In-depth interviewing, thematic textual analysis, content analysis, & survey research F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor. Leslie's research focuses on communication in friendship and romantic, marital, and kin relationships. She is particularly interested in applying quantitative and qualitative analysis to study the contradictions that face relationship parties in their communicative practices.
Articles
Birth Mothers Are Not Bad People A Dialogic Analysis of Online Birth Mother Stories (with Kristine M. Sharp, Bryan Asbury, Amber Jannusch, and Kristen M. Norwood), Qualitative Communication Research (2012)
Using a dialogic lens, this study investigated identity constructions of birth mothers articulated in their...
“Dear Birth Mother”: Addressivity and Meaning-Making in Online Adoption-Seeking Letters (with Kristen M. Norwood), Journal of Family Communication (2011)
The current study, a qualitative investigation of online letters to domestic birth mothers from adoption-seeking...
Topic Expansiveness and Family Communication Patterns (with Chitra Akkoor), Journal of Family Communication (2011)
Conversational topic largely has been studied as an individual's binary decision to engage in disclosure...
The Dialogue of Marriage, Journal of Family Theory & Review (2010)
This article, framed in relational dialectics theory, argues for dialogic creativity as an alternative to...
Description of a Media Campaign About Alcohol Use During Pregnancy (with John B. Lowe, Randy Hirokawa, Elisabeth Pearce, and Jana J. Peterson), : Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs (2010)
Objective: This study describes the development and testing of a multicomponent media campaign aimed at...
Books
Contributions to Books
Becoming a ―real family‖: Turning points and competing discourses in stepfamilies, Casing interpersonal communication : case studies in personal and social relationships (2010)
Distinctivness of communication research: A dialogic perspective, Distinctive qualities of communcation research (2010)
Reclaiming uncertainty: The formation of new meanings in relationships (with Dawn O. Braithwaite), Handbook of uncertainty and information regulation (2009)
Presentations
Narrative coherence in online adoption stories told by adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents (with K. Norwood, B. Asbury, B. Jannusch, and K. Scharp), NCA Convention (2011)
Perceived and ideal family communication patterns and family satisfaction for parents and their college-aged children (with J. Pederson), NCA Convention (2011)
Poetic justice: Aesthetic revenge in three relationship types. (with S. Nebel and K. Norwood), NCA Convention (2011)