This paper describes an ongoing literacy research project involving writing samples and observations of workers in a state social service agency, a large labor union, and several scientific laboratories. Procedures discussed are: (1) selecting participants who were willing to give 16 hours of interview time over the course of a year; (2) selecting representative writing samples; (3) structuring interviews; (4) categorizing reasons writers gave for choosing such features in their writing as forms of address, context, reference to self, elaboration, shifts in levels of abstraction, and formulaic conclusions; and (5) analyzing writing samples and interview transcripts. Also discussed is the immediate goal of the study: to understand literacy practices outside schools and to test assumptions from current discourse theory. Questions to be addressed in the remainder of the study are also presented. (AEA)