes closeness to the words of the research participant. By implication, pure might be less close to the thinking of research participants, and Orosz might look askance at those non-ontological interpretivists. Her broad conclusion, however, is that as long researchers identify their ontological and epistemological positions and work with methods that fit these beliefs, then the research may be useful in knowledge production. She seems to be arguing that the particular beliefs of interpretivists make them uniquely able to the lived experiences of the participants being surveyed or interviewed, a uniqueness that other researchers cannot match. This argument echoes the familiar criticism that researcher construction, or dominance, often prevents the production of the unbiased knowledge that is needed. There is nothing new, of course, in the argument that a researcher's most important belief is that his or her personal opinions, judgments, and values cannot be permitted to poison the research. Orosz adds that there is widespread support for a rule that faculty serving on and directing doctoral research projects should understand what constitutes good research within each qualitative miniparadigm (there are innumerable miniparadigms). Indeed, some even propose that be exiled from dissertation processes if they have not taken specialized course work in qualitative methods. On balance, the interpretivists turn out to be more anti-subjective than anyone else, proclaiming their total dedication to suppressing their own opinions about what they study. They want researchers to be very conversant with interpretivist methods but not with the substance of any subject or issue they investigate. …